Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWZ4
I'm too paranoid that I'll brick my car, otherwise I'd definitely go the e-sys route.
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Hey bub!
I wanted to reply to this thread & your post. I am certainly not going to claim I am a Luddite... but I am no computer expert. I know exactly enough to be dangerous.
And I was also way concerned I was going to brick my car.
Cliche, I know - but if I can code, ANYONE can. Now, I had an experienced coder with me, but he did one change & had me do the rest. PAINFULLY easy.
I can tell you it is NEAR IMPOSSIBLE to brick your car with the coding/changes folks will be doing. Use the various tutorials & cheat sheets, none of them are showing you any changes that will kill your car. Plus, they really help.
First - at no time did the "code default values" button become active so that I could have clicked on it by mistake. It was grayed out the ENTIRE time I was doing my stuff. You can't kill your car with this button, unless you do whatever it takes to make that button active. And I have no idea what that is. And neither do you so.. unlikely you will activate it.
You already know if you do activate it - DON'T click it.
Second - If you follow the cheat sheets, nothing you are doing is vital to the car's operation. You go into the modules (which are in alphabetical order) and make your changes in those only & on the specific elements within the module. You can't select something by mistake when you're coding seatbelt chimes or angel eye brightness.
E-sys tests your changes for errors & will tell you if you have one. Entire time I coded - not one error. I followed the cheat sheet to the letter.
You can make multiple changes in one module & then code the FDL (many videos show making & coding one change at a time as examples. You can make & code multiple changes in the same module.) Move to the next module & make your changes in there, then code FDL again.
If you try to navigate to another module before saving changes, E-sys tells you that unsaved changes were made & prompts you to save. Just make it easy on yourself & code one module at a time.
I am using terms from e-sys folks might be unfamiliar with, but once you are in there you will see what I mean.
Third - what I did, once I was ready to do code a change, I just searched E-sys for the parameter I wanted to change from the coding cheat sheet. For example:
- you want to change the angel eye brightness. According to the cheat sheet, that is in the FEM BODY module & there are 4 parameters you have to code. (Note that there are NUMEROUS changes you can make in the FEM BODY module.)
- open the excel cheat sheet, copy the cell with "MAPPING_STANDL_V_L_PWM_LEVEL_STANDARD" in it.
- in e-sys, at the top of the coding page, there is a search function. Paste the cell contents & check the end for an extra space & delete it if there. Then search. E-sys will take you right to the parameter to code.
- Read it (E-sys function), then expand the folder once E-Sys completes that. Right click the parameter you want to code, select edit & change the value per the cheat sheet.
I used this video:
The guy's voice/accent will annoy you intensely
and there is some dead space, but this video is what I used to get HOW to do the coding (not WHAT to code). He only shows you a couple of examples but his steps are SPOT ON.
He also uses a virtual machine running windows XP on a Mac. E-sys appears VERY VERY slow to read/load the modules & code them. On my computer, reading the FA, Code FDL - everything - ran WAY faster. Almost instant.
Notice in his video that the "Code default values" button never becomes active - even when he points out not to click it.
If you can follow directions & use any kind of software program, then you can do this, too. All I can say is trust me - it's that easy.
It was really great/fun to code something & then see it work. By the second one, I was flying through changes using the search function & I coded a ton of stuff. All of them worked!