ECUs View
ECUs View
Each vehicle network contains a collection of nodes or ECUs. ECUs are Electronic
Control Units which act as transmitters and receivers of messages. The ECUs view
lets you to create and edit a database of ECUs organized by their diagnostic protocol. ECUs can
be assigned to normal mode messages using the Messages Editor.
ECUs can also be assigned to user defined diagnostic jobs using the
Diagnostics Setup.
To quickly open ECUs view, click the Setup ECUs button
located just below the Vehicle Spy main
menu selections. The Setup and
Spy Networks main menus can also be used to open ECUs
view. When this view opens it will show a list of ECUs from the loaded
diagnostics database file (*.gmd). The ECUs view is divided
into three major areas as shown in Figure 1.
The top area (Figure 1:
) has buttons for performing
tasks common across many ECUs. The + and - buttons add and delete an ECU. When + button
is clicked a diagnostic protocol for that ECU must be selected from GMLAN,
ISO 14229, or Keyword 2000.
Use the Import and Export buttons to work with other diagnostic database formats like
.gdx, .mdx, .odx, .xls, etc. The Save Standard DIDs button saves changes made to GMLAN standard DIDs;
this action affects all GMLAN type ECUs. The Save Database Changes button saves all changes
made in the ECUs view to the diagnostics database file (*.gmd). Click the Wizard button to detect and
resolve any address conflicts between ECUs that share the same diagnostic address on the same network. For
example, consider a chime module and a radio module. Some vehicles have one or the other, so the ECU
diagnostic address could be the same for both. Use the ECUs Wizard to let Vehicle Spy know which ECU is active
to properly communicate with it.
The lower left area (Figure 1:
) is for finding and
selecting an ECU.The ECU tree is organized by diagnostic protocol, then by network, then by the ECU diagnostic
address. Click the small +/- toggle buttons on each branch to expand and contract that tree branch. Type in the
search field above the tree to quickly find ECUs in a large tree. Any ECUs disabled manually or by the Wizard
will appear light gray in the tree. Any ECUs with their diagnostic simulation enabled will have the red text
sim on its icon.
The lower right area (Figure 1:
) is for setting up the selected
ECU. The first tab is always the ECU Basics tab. On this tab you can enable/disable an ECU to
help deal with address conflicts, but the Wizard button described above can set this automatically. Checking the
box next to Simulate this ECU's Diagnostics can be useful for debugging a .vs3 setup file without using
network hardware running in simulation mode. When enabled, Vehicle Spy
will simulate the ECU response to a diagnostic request using a diagnostic message with random data content. Other
basic information on this tab includes the ECU's short name, long name, network,
and diagnostic address/identifier. For GMLAN ECUs, this tab also has the Virtual Network Management Frame (VNMF)
ID. If the selected ECU is from a database, then all of this information should already be configured. If a new
ECU is being created or changed, then this information can be updated.
The remaining setup tabs in the lower right area (Figure 1:) are
different depending on which type of ECU (GMLAN, ISO 14229,
or Keyword 2000) has been selected in the tree on the left.
Spy Documentation - (C) Copyright 1997-2022 Intrepid Control Systems, Inc.