Not sure what your objective is ?
You want to know so you don't have to purchase something that someone else has spent time and money to develop?
Or from a technical interest point of view?
I'm guessing here but the earlier protocols could probably be worked out from analysing a proprietary code reader or if you were that way inclined reading the software code on the units EPROMs (which could be an infringement of the owners copywrite)
FS
I personally don't believe it's in the entire community's interest to have the protocols hidden behind what are essentially paywalls. I understand why the people who have developed the software and hardware have done it, I personally wouldn't have but I understand the motives.
Obviously that's how you dump the protocol. You need an existing reader and a couple pieces of equipment to read the protocol as it's going over the wire. The thing is, the investment into a) getting a reader and b) the debugging equipment is quite expensive and you end up with a reader any way.
I also question the legality of what pscan.eu et al have done themselves any way. Surely reverse engineering the protocol that the various readers have done is infringing some part of the T&C that was agreed upon purchasing those readers, selling that on as a product might be questionable.
I very much doubt it's a worthwhile endeavour to try to dump the EPROMS or any code from the ECU itself an easier method is simply to capture the traffic going through the proprietary readers and figure out what's going on there.
EDIT:
Not to mention that the tools that pscan gives you are quite limiting according to the website you can only use the scanner on two computers and to change this you need to contact pscan. You *must* use their software to view the data. It all sounds very limited and creates an artificial barrier to people building more complex and useful features around simply talking to the mini's ECU. Look at the applications available for ODBII-based diagnostics on modern cars. There's a whole raft of apps and dashboards and interesting things you can do with it. That's all down to the fact that the protocol is standardized and not intentionally hidden away behind paywalls.
Please, I totally understand the argument that someone has done work to reverse engineer the protocols and provide a product to solve one of the needs. However, what pscan has done is simply add to the existing number of readers available and not hugely expanded the possibilities of being able to use the mini's ECU.
Edited by AeroNotix, 25 August 2017 - 11:59 AM.
