car has been robooted several times, but it doesn't work like with Windows
Even swapped a BCM as a troubleshooting step, but same error.
Will start at ODBii port for good connections

 

Nobody said it works like Windows. I've had that issue before with certain modules and disconnecting the battery for 30 minutes resolved it.

 

Anyone have a micropod in the DFW area? @pizzaguy know anyone? Going back to basic troubleshooting as ODBii readers all work fine for what they can see. DRB3 connects, but always states that Pin X can't be read. Does this for every module 1-7.
Unless someone has a DRB3 emulator troubleshooting manual I am stumped.
update there is a DRB3 setion in the service manual with a section on no modules are communicating. RTFM
Update 2 the manual is stating it is my PCM/ECU. Not sure on that since the car runs and drives

 

Have you disconnected your the battery as mentioned on an earlier post?

can you send me a screen shot image (or post one for all of us) of the message you’re getting?

 

multiple times. There is a section in the service manual talking about no communication with drb system. everything points to a bad ECU from that.
screenshots


ECU error

BCM error

when accessing BCM

 

I’ve been reviewing your earlier posts back to November 2022
I see that you inherited a bit of a mess with respect to the wiring to ECU and BCM

• weedwacker
• butt joints
• solder

you had also indicated that there were issues with the OBD to ECU interface connection.
Unless you’ve replaced the harness, it’s possible that you may have issues as a result to poor connections or as yet undiscovered broken wires. This interface may be the cause of all of your issues.

Before you attempt any additional cutting/splicing and soldering under the hood or the ODB Port you may want to test the Emulator on another Crossfire or on another Chrysler 2010 or earlier. As I had indicated, I tested it prior to sending and it connected to all modules and worked correctly. The images point to the connections as being the culprit.

if there are any Butt joint connections under the hood, I would start by removing them and reconnecting them with solder and heat shrink. Try the DRB on another vehicle before you rip into something else.

Do the least invasive and inexpensive tests/corrections first.

 

I"m wondering if there is not a physical wiring issue with the common CAN BUS. That would explain why NO module respondes.
I think UrbanE's advice is sound.

There is one guy with a DRBIII emulator in the Dallas area, he lives near Fort Worth - his name escapes me now, he's the guy who set my cooling fan speed.
I"ll message Char in Fort Worth for his name and see if I can contact him on Facebook.

 

Thanks everyone, I have repaired all the wiring with solder and automotive grade heat shrink that I can see, but you are right there may be more.
@pizzaguy could I try my emulator on your crossfire, or any other Dallas/Plano Peeps around that I could verify that it is this car, and not me. Also thinking about the canbus communication, but all the tests say the wiring is good at least between connectors which leads me back to the ECU. I have sourced a replacement, but need someone to program it unfortunately. Also several of my odbii systems can communicate with some of the systems as allowed, but those may or may not rely on the ECU since they are just able to read for trouble codes. Although now that I think about it I am not sure they are returning any codes either which they should, although they are communicating or say they are. Need to verify.
@UrbanE I 100% don't think it is the emulator. I looked into replacing the harness, but from what I see it is a single harness front to back for the main wiring harness. Don't want to do that unless absolutely necessary.

 

There actually is no CAN bus communication to the OBDII connector on the Crossfire. Rather, each system uses J1850 communication to different pins on the connector, hence why you get these specific errors. I would be looking at the 12v pins and both ground pins on the OBDII connector first. After that I would be looking at potential driver issues on the Windows computer.

Separately, adding CAN to the OBDII connector does give better access to the generic testers and dataloggers out there, but MB never intended CAN-C (powertrain) to be brought up to the OBDII connector. Other MB models received a device called a Gateway Module (CGW/ZGW) that isolated the various CAN busses in the vehicles equipped, and provided a specific diagnostic CAN bus (CAN-D) to the OBDII connectors in those cars. FWIW, a CGW can be easily added to a Crossfire, and this gives some interesting possibilities for adding in later/better model devices into your Crossfire. I have done this on my own Crossfire, so I 100% know it works. This is not the current problem or the purpose of this thread, so I will leave this here, and probably pick this up in the build thread on my Crossfire soon.

 

Neil, just like you mentioned before the emulator can be very buggy. That is why I have 2 aftermarket scanners plus the emulator.

The emulator will give you a weird code for a defective brake light switch that isn't even in the service manual. The aftermarket scanner will tell you it is specifically the stop lamp switch etc.

 

Yes, this is the reason I stepped to the MB STAR system (SDS), as it is so much easier to work with than the enhanced emulator. Of course, there are a few Crossfire specific things (like TPMS) that only the emulator can handle.

 

I realize this is about 4 months late and you probably fixed this but I'm in East Texas but work Hybrid Twice a week in Plano and Usually drive the Crossfire in.

I set up DRB3 in a VM and am just waiting on a micropod to arrive from China, so if you still need someone to test your Micropod on, you can use mine unless you already got this fixed up 😅

 

Thanks for the offer. I got it all fixed. Turns out the pos just randomly connected wires....
If you want to test your drbiii with my micropod you are welcome to drop by. I can also now clone vins if anyone needs to replace an ecu.

 

I might just do that, would be happy to meet up with some folks in DFW too.

I mostly bought it for TPMS and more in depth diagnostics on the car. since i bought th3 car the low tire pressure warning has been on (and based on how dim it is, for a long time)

I've just been using Torque Pro and a generic OBD2 adapter. Was looking for something with more in depth diagnostics like VCDS for Audi.

Regarding your car, was the previous owner just randomly connecting wires? I have seen some spotty electrical work on my car, but nothing like that (yet)

 

You wouldn't happen to be on 635 East in Plano now would you? Just passed a clean black convertible on my way back home lol.

 

Micropod from 365OBD is no longer available from that supplier.

I had reached out to them over the weekend for a new Micropod to accompany a spare DRB emulator I have set up on a tablet running windows 10 and could not locate it on their site. I sent them a message and have just received their reply.

“Sorry
We don't sell it anymore.

Any further questions please feel free to contact us.
Thanks and Regards!”

I believe that I saw a thread where someone has purchased a Micropod from another seller.
Does annyone out there have experience in procurement of a Micropod from another vendor partner?

 

They are available via Aliexpress, and with Cyber Monday deals, they are less than $100. Sounds like they are on their way out though, so now may be a good time to grab one while you can. I would not bother buying any of the options that are over $120. WiFi may be nice, but untested to know it it will work properly in the configuration we use.

FWIW, I have recently put together a laptop I use for car diagnostics, not just CFs. To accommodate several different packages, I went with a VMWare installation. I now have separate virtual machines (VMs) for each tool, including Micropod, VCI pod, Xentry (C4) and Xentry XPT (Tactrix Openport). These coexist on a regular Win10 x64 machine, with only an i5 processor (older) and 16GB ram. I will try to find a way to make these available, as they will greatly simplify installation and portability. Will require some knowledge of VMWare, but not much. Will also require a copy of VMWare on your host computer. The beauty of that is that VMWare is available for a lot of platforms, including Windows, Linux, and I think even Mac.

 

I also bought mine on AliExpress. All of them are Emulators basically so it really doesn't matter where you get it from as long as it's cheap and the seller has good feedback.

I have all the DRB software and updates installed on a Windows 7 VM Image that is exported into OVF that anyone can use with Vmware player, workstation, VirtualBox, Proxmox, etc.

If anyone is interested I can paste a link. Would cut down on the prep time for folks. I just need to mess with Compressing it to see if I can get it under 10GB.

Edit: uploaded it to Google drive, was able to get it down to 8.2GB. Will need to install Winrar to extract the archive then use your choice of VM Software (VMware workstation or player or even import into ESXi, or use Virtual Box or ProxMox) it's setup in an open format so any one will work.

Here's a how-to by VMWare - https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Wo...36DA62F7A.html

This has all updates as of 10/2023 and I tested it by opening on another laptop with the Micropod without issues. Just remember to not connect to the internet once you launch the VM.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hcSip-JR4yg-_dUGbhNL6hcM2TurLECJ/view?usp=sharing

 

Hi Isaac,
Thanks for making this available. I tried downloading the VM last night, but it kicked me out saying I didn't have permission. I was logon to my gmail account. Is there something else I need to do?
Thanks
-Jerry

 

Oh, weird. Let me check permissions right quick maybe I didn't set it right.

Edit: Permissions look ok, I wonder if it's because I didn't specifically request a viewable link. Try it again. It should say an error like can't verify file because it's too large, but that's fine anything over 250 or 500mb google can't scan I believe.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hcS...ew?usp=sharing