Diagnostic Readers

[Third From Texas]

Closing the loop on this, I did confirm that if you get that cable I linked to above, besides being the right one for your truck side it also connects to the diag port on the M1082 so you can read ABS faults on the trailer as well. Looks like I actually have a sensor code stored… Glad I Checked!


View attachment 909389View attachment 909390

Good to know. I'd have never guessed that.

My M1083 ABS port has what appear to be two male pins on the trailer (I assume a ground and a data wire). It's also much smaller in diameter than the J1939. I'd have never guessed that a J1708 6-pin would work on the 2-pin ABS connector.

 

[Third From Texas]

Can someone with a DPA4 or DPA4+ (or I'm guessing a DPA5) do me a quick favor?

Can you match the 9 pin ((letters) to the 15 pin?

I have the tech brief from Deerborn, and I now have three cables here in front of me and none of them are wired even remotely the same, and none of them match up with the Deerborn pinout brief.

I can order a forth cable, but I'd rather not. But two of the three here could be made to work by correcting the wiring (they were hand-made and I simply don't trust them). One even came with another DPA4+ that I picked up cheap. But I'm not plugging ANY of this homemade crap into my truck when the Deerborn spec sheet says these are not wired correctly . Keep in mind that one of the plugs Deerborn shipped me also doesn't match their own tech sheet.

So I have two DPA4+ and no way to even test if they work. I'd really rather not spend another $80 on yet another cable.

I need to know where the nine letters correspond to the 15-pin plug:

 

[Lostchain]

Good to know. I'd have never guessed that.

My M1083 ABS port has what appear to be two male pins on the trailer (I assume a ground and a data wire). It's also much smaller in diameter than the J1939. I'd have never guessed that a J1708 6-pin would work on the 2-pin ABS connector.

can you send a picture of the port you are talking about? 2male pins doesn’t sound right. Keep in mind, there is a “diagnostic tool” plugged into the 6pin port you have to remove to reveal the 1708 port for connecting the DPA

 

[Third From Texas]

can you send a picture of the port you are talking about? 2male pins doesn’t sound right. Keep in mind, there is a “diagnostic tool” plugged into the 6pin port you have to remove to reveal the 1708 port for connecting the DPA

OK, I had to go look at it. I remembered wrong. Under the little rubber cap is what appears to be a test light with a push buttoon. I'd never really looked at it closely before and just thought it was a two-prong port. LOL

Yeah, what ever that is unscrews and behind THAT is what looks like a proper 1708.

 

[Lostchain]

OK, I had to go look at it. I remembered wrong. Under the little rubber cap is what appears to be a test light with a push buttoon. I'd never really looked at it closely before and just thought it was a two-prong port. LOL

Yeah, what ever that is unscrews and behind THAT is what looks like a proper 1708.

View attachment 909474

I am jealous, mine didn’t have the rubber cover so mine is pretty weather beaten. When there are no ABS codes, when ignition is turned on, that light should briefly illuminate and then go out. If it is lit at any other time, there are codes. This is described in the manual but I believe when there are no codes, that button functions as a “bulb check” but when there are codes, I think you use that button to read them via the blinks of the light.

 

[Third From Texas]

So yet ANOTHER $80 thrown at this on cables since nobody bit at my above request....and still cannot make heads or tails of things. I'm in $400 on this DPA stuff and beginning to think I should have just stuck with the Bluefire and looked at the pretty gauges.

I ordered the above linked cable listed as DG-JI939-04 (although there is no Deerborn wire tag on this one). Here is the pinout on that cable:



Plugged into the truck, no smoke. The DPA4+ has power but getting an Error 142 (that is a comms error) when I tell my Military CATET 2020 software to connect. According to the documentation, it should work with the DPA4+.

So either this pinout is incorrect, or the DPA4+ Deerborn sent me is at fault, the software turns out to be incompatible, or my laptop is blocking a comms port (which I'm not seeing). But according to Deerborn, this is the right cable (at least it was sold as such). Without any way to verify the pinout, I'm stuck.

The "industry stanbdard" pinout info published by Deerborn is rubbish. It doesn't match the Deerboarn cables that I was sent with the first DPA4+ from Deerborn (that don't work with our trucks anyway). But nothing so far matches their brief, so I'm tossing it in the trash.

------------------------

I also have a DPA4.

It came with a hmemade cable.. It also fails to match anything on the Deerborn "standardized" pinoout document. I'm a bit hesitant to just plugg this one in.




I'm really stuck at this point. Unless someone can confirm one of the above pinouts, I'm screwed. Dearborn's own documentation matches noting (to include the cables I got directly from Deerborn).

 

[Third From Texas]

If the "Deerborn" document is to be trusted (which I suspect it fully cannot):

C & D (which are empty on my cable) are CAN J1939 lo and CAN J1939 high

Either the doc is wrong (which I suspect) or this cable is wrong (which I doubt, but it has no part number tag from Deerborn).

Just all very frustrating.

I've spent the money for my cab air conditioner funds on this.

 

[Third From Texas]

n/a

 

[Third From Texas]

OK, SUCCESS for the most part !

I downloaded Deerborn's little diag tool and it confirmed that the DPA4+ was in fact talking to the CAN J1939.

So this pinout is in fact correct for the DPA4+

Next was a mino settings issue with my CAT ET software. I dug down into Utilities > Prefferences > Modify > Communications and it defaults to "CAT Comm Adaptor 3" . Teh Interwebz says I need to select "RP1210 Compliant Device" . So I changed that and then under Advanced I was able to add my reader.

And it worked!

So now the truck is chatting up my laptop (to both the Deerborn diag tools and CAT ET).

So this IS the correct pinout for the DPA4+

 

[Third From Texas]

Now if I can confirm the DPA4 cable pinout (not the plus) I'll have a second reader that I can pass along to someone.

I'm....hesitant.....to hook it up with the cable that it came with given the alteration in the pinout.

In *theory* it should be using the same pinout as the Plus......

And this is wrong:
*this is what came with it, but it's hand-made and does not match with regards to D and G

 

[Lostchain]

Now if I can confirm the DPA4 cable pinout (not the plus) I'll have a second reader that I can pass along to someone.

I'm....hesitant.....to hook it up with the cable that it came with given the alteration in the pinout.

Have you tried plugging the ebay cable into your DPA4 ? If that works, rewire the homemade cable to match the factory Ebay cable, should be good to go.

 

[Third From Texas]

Have you tried plugging the ebay cable into your DPA4 ? If that works, rewire the homemade cable to match the factory Ebay cable, should be good to go.

Yeah, that's the plan.

But I can't seem to confirm that the DPA4 and DPA4+ have the same pinout/cable. That's what I'm after. How is the DPA4 wired? Same as the Plus?

The documentation from Deerborn indicates they are the same. But it also lists the pinouts incorrectly, so I'm hesitant to just plug it in and see.

I guess I can try to contact Deerborn again, but they just refer me to the same document. /shrug

But my assumption is that they have the same pinout. But I'd like confirmation before I plug it into my truck.

 

[Lostchain]

Yeah, that's the plan.

But I can't seem to confirm that the DPA4 and DPA4+ have the same pinout/cable. That's what I'm after. How is the DPA4 wired? Same as the Plus?

The documentation from Deerborn indicates they are the same. But it also lists the pinouts incorrectly, so I'm hesitant to just plug it in and see.

I guess I can try to contact Deerborn again, but they just refer me to the same document. /shrug

But my assumption is that they have the same pinout. But I'd like confirmation before I plug it into my truck.

From the documentation I have seen, they are the same...

 

[Lostchain]

Can someone with a DPA4 or DPA4+ (or I'm guessing a DPA5) do me a quick favor?

Wasn't really quick, took about an hour but here ya go. I verified this with my multimeter on my factory Dearborn cable. This will match your Dearborn cable, all bets are off on homemade/Amazon Purchases...This cable will 100% work on DPA 4 or DPA 4 Plus

 

[Lostchain]

The "industry stanbdard" pinout info published by Deerborn is rubbish.

For the folks following along, the linked document from the manufacturer is 100% accurate and can be trusted when working with factory cables.

 

[Third From Texas]

Wasn't really quick, took about an hour but here ya go. I verified this with my multimeter on my factory Dearborn cable. This will match your Dearborn cable, all bets are off on homemade/Amazon Purchases...This cable will 100% work on DPA 4 or DPA 4 Plus

View attachment 909790

Appreciate it !

Thanks for taking the time.

 

[Third From Texas]

the linked document from the manufacturer is 100% accurate and can be trusted

Except for the parts where the documentation labels the plug looks to be incorrect/mirrored.
*specifically look to C & D (the CAN J1939 hi and CAN J1939 lo)
*according to the document diagram (J1939 end) , C & D are not used on the male J1939 end of the cable

The document is describing the cable(s)...... but diagramed/labeled it as the receptacle side, not the actual cable.

THAT was what was throwing me for a loop. And IMO it is in fact mislabeled accordingly.

They correctly showed the DB15-pin end of the cable. But when it came time to show the J1939 end of the cable, they instead showed the TRUCK PORT end of the receptacle and not the cable end.

So yes, I should have recognized the mistake. But IMO, a document on the cable should show both ends (not one end of the cable and then the receptacle pinout for the other end). I'm not an electrician and maybe that's just how it's done. But that's what threw me....and why I was asking for clarification

You'll note that physically per wire, we came to the same exact conclusion. But I was trying to use the a/b/d/etc reference from the document (which look to be off, IMO) and don't match. So IMO, the document labeled them incorrectly

 

[Lostchain]

The document is describing the cable(s)...... but diagramed/labeled it as the receptacle side, not the actual cable.

I couldn't see anywhere in that document where they mention that these pinouts are describing the cables. That information is specifically documenting the connectors on the trucks and DPAs, the cable to connect the two is left as an exercise to the reader. They mention the disparity between the connector on the truck and the tool lower in the document.

 

[Third From Texas]

And that was likely where my assumption failed.

I was looking at the 15 pin male cable end clearly shown in the documentation. And my assumption was that the J1939 end was also the cable end.



And I do see the cable/receptacle clarification now (down in the Type-2 Introduction section). I admit I did not pay much attention to the Type 2 section as the actual wiring was the same.

But in the end it's why I asked for clarification from someone here.

As I said, I appreciate the help.

And thanks for the tip on the eBay cable (it did the trick).

 

[Lostchain]

But in the end it's why I asked for clarification from someone here.

As I said, I appreciate the help.

And thanks for the tip on the eBay cable (it did the trick).

No prob man, I am super happy you got it all working, I feel pretty strongly that if folks take the time to understand the documentation and theories of the electronic diagnostic tools, these A1 and above variants of our trucks will stop getting this stigma of being hard to work with. At the end of the day, you now have the ability to have full insight to all the systems on your truck. The right tool for the job as they say....