mickey13

so i am finally going to order the star today or tomorrow (probably tomorrow or the day after lol). just been a bit busy and lazy about it.
have been reviewing the different models

c3, c4, c4 connect, c5, c5 connect

and i decide to go with the c5 connect, seems like it is the newest so only a little bit more money.

i found a seller on ALIBABA who will give me the unit with cables and a SSD 256 gb that has v.2016.9 for $565 with shipping.

so i emailed to make sure i can have developer unlocked and some basic support to set up. the dell 630 is selling on ebay for like $100 or less. so total star cost is going to be under $700 (SWEET DEAL!)

anyway, my Q is whether i need the old 32 pin cable for my c43. im thinking no but maybe im wrong. i guess i could go out and look under the hood but i know you guys will know right away.

DRBC43AMG

Are you sure of seller's integrity? Buying a Chinese sourced copy? I would have doubts...

Yeah you need the round multi pin cable to connect to the electronics. Our babies don't have an OBDII plug outlet as far as I know. Perhaps the last 00' MY?

mickey13

life is full of uncertainties my friend, but alibaba has become much more user friendly and the product is guaranteed.

my 99 has the obd2 plug under the steering wheel, just wondering if it also has the round plug under the hood. maybe i better go look to be sure. where would it be?

DRBC43AMG

I'm 100% sure you have the round plug under the hood. Look at the big black box in the engine compartment under the screen on the passenger side. That's where the ECU is housed plus certain fuses, etc.

You need to unscrew 1/4 turn the top plug with a M13 socket. Underneath you will find the big multi-pin male mating plug. Be careful when plugging the socket as it's a very close fit and only goes in one way. Once you have found the correct position, I recommend you paint two spots face to face on the plug and housing so you know approximately how to place the plug a next time.

P.S. If you are wondering what that black rectangular box is on the right of the second photo, that's a multiplexer where the multi-pin cable is attached before plugging into the computer with an USB cable

mickey13

When youre right... you are right! obd2 and round socket! is that 38 pin counted it? idk why i sad 32 pin earlier...

fredtga

for w202 you need the 38pin connector to access all the modules. Obd2 is pretty useless on these models.

how deep can you go with an SDS developer version?

i never got exact answers to many questions about this...

can you un-marry ECU-s from VIN?
can you copy the key information from an original key?
can you write the key information onto a blank key chip?

or more simple tasks:

can you program a key to open all doors with one click or only driver door with one click and rest on the 2nd click?
can you program how many seconds the headlights stay on after you lock the car?
can you disable the teleaid support?

I have the old Trisco for older Mercedes cars, works great for models up to 1999, handheld, reads all modules, excellent, too bad they stopped at version 3.1.

I got also the Carsoft with multiplexer and cables (original straight from Belgium), probably the worst software ever, $600 down the drain. Able to read some modules on some cars (even if they say it works on all up to 2014) along with a million Java errors.
Pretty bad control panel and the more you dig deep in options, menu items, messages and warnings are not translated from German.

Last one i got, it's Autel MaxiDas and it is absolute great for my needs to diagnose and investigate problems on my 40+ mercedes fleet. Beside basic functions, it does live data, adaptation, i can access all the sensors down to each solenoid in the transmission, graphs, values, etc, very good tool.


... still, i'm interested in the SDS developer details...

mickey13

i will let you know when i get it, the seller i wanted to get from isnt answering all of my questions in a way i am comfortable with so i am changing sellers even if it cost a little more. new seller has the complete system (hardware and software) claims ready to go out of box, im just waiting for him to get back to me on some questions.

this site also sells key programmers http://www.mbstartool.com/wholesale/...ey-programmer/

i dont think you can unmarry ecu from vin (i read that after x amounts of ignitions that the ecu is married) if you unistall before x is reached it will reset the counter on the unmarried unit. let me see if i can find the article or link where i read that.
i think you need one of the key programmers as described from the site above
but i will let you know the rest when it gets here

mickey13

OK so found a seller who i was able to communicate with. these guys in china are a bunch of resellers and only 1 i spoke to really knew right away what i was talking about and was able to answer my questions right away in a good manner.

SOOO. the problem is that when i go to make a payment, this seller is not accepting my credit card. i have to take a second look and see how i can pay. but the total with shipping is $570.20, that will give me the c5 sd with wires, ssd with xentry/das bundle and Vediamo. also he steered me clear of V2016.09 to V2015.12 because the newer one comes win 7, which is quicker but loses HHT (and possibly other functions from what i read online). so the older version will come with win xp and thats what you want on these. anyway i think i can get him to throw in the newer software anyway after the purchase so i can have both.

he gave me this screenshot which i really hate getting. multiple sellers gave me screenshots when asking what software im getting, but this screenshot looks better than others i saw and he confirmed that it will be capable of doing the offline scn coding.

mickey13

Alright. Here is what I learned. Visa will block my credit card payment when making a payment to China. A quick phone call and I had it unblocked for the transaction. Here is what I also learned. The sellers on Ali Express are all the same (at least for this product). I'm guessing there is a single factory making these units and the factory has multiple sales people, it looks like each sales person registers an account as a different store but it's really the same store. So the fellow that answered my questions well gave me a link to make the purchase, but that purchase went back to the initial store where the lady couldn't answer my questions well and stated she had to speak to the engineer.

Anyway I made the purchase which turned out to be 570.20. I gave them specific instructions to include a SSD for the Dell d630 with win xp. I also purchased a Dell d630 2.2 ghz 4gb RAM used on ebay for $49. So the total damage was $619.20

fredtga

good stuff. Keep us posted when you receive it.

mickey13, what is your location?

mickey13

im on the east coast.

so ali express has some kind of fraud protection and they rejected my payment for some reason. they wanted copies of my photo id, the credit card and the credit card statement. i submitted all three but blacked out most of the stuff on there except my name, address, last 4 of the account numbers.

they say it takes 3 days to review. kind of nervous now, the dell laptop is already on its way but ali express may not ship???

very strange

mickey13

Ali-Express has rejected my payment for fraud after I sent them a copy of my license, the bank card and the bank statement for verification, so its back to the drawing board I guess? I'm going to speak to the seller to see if they have another website or something.

mickey13

Seller accepted PayPal, no additional fee. Back to the waiting game.

Pagz

Unfortunately ,Developer doesn't get you very far with ME2.0, quite a lot more with 2.8 though.

No you cannot unmarry the ECU, you can however erase the coding and make changes to the options it provides, but if its an older ME2.0 you might not be able to get the code back in. later ones around 2000 are ok I can code my MY00 C43 to either CLk55 or C43, older 99/98 modules I can do E55 only, but cannot recode to C43, this is not good because it changes the can bus setting so its no good anymore for 202.

Be very carful with developer you can really stuff things up and cant hit back after.

Remember for developer mode everything is in German because it was only ment to be used there, make sure you translate well before making changes. xD

mickey13

LOL. Got the computer but not the China stuff. Paid yesterday, hopefully it will be here by next week.

mickey13

I did get the SDconnect unit. Surprisingly it only took 2 or 3 days to make it from Hong Kong. It however was not ready to go out of the box. I plugged the SSD into the computer and after a couple of hours of tinkering, everything is a go. I wasn't able to get any support from seller, but in all fairness it is Saturday and they have been very responsive. I even asked for a gift with my purchase and they threw in an elm27 connector. Aliexpress gave me a really hard time with using my credit card, but seller did the transaction through paypal and didn't charge any extra fees. I'm very happy with purchase as now I can focus in on problems instead of guessing what parts it might be. Seller's store if anyone is interested: LINK

I still need to do some more settings like printer, wifi etc etc., but I have 44 codes to get working on and bunch of them look like DIY and some I'm guessing may overlap, so let the fun begin.

mickey13

Have been playing with it a bit as I had a stalling problem. It is very cool, there is a "Simulator" so you can go in and play with options for cars you don't have or cars you do have and don't want to screw up.

For the w202 c43, the system is VERY simple. There are not many menus or options as say in the w204 or even the w211. Also developer options for the w202 all seem to be in English although there is a warning splash screen in German at start up.

I think its a great model to learn the basic uses and functions of Star because of the limited application.

For the w202 platform:

I do not see any function to erase the VIN from the ecu but there is a copy feature if you were to buy a new ecu.

I haven't gone too deep into the key/eis functions but I am certain I have seen key copying hardware online, so I do not think that is the case. In fact when I had MB make a new key for my car, they claimed it had to be programmed but they never connected Star to my car.

There is an option for locking doors, didn't spend too much time on it but it looks like you can program the locks to do global etc.

I saw an option to program how many seconds the interior light would stay on after locking the doors, will have a second look to see if I can change that number for the fog lights.

Our w202s don't have teleaid, not mine anyway.

DRBC43AMG

Mine doesn't have teleaid neither My doors all lock after getting to around the speed of 20kmh, including boot/trunk and fuel flap. As soon as you open a door, all the other locks unlock too. In case of a strong jump (sleeping policeman on the road) or shock (like in an accident) all the locks will auto unlock

Boghos T

I'd like know the part number for the odb reader cover for a WDB202 1997. My mechanics lost it.

DRBC43AMG

Are you talking of the round cap which covers the multi-pin plug (see photos on my post #4)?

Boghos T

Yes that's the 1.

DRBC43AMG

Should be A 000 540 03 82 See #75 on list and diagram. In French unfortunately but I'm sure you can manage...

Boghos T

Thanks for the reference but i couldn't find anything.

I'm looking for this cap.

DRBC43AMG

Yeah that is the cap with ID #75 on the diagram and parts list.

A quick search on Google came up with plenty of options including this one: https://www.ebay.com/p/1518877007

Have you tried asking the dealer? I'm certain they can get one and the price probably will not be much



Cap in situ

With ID parts#

DavidNoble

I have the Maxsis Elite and I love it.