Hi! Happy Ford Mondeo MK3 (petrol) owner here 
My engine light went on the other day (fixed now, nothing important), which got me into the world of OBD2.
I got quite excited, cause I'm a programmer, and messing with OBD2 sounded fun (still does, actually )
After a bit of research I decided I wanted a "F Super" reader, cause it was mentioned as a good one for Ford Mondeo MK3's.
I only later realized that it's good only really for the diesel's, and pretty poor for the petrol's. Ahwell, lesson learned, atleast it is very cheap
If you're reading this and you think of buying a "F Super" reader and have a petrol or newer Ford, you're probably better of with something ELM compatible,
it will have far better software support, and will perform better.
So I have a "F Super" now, and since I did pay money for it, I'm seeing what I can do with it. And learned quite a few things along the way already.
Seemed a good idea to have a Thread about it, so others may learn from it too
Let's start with hardware
Firstly, the "F Super" is in fact a knockoff of the Ozen Elektronik chip 'OE90C2610'.
I'm sure it's not the original, for starters because the real chip sells for about two hundred euro's
But also because the chip in the "F Super" doesn't match the 'OE90C2610' in any way (I opened the casing, and had a look ).
![Circuit component Green Passive circuit component Font Rectangle]()
I think the text on it is:
STM8S208 - RBT6 - GH208 VG - CHN GH 035
Which would make it a generic STMicroelectronics programmable 8-bit microcontroller
The 'OE90C2610' comes in a plcc28 which certainly isn't what this one is, and I think the STM8's don't even come in that package.
Not sure how they made a knockoff tho. It's quite well possible they copied the firmware from the real chip somehow, and programmed the other chip with that,
or they just reimplemented it from scratch. No idea
Both the OE90C2610 and it's copy communicate to the PC with a rs232 port, which means you need a second chip to convert it to USB
For the "F Super" this is the FTDI FT232R, this is the part you need an actual driver for.
The 'USB driver' for the "F Super" can be found here: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
Next up, software
Well, I already mentioned the driver needed.
The driver creates a virtual COM port on your PC, which you can then select in the software.
The actual software for the "F Super" / OE90C2610 is called 'FORmiDable', and can be found here: http://www.ozenelektronik.com/?s=software
Some notes about 'FORmiDable':
And then, erm, stuff!
Right, I'm crazy, so I'm trying to write some software of my own which will work with the "F Super"
In fact I have already, but it only shows RPM at the moment
I shall update this post as this progresses
Something I noticed is that the thing seems rather slow. On my petrol Mondeo it uses the Ford 'Standard Corporate Protocol' (which is based on J1850 PWM),
which should be something like 41.6 kbaud. The RS232 interface on the chip is 9600 baud (9.6 kbaud), which obviously would bottleneck the SCP bus.
But even 9600 baud would be about 1200 bytes per second, and with about 14 bytes needed to get one RPM reading (for example),
I would be able to get about 85 readings per second. Field tests show about 13 readings per second, boo
Now it could be that the engine actually doesn't give me data any faster, and that I'm blaming the device for something that's not it's fault,
I'd be quite interested what kind of rate someone with a ELM device gets
At the moment I'm using mode 22 (SAE J2190) requests to get the RPM data, which is the same as the 'FORmiDable' software uses, and which the OE90C2610 has a specific command for.
I think it should be able to do the 'open' OBD2 commands too, but it looks a bit harder, since the OE90C2610 doesn't support it very well.
I've snooped a bit at what the 'FORmiDable' software does by using a open source virtual 'null modem' (com0com), and a bit of my own software to log what
is sent over the port Mayby somewhere in the future I'll see if I can get someone with a diesel to do the same, then I could support some diesel functions in
my own software
If I do go on with this, some interesting features could be had, logging would be an easy option, I can probably even make something for Android, though you
would need a Android device which allows you to plug in a USB cable And ofcourse the UI doesn't hang all the time like it does in 'FORmiDable'
Right, that'll be enough for now, more to follow
Feel free to comment with questions, remarks, suggestion, spelling mistakes, and all that
My engine light went on the other day (fixed now, nothing important), which got me into the world of OBD2.
I got quite excited, cause I'm a programmer, and messing with OBD2 sounded fun
(still does, actually )After a bit of research I decided I wanted a "F Super" reader, cause it was mentioned as a good one for Ford Mondeo MK3's.
I only later realized that it's good only really for the diesel's, and pretty poor for the petrol's. Ahwell, lesson learned, atleast it is very cheap
If you're reading this and you think of buying a "F Super" reader and have a petrol or newer Ford, you're probably better of with something ELM compatible,
it will have far better software support, and will perform better.
So I have a "F Super" now, and since I did pay money for it, I'm seeing what I can do with it. And learned quite a few things along the way already.
Seemed a good idea to have a Thread about it, so others may learn from it too
Let's start with hardware
Firstly, the "F Super" is in fact a knockoff of the Ozen Elektronik chip 'OE90C2610'.
I'm sure it's not the original, for starters because the real chip sells for about two hundred euro's
But also because the chip in the "F Super" doesn't match the 'OE90C2610' in any way (I opened the casing, and had a look
).
I think the text on it is:
STM8S208 - RBT6 - GH208 VG - CHN GH 035
Which would make it a generic STMicroelectronics programmable 8-bit microcontroller
The 'OE90C2610' comes in a plcc28 which certainly isn't what this one is, and I think the STM8's don't even come in that package.
Not sure how they made a knockoff tho. It's quite well possible they copied the firmware from the real chip somehow, and programmed the other chip with that,
or they just reimplemented it from scratch. No idea
Both the OE90C2610 and it's copy communicate to the PC with a rs232 port, which means you need a second chip to convert it to USB
For the "F Super" this is the FTDI FT232R, this is the part you need an actual driver for.
The 'USB driver' for the "F Super" can be found here: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
Next up, software
Well, I already mentioned the driver needed.
The driver creates a virtual COM port on your PC, which you can then select in the software.
The actual software for the "F Super" / OE90C2610 is called 'FORmiDable', and can be found here: http://www.ozenelektronik.com/?s=software
Some notes about 'FORmiDable':
- It is the only software available that works with the "F Super" / OE90C2610. All the other software for ODB2 works with 'ELM' based devices, which these are NOT.
- There is a copy of the same software which you can find in some places, called 'FordScan'.
It looks a bit different, but that's because some people hacked some other pictures in. It is in fact identical to 'FORmiDable'. - I think it's rather poorly written It hangs whenever it's waiting for the device to do something.
- On petrol Mondeo MK3's (and probably serveral others), it's functionality is very limited, you only get PCM and Airbag, and only a small set of the displays on PCM.
- Supposedly on diesel Mondeo MK3's it does let you program the injectors.
And then, erm, stuff!
Right, I'm crazy, so I'm trying to write some software of my own which will work with the "F Super"
In fact I have already, but it only shows RPM at the moment
I shall update this post as this progresses
Something I noticed is that the thing seems rather slow. On my petrol Mondeo it uses the Ford 'Standard Corporate Protocol' (which is based on J1850 PWM),
which should be something like 41.6 kbaud. The RS232 interface on the chip is 9600 baud (9.6 kbaud), which obviously would bottleneck the SCP bus.
But even 9600 baud would be about 1200 bytes per second, and with about 14 bytes needed to get one RPM reading (for example),
I would be able to get about 85 readings per second. Field tests show about 13 readings per second, boo
Now it could be that the engine actually doesn't give me data any faster, and that I'm blaming the device for something that's not it's fault,
I'd be quite interested what kind of rate someone with a ELM device gets
At the moment I'm using mode 22 (SAE J2190) requests to get the RPM data, which is the same as the 'FORmiDable' software uses, and which the OE90C2610 has a specific command for.
I think it should be able to do the 'open' OBD2 commands too, but it looks a bit harder, since the OE90C2610 doesn't support it very well.
I've snooped a bit at what the 'FORmiDable' software does by using a open source virtual 'null modem' (com0com), and a bit of my own software to log what
is sent over the port
Mayby somewhere in the future I'll see if I can get someone with a diesel to do the same, then I could support some diesel functions inmy own software
If I do go on with this, some interesting features could be had, logging would be an easy option, I can probably even make something for Android, though you
would need a Android device which allows you to plug in a USB cable
And ofcourse the UI doesn't hang all the time like it does in 'FORmiDable' Right, that'll be enough for now, more to follow
Feel free to comment with questions, remarks, suggestion, spelling mistakes, and all that
