Hey there. Firstly, I was brought to this forum by this thread here:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.com...cs-expert.html

The users on there, Chernobyl in particular, seem to know what they're talking about, so I figured I'd carry on my research here.

For the last few weeks I've been looking into programming E-chassis BMWs using NCS Expert, and after tons of YouTube tutorials and articles I'm fairly confident I've got the basics pinned down well. Being someone that dabbles in actual web coding, I enjoy the whole process of coding cars, and I'm seriously considering getting into the field of doing it for others as an on-the-side thing, since there's virtually no people in my area that do it (and then maybe moving on to F-chassis when I can).

With all that in mind, before I make a commitment to do this, I want to be sure I'm armed with as much as knowledge as possible from those who have been doing it for years, to minimise (or eliminate, even) the risk of me bricking any one of the tons of cars that I might be working on.

So far in my research and on the afore-mentioned thread, I've found that the general guidelines for virtually zero-risk programming with NCS Expert tend to be:

- Use the latest datens
- Backup the original .TRC file (with all the car's pre-tampered modules in it)
- Hook up the car to a battery charger
- If you do end "bricking" the car using NCS Expert, code a blank FSW_PSW.TRC file to revert back to the car's defaults

So for those of you who have been meddling with this sort of stuff for a while, do you have anything you've personally learnt that you'd add to (or take away from) the above?

I also have a few specific questions.

In regards to the battery charger - is it necessary? The cost of one is a big one for me to sink, so I'm wondering just how necessary it is to hook the battery up to one while coding? Does everyone here find they largely need to do that on the cars they've worked on, or do you mostly get away with it?

Secondly, exactly how easy is it to brick a car? Have any of you ever permanently bricked a car, or had one that you just couldn't fix? I'd hate to go into this thinking I know what I'm doing and end up bricking cars left and right.

I think that's pretty much all the questions I can think of atm. I understand this is a long read, so thanks so much for reading it all, and thanks for any help in advance. :D

 

Anyone at all...?

 

Last time I helped with ECU stuff... forgot to compare exact ECU numbers seems there was another one. So the ECU had to be cloned. I dont use a charger but I know how long the downloads and uploads take with my set up. I would use one until you are sure you arent starting a long file transfer of some kind.

 

Oh use a dedicated device or hard drive its a pain having to set up a full studio and have something added later mess stuff up, no updates, limit processes etc

 

Use a charger.....
When I had my Cruise coded I chatted with the independent BMW technician who always insisted on a charger....
When the voltage starts to drop (even only a little) all sorts of things start to go wrong.....
A simple cheap one is fine just to keep the battery voltage up.

 

I wouldn't do any NCSExpert coding without a charger. Diagnostics/reading are less of a concern. I would insist on using a high amperage power supply for programming with ISTA/p or WinKFP.

Since you're in the UK, I've had excellent luck with the cables and software from cable-shack.co.uk. Their software is one click install.

If you want to get serious, I'd pick up a Dell D630 laptop to use as a dedicated coding computer, running Windows XP. They can be found for around $100. A D630 will work with all the usual software (INPA, NCS, etc) but if you ever decide to upgrade to ISTA its the laptop to have. A dedicated coding laptop is very, very nice. If you drop the computer it's cheap and easy to replace and if you mess up the install you can just wipe it and start over.

Also many of the bmw forums have more detailed resources. BMW guys are more into coding than the Mini people.

 

Always use a battery charger when coding these cars. I recoded my DME and it took almost 20 minutes start to finish (hard code force flash and then realigning DME to EWS). Trust me, you don't want the voltage to drop during that period. It's not like flashing simple japanese cars directly off the battery in less than 5 minutes.