My truck is in the barn, 150 snowy feet away, but I'll check tomorrow. I found posts I made referencing the use of it from 2013, and I'd had it awhile by then, so it's unlikely to still be available new. Even so, it's a good data point to have, and I'll add it.

Mark

 

Mark, no hurry or rush. I thank you ahead of time for your effort and desire to help the FTE community.

 

A spray paint can cap or cap from Brake clean can with slits cut in the sides works great for this too.

However, soldering is generally not as good as a good crimp connection in a vehicle. I prefer uninsulated crimp connectors and quality double wall shrink tubing for longest life and reduced chances of future failure.

I have left my BAFX dongle plugged in longer than that. Parasitic drain is not an issue. It’s also really easy to unplug it and toss it in the door if you know you’ll be parked more than a couple of weeks. I also have paid as little as $10 shipped for one that was ‘used’ (open box/return item with warranty). I’m not cheap, I’m broke! $350 starter? Easy buy. $100 BT dongle? I’m out. Lol.

 

Excellent idea sir!

Another 1st hand experience lending to the BAFX being "OK" to leave plugged in for extended periods of time. This is good news as the BAFX unit is considered a great value for reliability when compared to the OBDLink MX/MX+ scan tools.

For my solution, I do not ever plan to unplug the OBD scan tool. Santa brought me a 90* adapter so that I can tuck the scan tool up under the dash and forget about it. This also allows me to not be forgetful and leave it unplugged when accessing FORScan via the head unit. I am going for simple, easy to use and efficient. I am tired of getting in the truck, plugging my phone into the cable, getting my tablet connected to FORScan via the OBD scan tool I just plugged in. I want ease of use and to be lazy, but retain efficiency and reliability. Too much to ask for? Perhaps, but I think I am on a steady path to achieve that with the wireless charger, ATOTO A6 Pro and OBDLink SX.

Time will tell.

The $100 dongle has it's uses other than having a sleep mode. The ability to sample data at a 4x times faster than the competitors may be valuable to some. Probably not most though as a 40ms sample rate is not much different than a 10ms sample rate when you consider it is in milliseconds.

Cost vs. benefit is a consideration for most people and always for me as I am not cheap or broke, but on a budget that must be adhered to without question or deviation. Otherwise, something has to give and I get hungry every day...

 

Jason-I like the idea of the spray can as an assistant for soldering. I usually try to solder any connections that are under the hood as I always assumed that they would be a better connection than straight crimping. The biggest difference I find is the quality of shrink tube used. There are a bunch of different choices and the better ones have the "goop" inside which seals a LOT better.

Interesting reading about the dongle draining the batteries slowly. My Excursion is currently sidelined and I find after a few weeks the batteries are down(they are only one year old) to the point where the old girl will not start. I just purchased a battery maintainer in order to keep them charged up. I am going to unhook the dongle and see if it helps.

Whenever I purchase anything I always look at the "bang for my buck". Certain things I have no issue paying big dollars for whereas other times I purchase the cheapest thing possible. That is from my upbringing-both sides Dutch background and it was drilled into my head that you ALWAYS try and save a dollar. My kids are always poking jokes at me.

Rob

 

Rob, dual wall and adhesive shrink wrap is highly advised. That is all I use on all of my electrical projects. Santa was nice enough to bring me 25ft of 1/4" and 1/8" for future use.

BAFX themselves claim the following about their product...

1. Do not leave the adapter plugged in if it will not be driven for 24-48 hours.
2. If your area is to be experiencing extreme cold unplug the adapter as the combination of cold and the adapter will drain it faster.

If you have a different scan tool, you may check with the manufacturer website to see what they recommend. Although, based on the 1st hand experiences by SkySkiJason and Wesley Green, it appears the BAFX may not affect the dual battery SD as much as other vehicles.

We have to account for every penny, each and every penny we spend on a monthly basis. If we have to go over budget in one area or another, one of the other areas of our budget must pick up the slack. We don't have new shiny cars, but our vehicles run well and look good enough. Lucky for us, I am mechanically inclined, good with electronics/wiring and enjoy detailing our vehicles. There is no way we could afford a $1000 a month payment for a newer truck, not to mention the insurance rate increase. Having vehicles that are 13, 18 and 21 years old helps a lot with rates. The 2016 Escape we inherited last year made us "find" some money within the budget, but it wasn't too bad to make up the difference.

Your kids will likely learn one day that and they will tell you thanks for teaching them how to be responsible with their money.

 

Soldering compromises the copper and insulation in a way that crimping does not. And that is when it’s done correctly (RARE for a diy ‘mechanic’. You’ll notice basically nothing in the factory wiring is solderered and in fact the common failures in OE stuff are solder joints (overhead display on our trucks for example).

Crimp connections are more vibration resistant as well. Of course, a quality crimp tool and using it correctly is also required. Specifically, a crimp tool for uninsulated crimp connectors - but even for insulated connectors the tool quality is critical.

I have not even used some of the new ‘hi tech’ connectors on the market now. They are supposed to be even better!

 

We'd like to use FORScan for checking PIDs during a no-start condition, so I tried it today by pulling the 42 pin connector and cranking. With FORScan fired up on the S8 and monitoring the selected PIDs, I hit the key, and the screen goes blank for the duration of the crank cycle. It comes back up after cranking, and is still logging. You can stop the logging, and review the parameters with the slide bar at the bottom of the screen to see what happened during the cranking, but it does not look like we can watch it live. Actually, all I got was VPWR, since the other sensors come through the 42 pin connector, but FORScan captured the voltage drop during crank.

I'm interested to see what others find here. Does the accessory power to the radio go off during cranking on these rigs? I wondered if main power is keeping the app running in this case.

 

Yes accessory power does go off during cranking, this is something I've been aware of since I had my first double din install. The Pioneer AVIC head unit I have takes forever to boot up, longer than the WTS light, so that allowing the GPs to cycle then turning the key to crank means then another wait while it reboots. I looked at fitting a time delay relay to keep it live while cranking but never got around to it....

 

So, without modification, we need another device to monitor PID’s during a no-start situation?

 

Went full send on an Android head unit in my 2018 F350.

 

To answer your question directly, NO, no you do not need another device to monitor PID's during a no-start situation.

Although, if you have time and interest to read further into the details, continue below....

FORScan is still running when the engine is being cranked by the starter, but the "accessory" (yellow wire for the ATOTO A6 Pro) is not being provided power. The "12v+" (red wire for the ATOTO A6 Pro) does have power all the time, so FORScan is running, if you start it. Although, because the accessory power is removed during a "starting" condition, the display on the ATOTO A6 Pro goes off. This means that you cannot view the data FORScan is logging or displaying, because the screen for the ATOTO A6 Pro is off.

Granted, the log file is still being generated and is viewable through the ATOTO A6 Pro, just as it would be through a phone or tablet. It appears that you, the user cannot view ICP, IPRDC or whatever on the ATOTO A6 Pro while cranking the starter, simply because the screen is off based on the way the truck was wired from the factory. If there is a no start condition, you have a couple options to view the data...

1. View the log file during the no start condition through the ATOTO A6 Pro
2. Connect to the PCM via another method like a tablet or phone
3. View the log file during the no start condition on a laptop, tablet or phone after moving the log file from the ATOTO A6 Pro
4. Run the log file from the FORScan Lite app as if it were live. I believe there is a capability within the app that allows you to see log data "real time" after it has been recorded.

Alternatively, someone could hook up a second power source to the accessory on (yellow wire) to the ATOTO A6 Pro in order to have the display screen on and viewable when the starter is cranking.

This is the whole reason I had to install a time delay relay for my dash camera in the truck. The camera would come on when the ignition was turned on. Then, when I turned the key to start from on, the camera would get confused and sometimes it would turn back on and sometimes it would not. I installed a 60 second time delay relay which did not turn the camera on until 60 seconds past the accessory on condition was provided to it.

@schlepprock250 , did you install a custom UI loader or is that a function native to the display? If you installed a custom loader, can you share with us which one it was? That screen is huge and looks nice.

I saw a video on YouTube recently where the owner of a 6.7L changed the "boost" gauge at the top right of the the cluster to the "DEF gauge". This tells him the level of the DEF tank. I thought that was a cool feature.

 

It comes as a complete stand alone head/entertainment unit with its own launcher, but I'm in the process of setting up my own added launcher. It's called Car Web Guru. This is what the stock launcher looks like.

 

Oh, so that was not a factory display? You added that yourself?

Feel free to post up information related to the install here if you like. I saw that custom launcher when I was looking around a bit at options for the ATOTO I bought. I am always looking to broaden my knowledge base and this may help me make a decision down the road if I ever need to replace the 7.3L.

 

Yeah this was a Christmas gift from my wife. 12.1 inch display Android entertainment unit. This particular unit has quite a few bad reviews. But after researching for quite some time before she purchased it, my opinion is most of the bad reviews are from user error and lack of understanding Android. Apple IOS is a good system, but it's simplistic and minimal compared to Android. Meaning if someone that's solely been an Apple iPhone user gets this Android unit they won't have a clue about setting it up and operating it. It's VERY complex. Add to that, it's fully married to the Ford Sync system so it retains all oem functionality. My wife and I did the install, took about three hours, and since then it's been flawless without any of the issues I've read about. One thing I will mention about issues people are having. I've seen so many posts in different groups I follow about this issue or that issue. The one thing they have in common is that the vehicle they are running it in has dual climate control and auto hvac. Mine is an XLT premium so I don't have that, I still have the ***** for the fan and temperature. The auto hvac and dual climate controls are married in digitally with this system, and I believe they don't quite have it right.