Date:         Wed, 15 Mar 2000 12:22:30 -0500
Reply-To:     "Karl F. Bloss" <bloss@ENTER.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         "Karl F. Bloss" <bloss@ENTER.NET>
Subject:      Re: Digitool diagnostics
Comments: To: "Stanley, Kerry" <kstanley@CAS.ORG>
In-Reply-To:  <117BB2BA200DD311850D0004AC66D3DE03382591@pop-server.cas.org>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Kerry,

> Several have mentioned using the Digitool for diagnostics.  Karl I believe
> you mentioned you've tested several vans with it.  I thought one end of
> the digitool cable was soldered to the ECU.  How do you use your Digitool
> to test other vehicles.  Swap ECU's?

Yup.  I have a spare.  We got stranded once by a fried ECU and I decided that
was never going to happen to me again.  Darrell found a good used one for me
and soldered the connections on for me.  I later sent him my original ECU and
he did the 25-pin connector job on that one as well.

BTW, Darrell also shined up the bolt holes in the back and added heat-
conducting gook so that the heat can dissipate better.

> For those who have built one themselves, how comfortable were you in
> soldering to the ECU.

I don't know if Dana Hager is still on the list, but he built his own.

The problem is getting the right connector with a feed through, so that's why
Darrell uses the DB-25 (looks like the wide PC serial port) connector.  BTW, he
also has a feed-through connector so you can then add the capacitor fix with
another DB-25 connector...clever.

-Karl

Karl and Kristina Bloss, Trexlertown, PA
'87 Westfalia Weekender  "Beverley" - 194K miles
http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/
PA/NJ Vanagon owner's mailing list: http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/pavanagon/