Thread: nanocom uploading map problem

Originally Posted by QLDMIKE

To cut a long story short, I have successfully bricked two ECUs. Jose' from TD5Alive has been very patient. I now have another ECU and the Map file, and need to apply the map to the ECU. I do not want to use my Nanocom and brick a third ECU. And, yes. I did everything I should have when trying to flash the last two; latest firmware, fully charged battery, good SD card formatted, crossed fingers, looked to the west and everything else required.

What are my options? How can I get the map onto the ECU? Can you apply the map with the ECU in another car?

I do not want to use my Nanocom.

Cheers, Mike

Hi Mike,

It doesn't look like you were doing anything wrong at all. I tried to upload the map file onto Mike's ECU using my bench powering rig, Nanocom with up to date firmware, freshly formatted SDCard that is known to work in Nanocom for uploading and tried saving the files to card rather than copying. No dice.

The map file upload would either fail and freeze the during the protection verify stages or get past that and then fail with a "this is not for td5" error. On one occasion the upload process got the 75% of the way through before freezing the Nanocom and bricking the ECU. Fortunately it only required popping the lid to revive so no really dramas there.

I tried again using the burnt NNN500020 I use for circuit tracing. With exactly the same setup the map file loaded cleanly, and programmed without a hiccup.

As a test I've hooked Mike's ECU up again and tried to load the map file, and the Nanocom displays the same flaky behaviour. Hanging during file loads, weird behaviour during verifies, and the if you make it past that stage "this file is not for a td5" errors.

To double check I hooked up the ECU that I'd just sucessfully done an upload on, and this time the Nanocom repeatedly hung on protection verify. To ensure it wasn't an issue with the Td5Inside map file I saved a map generated with the Nanocom Map wizard to the card and then tried again. Again the protection verify stage behaved very oddly, and the Nanocom responded with a "this file is not for a td5" error.

The other odd behaviour I had last night was the Nanocom was complaining about a standard csv save file with injector codes being the wrong format.

There is something seriously wrong going on here, and at the moment I would not trust the Nanocom EVO when it comes to .map uploads.

cheers
Paul

Mike
I understand your pain I went through the same pain 6 Months or so back.
My ECU count was 5 from memory (stopped counting) and I was pretty well over Nanocoms by the end of it, I looked for alternatives and couldn't get a sensible one.
After much discussion with Colin at BBS even though my Nanocom was out of warranty he offered to take it back to investigate.
The cost of me transporting the Nanocom back to Cyprus was very similar to buying a new one so I bought a new one and relegated my old one to being an instrument.
My new Nanocom is brilliant I have uploaded more than 20 files and it has never trashed another ECU.

The long and short of it like you I did everything
1) Battery Charger on Supply Mode
2) Remove either the red or black plug from ECU while writing (sorry can't remember which one)
3) Clean up the earth behind the coolant bottle if its a Defender
4) Try alternate maps and ECUs (now have a collection of both)
5) Every thing else associated with the dark art of map writing

With the new Nanocom I even pull up on the side of the road and write a map without concern or alternate power supplies.

I suspect my old Nanocom was heat damaged from being used as an instrument.
Don't keep trying it just costs more and more and more
I suspect Paul could fix your trashed ECUs

Duane

Originally Posted by djam1

Mike
I understand your pain I went through the same pain 6 Months or so back.
My ECU count was 5 from memory (stopped counting) and I was pretty well over Nanocoms by the end of it, I looked for alternatives and couldn't get a sensible one.
After much discussion with Colin at BBS even though my Nanocom was out of warranty he offered to take it back to investigate.
The cost of me transporting the Nanocom back to Cyprus was very similar to buying a new one so I bought a new one and relegated my old one to being an instrument.
My new Nanocom is brilliant I have uploaded more than 20 files and it has never trashed another ECU.

The long and short of it like you I did everything
1) Battery Charger on Supply Mode
2) Remove either the red or black plug from ECU while writing (sorry can't remember which one)
3) Clean up the earth behind the coolant bottle if its a Defender
4) Try alternate maps and ECUs (now have a collection of both)
5) Every thing else associated with the dark art of map writing

With the new Nanocom I even pull up on the side of the road and write a map without concern or alternate power supplies.

I suspect my old Nanocom was heat damaged from being used as an instrument.
Don't keep trying it just costs more and more and more
I suspect Paul could fix your trashed ECUs

Duane

Hi Duane,

The post is my experience trying to upload a map file to Mike's ECU. This is done with a set up that only connects the earth, power, main relay, and serial lines for OBD, so the ECU is completely unloaded. The Nanocom and ECU are powered and earth to the same point, using a maximum of 10cm of wiring.

So that eliminates powering and earthing as issues. The only time the map upload worked was the first time I tried after the Nanocom had sat unpowered overnight.

My Nanocom has worked reliably in the past for map uploads, but has been always been flaky when connecting to the Autobox for live data and looses connection after an initial read of ECU data even with an external supply. In contrast the Launch X431 iDiag connects and records without any issues at all.

So do I chalk my Nanocom up as yet another one that needs to go back to BBS for repair?

cheers
Paul

I too have had endless trouble loading map files from my EVO - to 3 different ECUs in 2 different defenders, using multiple SC card varieties, multiple map files (both map wizard generated and td5inside) with both the old and new nanocom firmware.

Luckily I have not bricked an ECU yet - but it is sounding like I have just been lucky. Mostly it fails during the protection verify, with one 'hang up' (map load error or something) during the write to the ECU stage.

I thought it was just me. So many assurances on here that all is well post EVO firmware upgrade.... I was feeling a bit stupid about it as I couldn't work out what I was doing wrong.

I've never had these "this file is not for a td5" messages though - just hang ups in the protection verify stage and some during the checksum stage. Sometimes it has taken 30-40 goes to get the map file to load - not doing anything different, but every now and then it seems to work.

I haven't contacted either BBS guy or td5inside about this - I've just persevered and read widely on the forum. On every occasion I've tried to load a new file, I've managed to get the job done - sometimes after hours of fluffing around, repeating the process endlessly - but eventually it has worked each time. I just wish it was the fault that was occasional, not the success!

Paul
Dont know to be honest all I know is my old one caused me endless issues and my new one works perfectly
Same car same ECUs same practice.
I really dread the day that my new one does this lol

Hello,
I used to have the same trouble but I copy the map.file from the email straight to the SD card never had a problem since, every time I copy to the PC and then to the SD card from the computer it never works. I am using windows 7.
Ian

Originally Posted by justfishing

Hello, I used to have the same trouble but I copy the map.file from the email straight to the SD card never had a problem since, every time I copy to the PC and then to the SD card from the computer it never works. I am using windows 7. Ian

Tried that too. No difference, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by OffTrack

Tried that too. No difference, unfortunately.

Me too. Every combination, to SD card mounted in nanocom, to SD card slot in PC, save from email straight to SD, PCs hard drive to SD card etc. All were unreliable in my case. I wish I'd been more scientific about it and kept some notes on methods tried - but when I started I never expected trouble.