I don't want to disparage, but suffice it to say they are well known and respected across both the crossfire and Mercedes forums which is why, despite me starting to think things, I know for a fact I haven't been screwed over. Well 99% certain. Nothing is ever certain in this world. The car is fine, I haven't fed the wrong voltage through the CAN. I've carefully tested the voltages of the wires I have tried tapping into before connecting it up. If I pull the battery cable, it still does the 2-3 turnovers and nothing symptom. I also believe that one of the only two instructions given with this of not using the same ON/RUN as that of the ignition switch to power train module is due to the amp demand maybe causing a problem. If I am not mistaken, that's a 50 amp jolt. If it bled into this box, and there is indeed the equivalent of an Arduino or something, that's a big enough surge to overrun any forward running diodes backwards and I imagine magic smoke would occur. I was contemplating an inline fuse, as a matter o' fact.

Sorry about all the words. It's the 'tism. Gotta give ALL the info. I've been berated a time or a hundred for not providing enough data to troubleshoot on a number of forums. Some people are jerks about it so I don't give the opportunity to snap at me. Verbosity in spades. lol Or in 'tism vernacular, pedantic. It adds search terms, I guess. My tantrum might also be blamed on the 'tism, as well. Meltdown mode when I am frustrated.

As for the black box I was given, its 1x1x3" (give or take) with 4 wires coming out 4 little holes. About the size to fit an Arduino nano inside of, if anyone is familiar. The wires are Red, black, white, green corresponding to ON/run, ground, CAN- and CAN+. There is nothing a photograph can tell you that this description doesn't. And sorry I didn't come back yesterday. Decided to finish building out hubs office closet so he can move his die cast cars out of our room. Like a hundred of them from Franklin mint or something like that. I'm gonna be installing his display cases with some new led lighting and custom controllers that will be controllable from his phone. Happy Fathers Day.

I needed a break from the finicky lawn ornament and all things related. A lot of times (quite often, tbh) I find that walking away gives my subconscious time to parse it all out. I'll then get the light bulb moment out of no where. No luck yet, but I'm not as aggro today and my frustration is the alarm bell that signals it's time to walk away. It's like running with one foot nailed to the floor. I'm not coming up with any new solutions at that point. Just getting more frustrated and more aggro.

Now that the sun has set, I'm going out to install the kill switch to my battery and scout out the placement and process of installing my button start kit. I don't really care about the button start so much as having a remote that will unlock and lock my car. It has never worked since I have owned it. Fob neither. While I poke around I might get the Ah-ha moment. Or at least a little spike of motivation to try something else.

Anyway if any of ya have any ideas and aren't pushing to get me to trash the company I went through, I'd like some outside perspective. The "rules" are, no On/run through ignition to ecu(Pcm), can't use the white 2-pin connector formerly connected to skreem. It is forever forbidden to be used.. We are working with on/run, ground (is brown lol), CAN+ and CAN- wires. I didn't really see anything on the big skreem connector that relates to these. I may pull my ignition switch and see what wires I have there. Have to do it anyway for the push button kit. I also saw that the cluster has lots of CAN connections via the manual, but I couldn't get at the connectors to remove em so it's still hooked up. Power and ground are the least of my worries and trying different sources didn't change anything. But why is the can not doing the thing it's supposed to do? What am I missing? Lots, apparently. And my cellphone is lost again. I wish I cared about that, but I don't.