Diagnosis leads

[thejap]

I've seen on Ebay in USA a lead which connect a round 38 pin socket from a Mercedes to a USB on a laptop. I have managed to get my hands on a copy of Carsoft 7.4, the question I have is will this direct connection to a laptop be ok and work or do you need some sort of multiplexor or interface prior to connecting to a laptop?
I don't want to connect to my laptop and see smoke coming out.
Cheers

 

[Balal]

You would have to use the multiplexor interface to be on the safe side due to voltage differences at laptop (serial port/usb) and the chip at car.

The car chip is actually eprom. which is short for Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. So the risk is that you might damage the eprom and errase the data there. In chip tunning (ECU remap) they basically erase the eprom and program it with new code that set the combination of petrol and air to a level where it gives increased performance.

I bought a 38 pin connector from ebay last month, someone in hong kong was selling it. Never got a chance to use it as still looking for a multiplexor.

There is this listing on ebay that offers the full diagnostic hardware for less then £100.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mercedes-Benz...057669792QQcategoryZ30921QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem