Insrument Cluster Programing

[pegasus]

Hello All, my 2030 2.3 galaxy needs a new instrument cluster, so being quite tight I bought a second hand one (well 2 actuly)the problem is that one of the flashes oil warning and the speedo is out(this was of a 2.8) and the other the taco and tem gauge dont work this one is out of a compatible vehicel (but when pluged in to a snap on diagnostic they work in test mode, I take it its a softwear incompatibility problem.

so the question is what do I do next, can I reprogram the cluster with the correct softwear?? can I read the eprom of the origanal cluster and input this to the replacment cluster?, is it vagcom softwear that I need?

Guys your help will be appreciated.

[gregers]

OVER TO YOU MIREZ;)

 

mirez is the chap who will no doubt offer advice as hes a bit of a geek when it comes to instrument clusters,think his last count was 5.?:):(

[Mirez]

"Oil Sensor Workshop" by any chance? Turning that off is a simple coding option, at the moment its been told it has the oil quality/level sensor in the sump and being a 2.3 your car hasn't hence its throwing the wobbly. Using VagCom to get the soft coding for the new cluster you can change the second bit from whats probably a 1 or 2 to a 0 to disable the quality sensor. The speedo being out depends on how much, just a tad then it can be corrected in vagcom, lots will require a bit changed.

 

To do the latter, you'll need VagTacho and a different lead. EEPROM cutting and pasting lol, is possible, and in theory will work fine. There are a lot of cluster hardware revisions though so if the year isn't the same then you could potentially have problems. Whats up with the original cluster?

Edited September 20, 2010 by Mirez

[pegasus]

"Oil Sensor Workshop" by any chance? Turning that off is a simple coding option, at the moment its been told it has the oil quality/level sensor in the sump and being a 2.3 your car hasn't hence its throwing the wobbly. Using VagCom to get the soft coding for the new cluster you can change the second bit from whats probably a 1 or 2 to a 0 to disable the quality sensor. The speedo being out depends on how much, just a tad then it can be corrected in vagcom, lots will require a bit changed.

 

To do the latter, you'll need VagTacho and a different lead. EEPROM cutting and pasting lol, is possible, and in theory will work fine. There are a lot of cluster hardware revisions though so if the year isn't the same then you could potentially have problems. Whats up with the original cluster?

 

Hi Mirez, thanks for you help, my cluster computor dose not work the car had been burnt out when I got it so I have replaced the interior but the cluster is original, it has corssion on the board which I cleand off but its never been 100%, when you remove the key the door ajar light fashes, I think also down to the corossion, ok list below are the cluster codes on stickers

 

original cluster

VW-Nr 7M5 920 900G

Ford-Nr YM21 10849 ARD

 

Replacment 2.3 cluster

VW-Nr 7M5 920 920F

Ford-Nr YM21 10849 AJB

 

Replacment 2.8 cluster

VW-Nr 7M5 920 920M

Ford-Nr YM21 10849 BDD

 

I take it that the last didgets and letter on the vw code indicates softwear type, the same for the ford number, I have never tryed using any of these programs before,so my line of thought is as I said earlyer replace softwear or is the eeprom any thing to do with softwear types?

the speedo is around 10 to 20 mph out.

which leads do I require for vagcom and vagtaco, I would also like to set the milage to the same as my original cluster 34,000 miles

any help will be greatly appreciated

Edited September 21, 2010 by pegasus

[Mirez]

I'll try and explain this best I can but I got quite involved when I did it so if I ramble on and its not clear then post back and I'll try and clarify some more ;)

 

The clusters are made by VDO and the last digits normally represent the part numbers varients and revisions - in this case its denotes the internal hardware, illumination colour, "operating system" version and model specifics. The cluster requires 3 layers to work,

 

Hardware

Operating System

EEPROM data

 

The software version can only be found by connecting to it but its largely irrelevent for what we are talking about, the EEPROM data on the other hand is really all we are interested in, it essentially tells the cluster how to behave. It contains literally everything the cluster needs to know about the car to work, from the mileage to configured options, to how to read the speed and where to point the needles.

 

In the early clusters a speed sensor bolted onto the gearbox provided a pulsed signal, referred to as the Gala(VW) or VSS (Ford) signal, and the cluster used this to calculate the vehicle speed. Circa 2002 this was done away with and the ABS signal was used instead with the frequency of the pulses being higher - its this change thats causing your speed to be out.

 

Its easy to get confused with the software available to fix your problems:

 

VagCom will allow you to set the key functions such as language, engine and optional equipment (ie disable the oil quality sensor) and is used to communicate with the car modules in "VW-Speak"

 

VagTacho on the other hand can do the above but also correct mileage and allow you do read and write the EEPROM data. Its not made by the same comany as VagCom and confusingly communicates in "VDO-Speak" so can do much more then VagCom. It uses different pins on the diagnostic connector to speak and hence why you need different leads.

VagTacho is certainly the more powerfull tool for this application, but you need to know its not as user friendly - correcting mileage and reading/writing the eeprom data are the only simple functions, everything else requires you to manually change the EEPROM data (which is binary, presented in hex) and largely undocumented!!!

If you are interested, heres what the EEPROM map looks like:

 

 

Fortunately, for what you have planned its quite strait forward. Because your overlaying the old clusters data into the new one, everything should be done for you on. You'll need to:

 

Connect the old cluster and read and save its eeprom

Connect the new cluster and read and save that eeprom (just in case)

Then save the old clusters eeprom data to the new cluster

Restart the cluster (unplug the blue connector for 10secs)

 

If all go's well then the cluster will be an exact copy of the old one, mileage and options will all be set for you.

[pegasus]

I'll try and explain this best I can but I got quite involved when I did it so if I ramble on and its not clear then post back and I'll try and clarify some more ;)

 

The clusters are made by VDO and the last digits normally represent the part numbers varients and revisions - in this case its denotes the internal hardware, illumination colour, "operating system" version and model specifics. The cluster requires 3 layers to work,

 

Hardware

Operating System

EEPROM data

 

The software version can only be found by connecting to it but its largely irrelevent for what we are talking about, the EEPROM data on the other hand is really all we are interested in, it essentially tells the cluster how to behave. It contains literally everything the cluster needs to know about the car to work, from the mileage to configured options, to how to read the speed and where to point the needles.

 

In the early clusters a speed sensor bolted onto the gearbox provided a pulsed signal, referred to as the Gala(VW) or VSS (Ford) signal, and the cluster used this to calculate the vehicle speed. Circa 2002 this was done away with and the ABS signal was used instead with the frequency of the pulses being higher - its this change thats causing your speed to be out.

 

Its easy to get confused with the software available to fix your problems:

 

VagCom will allow you to set the key functions such as language, engine and optional equipment (ie disable the oil quality sensor) and is used to communicate with the car modules in "VW-Speak"

 

VagTacho on the other hand can do the above but also correct mileage and allow you do read and write the EEPROM data. Its not made by the same comany as VagCom and confusingly communicates in "VDO-Speak" so can do much more then VagCom. It uses different pins on the diagnostic connector to speak and hence why you need different leads.

VagTacho is certainly the more powerfull tool for this application, but you need to know its not as user friendly - correcting mileage and reading/writing the eeprom data are the only simple functions, everything else requires you to manually change the EEPROM data (which is binary, presented in hex) and largely undocumented!!!

If you are interested, heres what the EEPROM map looks like:

 

 

Fortunately, for what you have planned its quite strait forward. Because your overlaying the old clusters data into the new one, everything should be done for you on. You'll need to:

 

Connect the old cluster and read and save its eeprom

Connect the new cluster and read and save that eeprom (just in case)

Then save the old clusters eeprom data to the new cluster

Restart the cluster (unplug the blue connector for 10secs)

 

If all go's well then the cluster will be an exact copy of the old one, mileage and options will all be set for you.

 

Hi Mirez, well thats a great explanation many thanks, I will now buy myself a copy of vagtacho, I will let you know how I get on

[gregers]

OVER TO YOU MIREZ;)

 

mirez is the chap who will no doubt offer advice as hes a bit of a geek when it comes to instrument clusters,think his last count was 5.?;);)

 

told you ;)

Edited September 21, 2010 by gregers

[pegasus]

Hello again,I used vag tacho, and as you said not to user friendly but changing the mileage was fine, however I tryed to input a key, the softwear gave me the option of a 4 didgit code but vag tacho gave me a 5 didgit pin code 65535, so that dose not fit.

I am making a presumption that to alter any of the softwear settings you read the eeprom, make changes in the buffer memory and then press re-write memory, sounds easy :) but I would need to know which address line to alter and which didgets.

So then I tryed vag-com 409.1 from ebay a hole

[Mirez]

Well I have the codes somewhere but you don't need them for what you are trying to do. Read the original eeprom, save it as an EEP file, swap the clusters over then open the EEP and write it back to the new cluster which should give you the clone you need.

 

Again with Vag-Com, you don't need to login to the controller to recode the options.