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Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

blog.willemmelching.nl

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Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#161

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

garaetjjte wrote: post #141
captainmuon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really surprized this is reliable (of course they know what they are doing). Maybe because all the wirebonds to the dies are encased in epoxy (?) and the other bonds are so thick. Even then I would be worried they would snap off or lift their pads. I wasn't directly involved but I still have nightmares about wirebonding. For a large partice physics experiment, we bonded electronics to silicon (wafer) sensors. Tho…

This isn't epoxy, it's some sort of sticky soft coating. Wirebonds looks fragile to me too, but after all every packaged chip have wirebonded pins, so at least it shouldn't be worse.

It’s called conformal coating.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#162

Post by ddalex »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #33
marcodiego wrote: post #11

Power Steering ECU... this things determines how the driving wheel makes the car turn. Safety issues must be considered.

The guy actually doing the modding and putting his butt in the seat has far more skin in the game than anyone who's second guessing him here.

> has far more skin in the game

So do the other participants in traffic around him.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#163

Post by j4hdufd8 »

balls187 wrote: post #120
j4hdufd8 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean to permanently brick the hardware?

> What does it mean to permanently brick the hardware? Colloquially means rendering a device in useless state which cannot be recovered. "Bricking" typically occurs when performing some sort of software update that goes awry, such as during powerfailure, using unofficial updates, etc. More and more systems have ways to recover from a bad update, especially when the manufacturer offers OTA updates, but in the case lik…

> More and more systems have ways to recover from a bad update, especially when the manufacturer offers OTA updates, but in the case like article where an the ECU is not designed to be updated by end-consumers, a bad flash/update can lead to the device being left useless.

and there is no way to obtain the original ROM? and flash it and everything is ok again?

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#164

Post by jazdw »

Great write up! I am the author of the TP2.0 page you linked to. I went through a very similar process to you, ended up disassembling the code for a Siemens PPD ECU (PowerPC architecture from memory, it was about 10 years ago) so I could turn of the DPF regeneration functionality.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#165

Post by balls187 »

j4hdufd8 wrote: post #163
balls187 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does it mean to permanently brick the hardware? Colloquially means rendering a device in useless state which cannot be recovered. "Bricking" typically occurs when performing some sort of software update that goes awry, such as during powerfailure, using unofficial updates, etc. More and more systems have ways to recover from a bad update, especially when the manufacturer offers OTA updates, but in the case lik…

> More and more systems have ways to recover from a bad update, especially when the manufacturer offers OTA updates, but in the case like article where an the ECU is not designed to be updated by end-consumers, a bad flash/update can lead to the device being left useless. and there is no way to obtain the original ROM? and flash it and everything is ok again?

> and there is no way to obtain the original ROM? and flash it and everything is ok again?

If it was permanently bricked, then no. The device would be in a state that it could not restart the flash process.

If reflashing were possible with the original ROM, it would not be considered permanently bricked.

It would be possible that an OEM or advanced specialist may have the ability to salvage a permanently bricked device, through special equipment, and/or repair/replace components. However for all practical purposes, if a (update/patch/hacking) process can leave a device "permanently bricked", an end-user cannot recover from that state.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#166

Post by ddingus »

londons_explore wrote: post #135
phkahler wrote: post #95

>> Only try this on an actual car if you know what you’re doing. Even though only two very small patches are made to the model specific calibration values, making changes to your EPS might have unintended consequences. The author has no idea what he's doing, or more specifically what hazards might be lurking right under his nose. I worked in EPS for 6 years and it's all really cool stuff right up until you download c…

I have a totally stock EPS that will just apply random full torque left or right if the battery voltage drops below ~10 volts. One would imagine that's a scenario they tested for, but apparently not! It happens very easily on my car when all the electrics are turned on for a few hours while driving with low revs, like driving on a cold dark day on a 40mph road. The first time I did it, my thumb was dislocated because…

!!!

Holy cow, that's a crazy failure. Many cars have a zone between idle, and some greater RPM that is essentially a no charge condition. But what a consequence! Having dimmed lights, or an erratic instrumement display is the worst I've seen.

My older Honda has a fairly wide zone, 600 to about 1200 RPM. Annoying on high load days, and I've often wondered why this isn't designed out. Maybe it's wider due to car age and component wear / variation. I've installed a pretty great battery and see a little light dim, and that's about it.

One day I had an alternator failure and some distance to drive to get a new one basically. Made it, but right near the end, the instrument panel would go into reset and the car into some limp mode. Not the end of the world, particularly given I was expecting some failure as battery voltage dropped below 11 volts.

It was close enough to lose instruments entirely, but the engine ran anyway. All in all, it was a pretty graceful failure.

That rando full torque action seems crazy! And at 10! That's definitely a scenario, as you have found out, that can happen enough to seemingly be a problem.

So, what happened! Suddenly, your car is off the road, or what?

Seems like your sore thumb is the least of the potential bad things going on right then.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#167

Post by l8rlump »

omginternets wrote: post #155

This is timely! I just made the decision to buy a car (either a 2021 or 2022 Subaru WRX, most likely), and have been curious about hacking the ECU, CAN bus, etc. I’m aware that tuning is a thing, but it’s generally not my scene. What I really want is to do the work myself instead of going to a tuner or buying one of those Cobb kits. Can HN recommend any resources and/or other technically-oriented communities?

As far as I'm aware for Subarus, Taxtrix Openport 2.0[1] is popular with modders and seems to have good software/workflow. Through this article though I discovered the Panda[2]. It reportedly does J2534 and I wonder if this means it can use the same workflow. The price of the white Panda is attractive.

I'm not sure if Openport is still actively developed. Oh, and stay away from the cheap clones. They're reportedly not good[3][4].

Does anyone have experience with the Pandas for remapping and use as a diagnostic tool?

[1] https://www.tactrix.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&...

[2] https://comma.ai/shop/products/panda

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4XJSuh10Xs

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTNHqRYmzrk

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#168

Post by omginternets »

l8rlump wrote: post #167
omginternets wrote: post #155

This is timely! I just made the decision to buy a car (either a 2021 or 2022 Subaru WRX, most likely), and have been curious about hacking the ECU, CAN bus, etc. I’m aware that tuning is a thing, but it’s generally not my scene. What I really want is to do the work myself instead of going to a tuner or buying one of those Cobb kits. Can HN recommend any resources and/or other technically-oriented communities?

As far as I'm aware for Subarus, Taxtrix Openport 2.0[1] is popular with modders and seems to have good software/workflow. Through this article though I discovered the Panda[2]. It reportedly does J2534 and I wonder if this means it can use the same workflow. The price of the white Panda is attractive. I'm not sure if Openport is still actively developed. Oh, and stay away from the cheap clones. They're reportedly no…

This is so cool! Thanks a million!

Is there a place where one can download ECU mappings for various car models? Maybe this is silly, but it seems like there ought to be some kind of community-maintained repo, no?

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#169

Post by l8rlump »

omginternets wrote: post #168
l8rlump wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I'm aware for Subarus, Taxtrix Openport 2.0[1] is popular with modders and seems to have good software/workflow. Through this article though I discovered the Panda[2]. It reportedly does J2534 and I wonder if this means it can use the same workflow. The price of the white Panda is attractive. I'm not sure if Openport is still actively developed. Oh, and stay away from the cheap clones. They're reportedly no…

This is so cool! Thanks a million! Is there a place where one can download ECU mappings for various car models? Maybe this is silly, but it seems like there ought to be some kind of community-maintained repo, no?

I haven't had much luck. Sometimes you can find stuff with a search engine or PM someone on a forum with a similar setup and ask them nicely to share their tune. But it should be said, it can be dangerous to flash configs from random sources to your ECU. I recently also rediscovered this (https://www.totalcardiagnostics.com/toad), which ostensibly "Contains 14,000+ optimized car ECU map files" and software to reflash. No idea on the quality or utility though.

Re: Hacking a VW Golf Power Steering ECU

#170

Post by rasz »

lillecarl wrote: post #66
mantas wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reintroducing border control would be a good 1st step. But gods forbid movement of „goods“ is endangered :)

I know of no state that controls their outbound goods, so it'd be on the countries benefiting from this to get more strict, not gonna happen.

You havent seen Border Control: Europe by Discovery network. Border Control: Spain in particular often shows them stopping whole lorries loaded to the gills with stolen chopped up cars trying to cross to Morocco.
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