Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

[crashing_sux]

When I first bought my truck the previous owner lent me his scan tool to take with me for the drive up from California in case I had any problems, which I sent back to him once I made it home. I've been doing the datalogging thing a bit and find it a huge pain in the ass, having to have my laptop with me, wires all over (power to the laptop, laptop to emulator, laptop to ostrich) plus my cigarette lighter will no longer run a power inverter so now I can't even use my laptop in my truck for more than an hour or so because the battery will die.

I really miss that scan tool, small enough to keep under the seat and I could quickly plug it in to check something if I wanted to. I plan to pick one up sometime, are there certain features I should look for? A brand that's better, or cheaper than others?

Do any of them datalog? I can't tell you how thrilled I would be if I found a scan tool I could plug in, datalog, then download to my laptop to analyze instead of having to have my laptop in the truck with me all the time.

 

[QUICK STORM]

Re: Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

snap-on, mac, or matco are making good scanners. we have a snap-on modis at work here and its got hook ups for usb ports. i don't know if you can do what you want with the scanner as i haven't really
played around with it that much. they aren't cheap either.

 

[SpoolingTurbo6]

Re: Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

Stick with what works....... The Crap-on and others will show you milivolts and $#!t like that,
Then you gota figure out what milivolts are to what sensor so on, so on.
Like. 02 mv @ 3.4.......... Ok but what is that on DataMaster? Or throttle position 14 is .4 on snapon
Plus if you wana see if someone can help you, they have to have the same scan tool you have.
If most people are useing DataMaster and file sharing is Quick. I would stick with what works.

Get a cheap Inverter from WallyWorld and wire in to Batt or fuse box:http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=1818511

 

[crashing_sux]

Re: Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

I'd stick with what works if I found something that worked. Even with a power inverter I find I can only connect to datamaster occasionally at best, makes absolutely no sense. I'll connect, be logging for a while then it will quit. I will make no changes, reboot, still can't connect, try again, still nothing. Give up and try three days later, nothing, try again, I connect, then get disconnected, try again, nothing. Seems completely random (I know it's not but can't find the pattern) and worse, when I really need it is the time it's absolutely guaranteed not to work.

Plus, I can't find the wire going to my temperature guage so at least with a scan tool I'd have some idea how hot my truck is running. I just want to know what the hell is going on, can't believe it's this tough, and I know it's normally not but between my laptop being so finicky, and the fact that I'm too freaking blind to find a wire that should hook up to my coolant temp sender I'm flying blind here, and pretty sure that in doing so I cracked my head because my radiator cracked and I had no way of knowing about it

 

[E-Rue]

Re: Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

tuner pro is good, and wont cost you as much as datamaster, plus it has tuning capabilities buit in. why run 1 software to tune adn another to datalog, when you have have both in the same application?

e

 

[crashing_sux]

Re: Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

Wow, nobody seems to be getting this. I'm having no luck connecting reliably with my laptop, it has no com ports and I'm using the Moates usb to adl cable and it's just not a workable connection, it works very sporadically. I've used tunerpro, I've used datamaster, the software isn't the problem, it's my laptop, windows xp's crappy handling of serial ports, and the usb to adl cable I have, but rather than buy 10 different cables for a ton of money hoping one of them works I was looking for an alternative.

I really do appreciate the software suggestions, and they're quality programs, I use tunerpro to program my ostrich emulator but as for reading aldl data over my Moates usb to aldl cable, if Craig Moates can't give me any suggestions to get it working well isn't it time I look elsewhere?

 

[JSM]

Re: Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

I have moates USB ALDL cable. Works perfect on two different laptops here, about to try a 3rd.

I would narrow it down to your laptop personally if you are having trouble with several programs.

Might try to reload windows from scratch, or look for a different laptop.

If you know the silence ECM trick for tunerpro, no reason you shouldn't be able to hook up everytime and stay hooked up.

Since you have the ostrich, tunerpro only makes sense as I have heard the moving bubble is close to being ready for release.

 

[crashing_sux]

Re: Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

Another laptop is a great option, but seems a hell of a lot more expensive and larger than a scan tool (although more feature rich). My laptop is my work laptop with my development environment configured exactly as I need it, would take days to reload and since they just bought me a damn nice laptop I'm not about to replace it.

Maybe I can find another really cheap laptop to datalog, I'll look into it. What is the silence ecm trick? Seems like that's a program feature and I seem to be having problems with the usb cable driver itself, it's terribly buggy. Actually the only thing I've found that will lock up my computer so bad I can't even end task or shut down, I have to do a hard shut down just to turn the thing off by holding the power key for 5 seconds.

It's anything related to the usb cable that locks up as well, if I am in device manager even, trying to change properties (find anything to make it more reliable) and it decides to hang I can't even close device manager, my laptop is just dead in the water, and that's without datamaster or tunerpro running. Ideally I would just get my laptop working well, definitely the best answer but after a few months of searching around and hearing nothing but "XP has crappy com support" I had given up on that path. Seems if it works, it works great, and if it doesn't work nobody knows how to fix it. Mine doesn't work.

 

[crashing_sux]

Re: Which scan tool to buy? Can any of them datalog?

What is the silence ecm trick anyway? I got datamaster hooked up and working today but one thing I've noticed is that while neither one works all the time datamaster hooks up far more often than tunerpro. I started up my laptop, plugged the cable in, started tunerpro, tried to connect, failed, then tried pressing silence ecm a few times, then connect again, failed. Tried that a few more times, then turned off tunerpro, started datamaster, it connected immediately. This has happened to me a lot, whatever tunerpro is doing is much less reliable than what datamaster is doing which is surprising, I'd think that Mark would just monitor the serial port and see what they are doing differently than he is (I believe he's done this for other ecm's, maybe he doesn't have access to a 749?).

Love to use tunerpro, it just doesn't love me. Even datamaster disconnected about 10 times in 15 minutes while I was datalogging but at least it was nice enough to reconnect automagically.