ECUTalk software now has active suspension support

[NewKleer]

Hi,

I have been working on adding active suspension diagnostics to the ECUTalk software for the poor Q45a owners who dont seem to be having much fun when they encounter issues with the suspension.

Just requires a normal consult cable (or grab one here if you dont have one) and a car with active suspension.

It's in ECUTalk v1.3.5 beta7 downloadable from the main ECUTalk homepage.

Now, the main reason I'm posting here, aside from making everyone aware, is because I dont have any active suspension control unit, so I wont be able to verify it 'works' (even if I did, I wouldnt be able to verify the readings are accurate etc). So the more people who can try it out once its ready, the better. And if it does work, a donation or two from anyone who finds it useful would be welcomed

Peter

[Infinitiguy19]

HOLY SMOKES!!!!

This is insane!!!

Do you think you can add support for the Automatic Driver Postion, Automatic Speed Control Device (Cruise Control), Anti-Lock Brakes, Body Control Module and Air bag?

[NewKleer]

anything thats covered by the consult II diagnostic card (i think it does all except NATS) would be possible, but this has already jumped the 'queue' of stuff I need to do (including upgrading ecutalk to .net 2.0 so everything is easier to do), so other ones wouldnt be any time soon.

[Infinitiguy19]

What would upgrading to .Net 2.0 yield?

If you can figure out how to do a true power balance that locks the Auxiliary Air Control valve and ignition timing I would go crazy.

[NewKleer]

everything would be easier to do...could detect COM ports (so it only shows you available ones), could setup customisable gauges that people could program their own (with C# etc), be able display switches differently (currently theyre just a gauge, 0 or 1), make better standard gauges. all the UI stuff is slow to do currently (the final bit i need to do for the active suspension is provide dropdown to select it). and of course adding active tests which i havent done yet cause its too complicated to do all the UI changes.

i imagine if you can have multiple active tests going at once, then proper power balance would be doable. just do the normal idle adjust one same time as cylinder shutoff.

[du1jec]

Does ECUTalk support the y33's? 97-2000 q45 with vh41de.

Thanks.

[Infinitiguy19]

Do you have all the information that you need for the other control unit support?

Yes I noticed the 0-1 instead of On and Off for switches. On and off would be easier to read but not a top priority.

If you can work with Issac (Creator of Scan Tech Nissan) I know you both will fix the power balance test. I am just not sure if the Engine Control Unit compensates for cylinders that are getting shut off by adjusting timing, Auxiliary Air Control valve or anything else.

I can't wait to see the new interface!

[NewKleer]

the VH41 should probably be supported, but i havent heard of anyone specifically confirming it works. if people have used consult on them fine then it should be OK. not till the VK i think did they switch to obd2/consult2 fully? (until then it was consult + obd2 connector?)

switches are even more annoying on the active suspension, because they are often illogical. e.g. 1=OFF and 0=ON. so for most of them ive just gone 'switchname=stateFor1', i.e. Height Sw=OFF would mean 1=OFF.

generally before doing any control unit, i just need some info from it (made a program to do it - lino did it for the active suspension) so just need someone with the given control module on their car to do it. but not concerned with other control units at the moment.

[NewKleer]

Its now available! fingers crossed it works! just choose the active suspension option from Options -> Settings -> Control Unit dropdown box. Then back to main page and select your COM port as usual. Fault codes should work also. Even did the imperial conversions for speed/height/temp to mph/in/F for those who dont know any better.

http://www.ecutalk.com/

[NewKleer]

Here are images showing all possible sensors. I believe most of these are supported on Q45a:

Click the images to show example gauges.



Note the unusual notation used for the 'switch' type sensors. The =xx bit tells you what a value of 1 represents. e.g. ENGINE=RUN (woops left that in capitals) means a value of 1 means engine is running, 0 and it isnt. 1 for Oil Level=OK means its OK, 1 means the oil level is not OK. And for the lateral G sensors, Left+ means positive G force means in the left direction. likewise for Dn+ meaning down rather than up is positive.

[lino]

Hi Peter and thank you for for everything!!!

For those of you who don't already know, I contacted Peter regarding the development of the ACTIVE part of the software and requested his help. We have been exchanging emails for some time. He's been providing me with various software and information, while I've been doing testing and forwarding the results to him. He has been a total gentleman and has sacrificed a lot of his time to assist with this. From the day I bought my ECUTalk cable until now, his full and dedicated support has been unconditional and I wanted everyone here to understand that. I trust all of us here will show him the same courtesy that he has shown me and many others here.

I just ran my first tests now. I haven't analyzed anything yet, just wanted to post the pics up first. Here we go:



Car off:

Car running:


==========================================================================



Car off:


Car running:

[OwnerCS]

Hi Peter and thank you for for everything!!!

For those of you who don't already know, I contacted Peter regarding the development of the ACTIVE part of the software and requested his help. We have been exchanging emails for some time. He's been providing me with various software and information, while I've been doing testing and forwarding the results to him. He has been a total gentleman and has sacrificed a lot of his time to assist with this. From the day I bought my ECUTalk cable until now, his full and dedicated support has been unconditional and I wanted everyone here to understand that. I trust all of us here will show him the same courtesy that he has shown me and many others here.

I just ran my first tests now. I haven't analyzed anything yet, just wanted to post the pics up first. Here we go:



Car off:

Car running:


==========================================================================



Car off:


Car running:

Excellent post! I think ECUTalk is one of the best computer (bang for the buck) buys I've made since the days of Adaptec 2940 UltraWides and UltraSCSI disks - back in the good old days of NT 4.0..

[elwesso]

so wait, not everyone has converted their active to standard....???

on a more serious note, you can see the readings of the height sensors. You might be able to get them dialed in pretty good.

[NewKleer]

Hi Peter and thank you for for everything!!!

For those of you who don't already know, I contacted Peter regarding the development of the ACTIVE part of the software and requested his help. We have been exchanging emails for some time. He's been providing me with various software and information, while I've been doing testing and forwarding the results to him. He has been a total gentleman and has sacrificed a lot of his time to assist with this. From the day I bought my ECUTalk cable until now, his full and dedicated support has been unconditional and I wanted everyone here to understand that. I trust all of us here will show him the same courtesy that he has shown me and many others here.

I just ran my first tests now. I haven't analyzed anything yet, just wanted to post the pics up first. Here we go:

excellent, great to see its working. did you check fault codes?

looks like a few unusual readings there for you to look into (e.g. oil temp not registering)

[3Q Jay]

Peter you are da man!
This may be the ticket to getting my active from 98% to 100%. I have sent you a donation in gratitude

Some initial notes: it appears that the ECU talk must first be able to communicate with the ECU, otherwise it does not communicate with the active computer.
the '95 active with ECU 68U18 works fine. The '94 active with NICO ECU (donor was the original '94 active/tcs model ECU) does not. This may be the quirk of the consult cable, was hoping the active computer would still be readable even if engine ECU was not.

[NewKleer]

thanks, got your donation

what consult cable are you using? it may be an issue with the cable, some other issue. typically though, each control unit is independent, although it is possible for a 'rogue' control unit to block all others from working, since they are on the same bus.

have other people got consult working with NICO ECU? (im not familiar with how this is different from a normal ECU).

you could perhaps try open the .ini file made where the ecutalk exe is, and change the delay1/delay2 to be both 50, or both 300, or something else in range 0 to 500, and see if that has any impact.

you could also run the obd scantech ECU finder (try 100/100/100 as the d1-d3 delays) and see what control units it finds? if it doesnt find any, then there may be an electrical or other issue (or the consult cable).

if you know anyone with another brand of consult cable, you could try and see if theirs works?

[Infinitiguy19]

Peter you are da man!
This may be the ticket to getting my active from 98% to 100%. I have sent you a donation in gratitude

Some initial notes: it appears that the ECU talk must first be able to communicate with the ECU, otherwise it does not communicate with the active computer.
the '95 active with ECU 68U18 works fine. The '94 active with NICO ECU (donor was the original '94 active/tcs model ECU) does not. This may be the quirk of the consult cable, was hoping the active computer would still be readable even if engine ECU was not.

Does the Laptop Consult software connect to the Active Suspension Control Unit or Engine Control Unit when the engine is off but the ignition switch is turned to the "On" position?

What brand Laptop Consult cable is it?

[3Q Jay]

got it to read the 94 active ECU today. changed delay 2 to 280, but it seems the real trick was to start the engine as opposed to key ON only (the '95 did not require that).
Did some data logging, and have inserted into comma delimited excel to manipulate. still analysing.

Peter, a few more observations: #1 limitation at this point is that the height sensors only move in incremets of '1' since i selected imperial units i am assuming that that is 1 inch. not nearly enough resolution to make meaningful data. I will try the SI units tomorrow, as need at least 1mm resolution. If you can check the imperial units and see if it would allow 0.04 inch increments or better (smaller)?

Also, and perhaps because of the delay parameter i chose (see above), the data logging rate is ~ 3Hz (360 mSec sampling) which does not do so well for capturing transients. By comparison the engine ECU data logger is at 50 Hz. Can this be adjusted in the software, or is it limited by the box itself?

again, my thanks for an awesome first cut at decoding the active on-board data.

Note about Lino's 'bad' temp sensor: he selected SI units, so zero would correspond to 32°F. As it happens, mine read 32F this morning in the 30C (85°F) ambient Florida air. However, after about 20 minutes of driving, the temperature came up in a single frame to 129°F, and then rose gradually to 140°F at shutdown. THis seems to be repeatable.

[NewKleer]

yeah looks like its missing 2 dec places for the inches, woops. use mm and convert in excel in meantime.

to see maximum supported sample rate for a control unit, choose to show/log just a single sensor. more sensors logged/shown will slow it down.

perhaps the oil temp only has a range it shows a value between. consult indicated that anything below 0C would be shown as 0C, and anything above 255C as 255C, but this range could be narrower.

[lino]

Update: Turns out that my ACTIVE is giving me a code 24. Code 24 means vehicle height sensor system (rear left) is faulty. I wonder if anyone has ever replaced one of these before, or will I be the first.

[NewKleer]

did ecutalk display a description for that code 24, or only gave you the code?

[lino]

When I saw the red light in the dash, I did the Active self-diagnosis test according to the F.S.M. which is described on pages 65 and 66 from the following:

http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/Q45/1994_Q45/fa.pdf

[NewKleer]

oh, you should have used the software for that, it has the fault codes done also!

[lino]

Old habit....

I'll do it later on this afternoon once I have access to the laptop. Thanks Peter.

[lino]

Just got it done and here are the results:


I just cleared the codes now and will check them again soon.

[NewKleer]

looks like a lot of intermittent faults. not sure if theyre better or worse than permanent ones (i.e. 0 starts, always detected). perhaps might just indicate bad electrical connection or something that can just be cleaned up or something?

[lino]

Here's the new fault codes detected after driving the car 4 times:

[lino]

Update:

It's really weird that the car's Active self-diagnosis test only detected one bad sensor while ECUTalk detected both. I cleared my codes again on August 16 and checked again yesterday (August 17):



So it looks pretty obvious that 2 of my sensors are throwing codes. I don't have a Height sensor, but I do happen to have a spare Vertical G Sensor. I cleared the codes and then replaced the sensor to see if that would rectify the problem.

The right rear Vertical G Sensor is located in the right side of the trunk area:

The result:


Looking good so far. One down and 1 to go. That's the same Height sensor that Goody sent the connecting adjusting-rod for (the original one broke). The connecting rod still looks ok. I guess we'll see what happens once I get my hands on a Height Sensor.

[NewKleer]

looking good. have u checked the o2 sensor? (i.e. does its voltage move etc when car is warm and cruising)

[NewKleer]

ECUTalk v1.3.5 is out - http://www.ecutalk.com

This adds the 2 decimal places to active suspension height sensors, also adds 1 dec pl to MPG readings (never noticed they didnt have any decimal places).