Engine Management Units

[Cursitor Doom]

Hi all,

Has anyone had to work on one of these? If so, is it possible to probe
through the transparent conformal coating of the PCB to measure voltages
on traces without (more than minutely) damaging the coating?
Also, has anyone had any luck injecting voltages in the same way in order
to mimic signals the chips inside "expect" to see (for example to defeat
the ignition coding/immobiliser system?

thanks.

[pf...@aol.com]

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/ecu-programmer may be what you want right out of the box. Especially if you are going to make a habit of it.

At the same time, you are not going to be able to repair/modify at the component level without damaging the coating. So, you might just have-at then repair the coating after the fact.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[Cursitor Doom]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2016 05:16:10 -0800, pf...@aol.com wrote:

> http://www.ebay.com/bhp/ecu-programmer may be what you want right out
> of the box. Especially if you are going to make a habit of it.

Heck no! This is way out of my area of interest. I'd just like to
temporarily hack the security on this thing to find out if it actually
runs at all without wasting a penny more than I have to on it.

> At the same time, you are not going to be able to repair/modify at the
> component level without damaging the coating. So, you might just have-at
> then repair the coating after the fact.

Thank you, Peter. I shall bear that in mind, but what I have in mind is
nothing more at this stage than probing for existing voltages in some
places and injecting same at others.

[pf...@aol.com]

On Friday, November 18, 2016 at 2:23:58 PM UTC-5, Cursitor Doom wrote:

> Heck no! This is way out of my area of interest. I'd just like to
> temporarily hack the security on this thing to find out if it actually
> runs at all without wasting a penny more than I have to on it.

The risk you take is, in the words of a friend, turning your CPU/EMU into a brick. They are more-or-less designed not to be overly friendly to hacks, and in some cases, even breathing funny on it can brick it. That is why a programmer with the correct software is infinitely safer than probing more-or-less randomly.

Best of luck with it - and, if you have "auto recycling yards" in your neck of the woods, you might try getting an experimental unit there. It will be cheap.

[Chris]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2016 11:54:23 -0800, pf...@aol.com wrote:

> Best of luck with it - and, if you have "auto recycling yards" in your
> neck of the woods, you might try getting an experimental unit there. It
> will be cheap.

This is an issue I personally have with modern cars. If you pick up a
replacement unit from a junk yard and try to swap it out, it won't work
even if it's in perfect condition 'cos the EMU is coded to the injectors
(and god knows what else) so you need one of those fancy communication
tools (for big bucks) to re-set the codes so they match. It's a serious
PITA. Then you find the next time you need to do the same thing with a
different model or make, 99 times out of a 100 you need a different comms
tool for that. It's a costly nightmare.