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Packages When you order DSMLink, there are two "versions" or packages available. The first package (socket service) is the typical version where you have an unmodified EPROM ECU and would like to have DSMLink installed in it. The second package (EPROM only) is intended for those that have already had work done on their ECU by someone else. Socket Service: If your ECU has not already been socketed by someone else, then you'll need to send us your ECU to have this work done. No DSM ECU comes from the factory with a socketed EPROM. So you'll *know* whether you've had it done before. If you don't know, then you haven't had it done. With this package, we'll socket the EPROM and install a DSMLink version in place of the factory EPROM. We'll then ship the factory EPROM back to you, unmodified, so that you can always revert back to factory mode if needed. EPROM only: If your ECU is already socketed, then we can simply ship a new EPROM with DSMLink code on it. You can swap the chips yourself easily enough. It is possible, however, to bend or break pins and render a chip useless if you are careless. So if you're not comfortable with this yet you know your ECU has already been socketed, then feel free to send us your ECU and we'll do the swap at no charge. Contents Regardless of which package is appropriate for you, each package shipped out of here will include a DSMLink cable to connect your laptop to the diagnostic port in your car as well as a CD with the DSMLink program on it and documentation on the CD in PDF format. As mentioned above, if you require socketing service, we'll also include your original factory EPROM, unmodified, in a separate box appropriate for storage. All of this will come bundled in a high quality, electrostatic protective box. Laptop requirements We have reports of people running DSMLink acceptably on a P100 with 24megs of RAM. A laptop like this can be had for less than $100 on E-Bay. Preferably, though, you'll want to locate a laptop with a little more meat to it. Our suggested minimum platform would be a P233 with at least 32meg of RAM running Win98. You'll be very happy with that setup. The only other major requirement of the laptop is that it provide an RS232, DB9 serial interface of some sort. Almost all older laptops include this, but most newer ones these days do not! Be sure that you have some way of getting a DB9 serial port out of the laptop before committing to it. We have had reports of PCMCIA serial port adapters working well on laptops that do not have built-in serial ports. Also, the USB to DB9 devices seem to work fine as well. DB25 to DB9 converters plugged into the printer port will *NOT* work. Also note that the 1G version will be particularly sensitive to which USB to DB9 converter you select. We've found the Keyspan adapter, available at CompUSA among other places, works very well. In fact, according to a thread posted on our user's group collecting information from the "field", this may be he only USB to DB9 converter that works properly with the 1G ECU's baud rate. Special thanks The laptop portion of DSMLink is open source. That is, we provide all the source code necessary to build or modify the laptop portion of DSMLink on your own. You can also review the code to find bugs, add features, or to develop a completely separate client version of DSMLink if you wish. The following folks have done just that. MARTIN CHECK - Martin implemented the horsepower and torque calculators included with DSMLink. These routines were derived from work done by John Peckham and Anil Rao on a standalone excel spreadsheet type of thing. Martin took those calculations and ported them into DSMLink. Many thanks go to Martin, John, and Anil for this work. The routines are surprisingly accurate and provide a very useful feature in DSMLink. HAL LANDRY - Hal has completed work on a Palm version of the DSMLink client. It's available for FREE download to registered DSMLink users off the users group page. Many people are now leaving their laptops at home. Many, many thanks go to Hal for all his hard work. Few people will be able to appreciate how much work is involved in getting something like this up and running. We certainly do! |
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