Good supplier of USB leads for VAGCOM ?

[S2central.net]

This is a request for a colleague who wants to dabble in VAGCOM but has been thru all hell with various kak cables on eBay that don't work.

I've always told him to go to Ross-Tech and buy the real deal (thats what I did and had no probs), but he can't justify the $249 for occasional use... Just need something from a reliable source that works with VAGCOM and it must be USB as its a recent laptop.


Any recommendations folks ?


Paul

[Smiley]

Have a look at these:

http://www.auto-intern.de/module-pagesetter-viewpub-tid-27-pid-0.html

The "Diagnoseadapter AI Uni-VAG/ISO" is only for VAG-COM, so should work.

Keep in mind that our S2's do only OBDI (not OBDII).

I asked them if they support older cars with OBDI, they wrote:
"Sie sind aber in Zusammenarbeit mit Ross-Tech entwickelt und funktional gleich, unterstützen daher
selbstverständlich auch alle älteren VAG-Fahrzeuge, die noch keinen OBD2-konformen Diagnoseanschluß haben."

something like
"designed in collaboration with ross-tech and functional equivalent. Therefore older cars without OBDII are supported"

BTW: NOT btdt!!

[twoqu]

Not sure if there is a definite way of finding out, but its possible that the interfaces are being frazzed by a stuck k line. I think some of the Ross Tech ones have some kind of protection against this but not the cheapo ones!

[S2central.net]

How do the cheapo ones work with VAGCOM anyway ?

Isn't the licensing key embedded in the USB dongle/adapter supplied by RossTech - I assumed these cheapy cable from China and beyond had some sort of hack for that to make VAGCOM work normally, but I dunno - I've always played legit with VAGCOM and suffered no such pain as a result. It just works and when you need help with something you get support.

[shark_90]

As other people on here may remember, I am totally against anyone using a hacked copy of VAG-COM. Their product is not expensive so it's not much to ask.

Many of the ebay leads either use a (very old) cracked version of 311.2. Some of the newer more expensive cracked leads are hardware clones of particular cables that work with a particular version of the software, some are 512.something others are 709.whatever. Either way it's dodgy and if you accidentally update the software it will do a firmware update and fry your cable.

I bought an ebay HEX+CAN cable before I really realised that it was a copy. I had to use version 511.2 or something and the cable was totally ***** (very fickle on which laptops it would work on, and I couldn't code a CAN based ECU properly on a car that I'd retrofitted cruise to). After that and knowing a little more about the subject and the leads, I bought the real deal and never looked back.

The best thing your friend can do is to buy a normal OBDII cable and buy a VCDS license for $99. Legal, and cheaper than the fully blown $249 or whatever. Not sure about the compatibility of the USB based ones though, if you're going to buy a cheap cable and a VCDS license, then serial is the best way to go as there's much less to go wrong.

[S2central.net]

Thanks Sharky - that version hell explains the confusion then and your suggestion of going with cheapest VAGCOM and generic serial OBD cable is sound. Only problem is the guy needs a USB version. I offered him use of a spare serial adapter that I have, but its no good. I have tried USB-serial adapters in front of these and had mixed results. Weirdly on the S2 it works fine (sometimes) but never on the Allroad.

The other kak you get into with USB-Serial adapters is that they always assign weird/wacky COM port numbers - often out of range of COM1-4 that VAGCOM understands for serial devices then its all sorts of random PC comms crap to get back in range - I can't remember how I even done it before.

I'm still running the serial Ross-Tech adapter myself - my laptop has a dock with serial port that gets me through, but I really need to upgrade that to the licensed USB version for a bit more flexibility. That gives me support for newer cars too of course.

[Jonas_R]

Normally when using a seriel-usb adaptor you simple need to go into device manager and change the comport no. from 15 to 1. This is done fairly easy i might add.

I bought my copy vagcom cable from http://www.51vag.com/ and it has worked sofar (2 years), but only bought the version for obd1 and obd2 but no support for CAN BUS.

[S2central.net]

Its never that easy on my device manager - keeps telling me that COM1-4 are already assigned. Never explored it further to script a clean way of getting that to work.

[S2central.net]

I bought my copy vagcom cable from http://www.51vag.com/ and it has worked sofar (2 years), but only bought the version for obd1 and obd2 but no support for CAN BUS.

So does that work with any version of VAGCOM from RossTech or must you use their adapters with their own software ?

[Jonas_R]

Its never that easy on my device manager - keeps telling me that COM1-4 are already assigned. Never explored it further to script a clean way of getting that to work.

Well then you must asign a different port to one of the first 4 COMports and then you can asign the Serial-USB adaptor the COMport you just unlocked. This is normally how it is done when using a seriel-usb adaptor and you want a specific port.

[Jonas_R]

So does that work with any version of VAGCOM from RossTech or must you use their adapters with their own software ?

Well they provided me with a working version of VAGCOM.......

[S2central.net]

This seems to be the way then... Someone else privately tipped me about another foreign site which seems to offer the same type of setup with a variety of adapters at various prices - each with their own version of software. Most recent is most expensive - qu'el surpris... Dunno how they get away with such blatent abuse but thats life I suppose.

[Jonas_R]

The cable comes from China, they can get away with anything over there

[S2central.net]

Must admit - I'd be pretty annoyed if some chinese hack sites were to start selling 'Audi S2 Homeflys'

[shark_90]

"Homeflys" genius!!

But stranger things have happened...