Version 1.6.0.0 is out: http://www.nefariousmotorsports.com/forum/index.php?topic=254.0

Now with:
-Fast init and slow init connection methods
-Slow init connection bug fixes
-New validate memory layout operation
-New check if ECU matches operation
-Now stays connected between operations
-User selectable baud rate
-New status bar

This is what I have been working lately and will be in the next release:

• Support for selecting slow init and fast init connection methods.
• Explicit connect and disconnect operations so you can stay connected between operations.
• Support for checking if the ECU flash matches the file to flash on your PC.
• Support for validating the address range of the ECU flash memory against the selected memory layout.
• More log and status messages to help explain what is happening.
• More connection and communication bug fixes.

Hopefully this will help out with some of the usability issues that come up when flashing your ECU. I will hopefully be finished this release sometime in the next week.

After this I am planning on adding in support better decoding of the ECU identification info and flash status. I will also be adding in a few premium features such as fast flashing, and hopefully ECU reading that bypasses tuner protection mechanisms.

I thought I would let all of you know that I spent a couple weeks pulling my hair out, trying to figure out some strange FTDI bugs. I finally got around to rewiring my ECU bench harness, and creating a new power supply for it. Then right after doing that, I started getting FT_IO_ERROR return codes when trying to read message echos, after sending transfer data messages during flash programming.

I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me, and thought it must be related to my new wiring harness or power supply. After doing lots of testing, I thought it may be caused by my new power supply not providing enough voltage or amperage, until it also started happening in my car as well. I did a lot more Googling at this point and came up with no clear answers.

It turns out my problem was caused by using the function FT_SetUSBParameters to set too small of a USB receive buffer (64 bytes) when trying to read and write blocks of about 300 bytes. It appears this causes a condition where the FTDI driver’s internal USB buffer is too small to complete my read and write requests. This situation is not documented by FTDI, so I wanted to make sure to mention it here in case someone else runs into this.