[ale] OT: cool gadget

Jim ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com
Wed May 31 06:44:41 EDT 2006


Jason Day wrote:

>On Sat, May 27, 2006 at 07:45:34AM -0400, Jim Philips wrote:
>  
>
>>A fellow geek at work turned me on to this. If you go to a mechanic to see why 
>>your "check engine light" is on, they'll charge you a hundred bucks just to 
>>plug it in and see what message the onboard computer is sending. Now, you can 
>>plug in this gadget and read the messages yourself. You may or may not know 
>>what a big deal this is. Some mechanics will lead you round and round for 
>>weeks trying to find the reason for that little light. Check it out here:
>>
>>http://www.actron.com/
>>    
>>
>
>You used to be able to short two of the pins on the connector and get
>the check engine light to blink the codes to you.  I remember buying a
>book at an auto parts store that documented the procedure and what all
>the codes were for the car model.  It might have been Chiltons, but I
>don't remember.
>
>I don't know if this still works though.  Obviously, you don't want to
>go shorting random pins together on the computer interface...
>  
>
I recall a mechanic friend of mine that used a voltmeter to watch the 
pulses when he didn't have a analyzer available.

Jim.



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