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Thread: INPA ADS 20 Pin woes

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2021
    Location
    Hudson, WI
    Posts
    31
    My Cars
    1995 E38 750il

    Unhappy INPA ADS 20 Pin woes

    So my trials began when I assumed my chinese K/D can USB cable would read codes on my 1995 E38 750il like it did my 2001 E38 740il.

    I was very wrong. only the asc and 1 other k-line module showed up in the knockoff software "BMW Scanner 1.4.0"

    *this means I could talk to a device, but not the DME*

    I looked into it, and my 750il is old enough that most of the units should be running on ADS only communication.

    So I went out and bought this...
    https://www.ebay.com/itm/27376859870...QAAOSw9wxbgUZS
    which is one of those R232 cable ODB/ADS devices which also came with a 20-pin adapter.

    It came with V5 of Inpa... I also went out and got V3.0.1 for good measure.

    With both, when starting INPA, after installing ADS driver from /Hardware/ and modifying EDIABAS.ini to say Interface =ADS, I get no battery or ignition bubble filled in.
    The device I'm using lights up under "Ignition" and "ADS" is selected from the options.

    This happens with both V3 of INPA and V5 of INPA.

    My Question:
    Am I stuck clearing out files and reinstalling multiple times until I get it right? this is insanity...
    Or
    Can I be sure that something is wrong with the cable / my parallel port? I have burned a day troubleshooting.


    The only final software troubleshooting I have not done yet:
    1) change the read and write buffers of the serial port from 16 to 1.
    2) run DiagHead and ifhsrv32... (but that is for DIS not INPA, so I thought)


    I will repeat myself, INPA shows no errors, it starts just fine, and I even see the tiny black dots in the corner flicker. It is not seeing the vehicle at all, batt and ign are blank. If I had a bad combination of install files or somehow a broken install, you would think I would at least get errors instead of nothing.

    rather new so I have no idea how to attach a screenshot.


  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2021
    Location
    Hudson, WI
    Posts
    31
    My Cars
    1995 E38 750il
    Update: made slight changes to Com port in Device Manager
    - reduced Receive Buffer and Transmit Buffer to 1.
    Still doesn't work.
    My Port gives me the option to change:
    Bits per second =9600
    Data bits =8
    Parity =None
    Stop bits =1
    Flow control =None
    ---Advanced---
    Use FIFO Buffers =True
    Receive Buffer =1
    Transmit Buffer =1
    COM Port Number =COM1

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Arizona
    Posts
    2,082
    My Cars
    1998 e36
    I got the same ebay ADS interface, using IBM t30 laptop with windows xp and native serial port. I had lots of trouble getting it going. But after reading trough this whole thread I was able to figure it out.
    https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...70-DIS-Success

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    San Diego, CA, USA
    Posts
    635
    My Cars
    1996 328i, 2001 740iL
    Quote Originally Posted by jy1235689 View Post

    My Question:
    Am I stuck clearing out files and reinstalling multiple times until I get it right? this is insanity...
    Or
    Can I be sure that something is wrong with the cable / my parallel port? I have burned a day troubleshooting.

    I will repeat myself, INPA shows no errors, it starts just fine, and I even see the tiny black dots in the corner flicker. It is not seeing the vehicle at all, batt and ign are blank. If I had a bad combination of install files or somehow a broken install, you would think I would at least get errors instead of nothing.

    You shouldn't have to keep re-installing software.

    I don't trust the cheap K+DCAN cables. I bought one off Ebay and it didn't work right. I opened it up and compared the OBDII wiring to online-diagrams and saw things that didn't make sense. I ended up buying a K+DCAN cable from BimmerGeeks. Not inexpensive, but it works perfectly. Another thing, depending on the OBDII to 20-pin adapter you have, the adapter itself may already bridge both K-lines. Somehow, I have 3 of these adapters from various sources and all bridge both K-lines. It would seem then that using the button/switch on a K+DCAN cable (in conjunction with a 20-pin adapter that is already bridged) would have little additional effect unless there is some sort of "switch in and out of DCAN mode" feature in addition to any bridging capability that the button/switch is meant to control. None of my 20-pin adapters supported ignition voltage (just battery voltage). I ended up sourcing a OBDII cable from Amazon and replaced the OBDII side of one of the adapters and wired up the cable as before but now also including ignition voltage.
    Last edited by Thresher; 05-19-2021 at 09:34 PM. Reason: Clarification

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2021
    Location
    Hudson, WI
    Posts
    31
    My Cars
    1995 E38 750il
    Here is how my adapter is wired up, after rewiring:
    wiring ADS.png
    Now STD:OBD mode works, ADS does not work, still.

    ------------
    EDIT: The wiring above is working so far for most ECUs in ADS mode. The above wasn't working because I needed to use a REAL WinXP 32bit OS directly on my laptop, not within a VM. ADS requires 16bit, and VM-based 16bit execution is very flaky on a 64bit host machine trying to pass commands to COM1 on the Host. My particular ADS module also needed OBD 7+8 shorted to read modules. I'm guessing pin 8 isn't even connected inside the ebay ADS module.
    Last edited by jy1235689; 08-07-2021 at 01:22 AM. Reason: correct info

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    San Diego, CA, USA
    Posts
    635
    My Cars
    1996 328i, 2001 740iL
    Quote Originally Posted by jy1235689 View Post
    Here is how my adapter is wired up, after rewiring:
    wiring ADS.png
    Now STD:OBD mode works, ADS does not work, still.
    That looks the same as what I have wired up. Note there are some diagrams on the Internet that suggest OBD II pins 1 & 2 should be bridged so that both are connected to #16 (ignition switch +12V) on the 20-pin connector. I have not done that and so far my setup works for me.

    The ADS adapter you have looks nearly identical to one I have; but I have never used it since I didn't acquire an older copy of EDIABAS that supports ADS. Your first post mentioned trying to connect to DME. Can you try connecting to something else that should be using ADS? Perhaps the EDC module? Just wondering if your DME is flaky or if you still have a general ADS issue.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2021
    Location
    Hudson, WI
    Posts
    31
    My Cars
    1995 E38 750il
    Quote Originally Posted by Thresher View Post
    That looks the same as what I have wired up. Note there are some diagrams on the Internet that suggest OBD II pins 1 & 2 should be bridged so that both are connected to #16 (ignition switch +12V) on the 20-pin connector. I have not done that and so far my setup works for me.

    The ADS adapter you have looks nearly identical to one I have; but I have never used it since I didn't acquire an older copy of EDIABAS that supports ADS. Your first post mentioned trying to connect to DME. Can you try connecting to something else that should be using ADS? Perhaps the EDC module? Just wondering if your DME is flaky or if you still have a general ADS issue.
    I have resolved most of the ADS communication issues. I can talk to the Transmission ECU with ADS and that is the same K-line from pin 17. see my new thread here:
    https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...9#post30712919

    I am getting more confident that the issue might be 1 of 3 scenarios:
    1a) DME's won't talk to INPA unless I do something to "activate" them.
    1b) DME's won't talk to INPA because they might be bricked in some way or not agreeing with another ECU required for authentication.
    2) out-of-the-box INPA 3.0 isn't good enough because I'm using the wrong script file for my DME's. (my hunch)

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