Diagnostic Hardware what to buy.

BBS Guy said:

Interesting question, you seem surprised.
I had written a long historical addition to my post which i cut off for brevity, but if you would like to read that, i will post it.

In the meantime, in response to your specific question.

Up until 2001, i empolyed only a young assistant called Luke, who was also a very close freind, and worked the same relentless hours as me, but had never written a stich of code before he met me. IIRC i did allow him to write the base code for handling P38 Hevac on his own, but otherwise all code for all ather modules was written by me alone and even to this very Sunday, all hardware is designed and developed by me alone too.

However the last time i soley developed a software module was in about 2005, when i finished writing the modules for the introduction of the BMW L322.

These days, i have a small and very dedicated team, led by Gabriela, who i first imployed as a humble secretery in about 2002, but who i recognised as having intelligence way beyond average, and is now somone i have no shame or hesitating in acknowledging, that i definately could not manage without for on going MSV-2 development, thought all BBS basic bits are developed and produced seperately.
Almost all of our equipment owners will recognise Gabrielas name and respect her as the phonomenal woman she really now is in respect of Land Rover Diagnosic software.

I am however still the boss, and as such very much the driving force and intelligence behind BBS, however, if i were run over by a Bus tomorrow, i have no doubt that someone else could, and will, take my place.

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Hey, thanks for that. What can I say, I've never used your hardware or software yet but as a professional software engineer myself (C, C++, ASM, PIC and Java) I know that doing this is not a trivial task.

I had, as you may be aware, contemplated doing this myself but it would simply have been another re-invention of the wheel and the project was put on the back burner (with the gas off) when RSW announced his pending release of Rover All Comms.

When I started this thread I was looking for a product that I can plug in to my RR that tells me what's wrong. I had considered getting a full blown, all singing all dancing setup to allow me to help other RR users. Not so I could blow smoke up my own arse but to genuinely help out others, as dealing with main dealers, is very, very detrimental to your soul and bad for your wallet.

--
Woogoo

BBS Guy said:

Gabriela, who i first imployed as a humble secretery in about 2002, but who i recognised as having intelligence way beyond average, and is now somone i have no shame or hesitating in acknowledging, that i definately could not manage without

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Payrise in the offing now

Ok - now I am really interested, but looking at the BBS website, there are no contact details on the home page, so how does a numpty like me ask questions about what to buy..

I assume I purchase a P38 kit which comes with the MSV-2 Nano with VCI 1 - that will sort out the Rangie

but

can I (at a later date) add the Freelander software on to the Nano and run both?

In a word.............Yes

:behindsofa:

Fan blooming tastic

...................and the Disco., L322, Classic, Defender, Rover 75.....all it takes is lots of ££££££££££££££££££££££££££'s
:behindsofa:

Woogoo
Yea, i know you were thinking of having a go and made a post to that effect.
And you probably even have more programming experience than i did and still do. C, in particular, is a really great asset, requiring a very low level knowledge and understanding. And i have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for anyone able to program with it.
But the writing of a suitible program and user interface is but only a small fraction of what you will need to do to create a Land Rover diagnostic system.

I have stated it is hard, and have been accused of unwarranted negativity by those i think live in a dream world, but let me try to explain my statement better.

You can be the best programmer in the world, but when all you have is a small silver box made by company A, with one or two data wires over which the comms protocol is not only undefined and un documented anywhere, but is actually about as pig akward as its manufacturer can think to make it, it's a bloody tall order just to read its serial number, let alone the plethora of capability and information that we are renowned for accessing and providing.

You could spend weeks, months or years trying, as those trying to crack just the EAS alone have done. And unless you suceed, all the time and money you spend trying, will be your own loss.
Then you have to consider the box made by company B, which really means you start all over again and just to fully cover all P38 systems you will need to do that no less than 14 times.

It is not that it cannot be done, after all, i managed it and i am no super intelligent alien being by any means, but it's sure no hobby or even full time job. You will definately need to invest just about everything you own and hundreds of thousands of pounds you don't and pretty much make it your lifes work.

Because from my experience, that is the minimum it will take, and when you are done, assuming you suceed, consider how much you will ask others for in order that they might enjoy the benefits of your labour and investment.

I absolutely guarantee you will wonder how we manage to provide what we do for the money. I am still wondering that myself. That ain't negativity, thats just the reality.

BTW, i noted your concerns re later upspeccing your vehicle to a later model and the impact this would make re any BBS diagnostic equipment investment.

A little known fact is that we do have a trade in scheme for our SV software under which we bundle vehicles according to their degree of diagnostic technology. If someone requires to upgrade from one vehicle in the same group, such as a Disco II to a P38 or an early P38 to a later one, this can be done for a nominal admin fee of about 40 GBP. If however they require to jump up a group to say an L322, then we allow them 50% of the cost of their existing SV licence against the new one.

We try to be as fair, understanding and accomodating as we possibly can be.
In respect of MV licensing, please try to appreciate that we cannot distinguish between those just wanting to help out a few mates and those wanting to use our equipment to run a lucrative business.

MHM:
Pay rise, are you crazy
Don't worry, i look after all my staff very well.
Very few have sussed that BBS is no regular company. Although the fact that we choose to be based in Cyprus, rather than anywhere else, is a really big clue.
Most our staff, me included, could easily earn 10 times what we do if we were based in the UK or otherwise. However myself and my staff have all discovered that there really is far more to life than just money.

Think about it, how many are working years and years in a 9 to 5 job they hate, in the hope to save up enough to one day retire retire to somewhere always warm and sunny like Cyprus and enjoy the kind of life i currently have every day.

I dunno about you, but i am currently outside on my verandah, and right next to my pool in shorts and a vest and it's 30 degrees C. BTW thats cold here !!!

I would personally rather be the poorest man in Cyprus than the richest anywhere else.

That i get to live here and do something i really enjoy to keep me busy and interested and active, as well as helping pay the bills is a bonus that myself and my staff would never ever part with.

Magictiny:

there are no contact details on the home page

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I really can't believe you said that,
Are you blind man, over half our home page is dedicated to providing contact details. our address, phone and fax numbers are right there as well as no less than 6 E-Mail adresses.

Anyway, yea, as stated, our equipment is pretty much infinately expandable.

Warmest regards to all

Colin

sorry to butt in guys - did yu get my PM, Colin, about drwgs?

Sorry chap, It is there, but i must have missed it and only mentally added it to my seemingly massive and almost equally endless "to do" list.

Personally i blame Barbie.
meaningless to you i know, so i will try to clue you up a bit so you can enjoy the joke a bit too.

If you have been following my posts, you will know that one of my oldest Cypriot mates, in fact the guy who first persuaded me to move over here (and i can't thank enough for that) now owns the entire island Wide Ford franchise and who after helping out a bazzilion times over, i tapped to buy me my very nice 18 inch lappy as a small return favor. I ain't never counted favours with him, he is just a real friend, but lets just say he ain't short of a buck or two.

He has a daughter, who i last really knew when she was just 5, however for her recent 21'st, she is now quite a doll and has persuaded daddy to buy her a Range Rover Sport, which considering typically costs 55K here is quite some present. I think he is mad, but then i ain't got kids or money to burn so what the hell do i know !!!

She has since added more chrome and Bling to the poor thing than you would have got if you drove it through Halfords while strongly magnetised !!!

Hence the affectionate reference to her as Barbie. And to her RRS as the Barbiemobile.
Thank god for the tinted windows ;-)

Like all Land Rovers, the Barbiemobile has a few real problems beyond its Pimp looks, and as ever in the EAS department, which it seems is up to moi to sort out.

Lets just say that it is currently occupying a disproportionate amount of my time and attention.

As long as it's only the Barbiemoble you are trying to get up and not Barbie that should be OK. Greek and Turkish Cypriots have a fierce sense of propriety over their female offspring in my experience, just as you do over your products:behindsofa:

Gidday,

I have been following this thread and it has been very enlightening. I live in nz and there would only be a handful of repairers nationwide with the capability to access on board diagnostics on LR or RR and as you can guess they charge like wounded bulls. As a result, i have been toying with the idea of buying a system to do these diagnostics myself. I looked at BBS and had a few questions that i wanted to ask, that have just about all been answered by BBS guy in this thread. I would however like a couple of other answers though. If i bought the faultmate extreme with the little screen thingy, would i still be able to hook up a laptop at a later date (when i have one), also if you get the all singing all dancing kit with the sv licence, does it negate the need to have a Be CM sync mate?

As an example of the difficulty we have in NZ i took my vehicle to a sparky, a very capable and in my opinion probably the most competent and clued up guy around. He had my p38 for three days, and was only able to access the engine side of the diagnostics with a bosch scanner though he tried with other obd scanners of different brands. I will probably get a 3hour labour charge or more and a machine charge of 60 dollars. If i had my own BBS scanner, even if i suplied it for my sparky to use, my bill would probably be halfed with less of a labour charge and no machine charge and my rangey would be fixed. Incidentally, my sparky looked at BBS and said it sounds very good, and a reasonable price even if its only for the one vehicle.

You won't need the syncmate if you carry the MSV with you but you will need a laptop.

BBS Guy said:

Woogoo
But the writing of a suitible program and user interface is but only a small fraction of what you will need to do to create a Land Rover diagnostic system.

You can be the best programmer in the world, but when all you have is a small silver box made by company A, with one or two data wires over which the comms protocol is not only undefined and un documented anywhere, but is actually about as pig akward as its manufacturer can think to make it, it's a bloody tall order just to read its serial number, let alone the plethora of capability and information that we are renowned for accessing and providing.

Click to expand...

I concur with Mr BBS. I used to design and manufacture micro controllers for various applications. All hardware and software was produced in house. Twenty years on I have to think hard what the software was supposed to be doing on some of the early stuff Getting inside the head of the programmer and what he/she was traying to do is bloody difficult.
I am not very uptodate with software tools, but on systems I am familier with, it was easier to use a dissassembly technique on the software than try to work out the comms protocol.
All the software I wrote was in machine code or assembler. Slow and tedious to write, hard to de-bug but very fast in execution

The built in display on the Faultmate Extreme will enable you to read and clear fault codes without the use of a laptop and is powered by the permanent 12V supply provided by the OBDII socket.
Although I always use it in conjunction with a PC/Laptop, I did have a quick play with it to try and fathom out the standalone capabilities. There will probably be an owner who can elaborate on it's standalone capabilities who will pop the head over the wall.
:behindsofa:

Colin,

For the record, & with regards to the main dealer diagnostics stuff.

I'm now seeing more & more visit's from the main dealers themselves driving vehicles sometimes three hours each way to me, for me to spend no more than ten mins using the very first diagnostics you ever produced for the P38's. They don't even get a chance to finish there tea before i'm sending them back with job all done.

I cannot compare your stuff to the main dealer systems. Different world completely & only now are the workshop managers realising that thier diagnostic systems are not the best especially by the amount of time now spent on the phone advising them on certain procedures, only for them to tell me, they can't access this or that.
I have the same problem with autologic users to. Just trying to get them to switch from Late edc to early edc is a task. Same problem with can bus faults on the L322's.

The disco's & freelanders diagnostics are so simple & it's like smashing a nut with a sledge hammer. I find them boring.
Yesterday, A 2002 P38, running on gas/petrol, slight imbalance on cylinder two on live data, fault code read as, Idle control valve blocked.
Problem found & rectified in ten mins max. It's just to easy.

I'm drooling over the prospect of the 2008/9's coming in with problems. I need the challenge to keep it fun.

Spadgr.
Re your first question:
The Extreme and Nano are the same, as in they are both designed to run exclusively off a PC, and you have to have one to set them up to begin with and enter the licence codes we supply to activate the respective software.

The Extreme however has an additional feature added to it, in the form of its LCD display and small key pad. This allows you to read and clear faults in stand alone mode. We don't charge any extra for this feature, however the Extreme server costs about 50 quid more than the Nano, due to the extra componants additional materiel costs and build complexity.

It is not a primary feature by any means. It was more something we added on to give it a little extra usability in the case of emergencies and for cases of convenience.

Re the second Sync mate one.
Datatek is spot on,
Actually now you and he mention it, i might have a look at how easy that might be to add to the stand alone capability. I won't make any promises as the stand alon menuing is quite simple and we would somehow have to accomodate the different engine types.

Rick
I know what you mean, I really do not know how dealers manage sometimes, and OEM gear is really akward to use too.
It's hard to believe that were producing this 12 years ago.
YouTube - BBSP38's Channel

BBS Guy said:

Re the second Sync mate one.
Datatek is spot on,
Actually now you and he mention it, i might have a look at how easy that might be to add to the stand alone capability. I won't make any promises as the stand alon menuing is quite simple and we would somehow have to accomodate the different engine types.

Click to expand...

Go on Colin, give it a lash! It'd be one in the eye for the knockers!

SpudH said:

Go on Colin, give it a lash! It'd be one in the eye for the knockers!

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Personally I LIKE KNOCKERS near my eyes ..... (Well near enough for my tongue to reach em anyways!!!!)

Hooded claw, you obviously need to just get more sex.
SpudH it's now already in the pipe. watch out for it in an upgrade any time now.

You know some of our best modifications come from me reading the thoughts and ideas others openly put on boards such as this.

We can tailor what we produce pretty much in any direction, but feedback and input it's really important to this process.

What a great thread. If only it were so easy to get to the producers of other products and get them to listen. Hats off BBS_Guy

So for a novice who is 3 days into the terror of P38 ownership (see other thread) I would simply ask what would be a good starting point for me to go for given 3 days in it is already in with local landie indy.