AKM Electronics USB Information

Universal Serial Bus Information

The AKM USB Cables are now shipping! These instructions are an attempt to help get you up and running with your new USB cable. The USB cable is based on the FTDI FT232BM interface chip. If you should lose your installation CD, you can go to http://www.ftdichip.com and download the drivers. Note that you need the Virtual COM Port (VCP) drivers, and *not* the DLL (Dynamic Link Library) version of their drivers.

When you plugged your cable in to your laptop, the laptop should have 'recognized' a new device, and asked you for drivers. You'd then point Windows at the CDROM.

Once that happens, you *should* have a COM port that ALDL software (like Datamaster, Tunercat, LT1Edit, etc) can see.

To install the USB Cable properly, perform the following steps.

1. Plug the cable in to the laptop (not the car yet)
2. Your PC should start to "recognize" that new hardware has been added. A box will appear.
3. Now's where things get a little vague (because of operating system differences)...
3a. Insert the CDROM. You may to need to 'specify a location' for the drivers, and find that location by selecting the "Browse" button that appears in the lower right corner of a box. Once you've hit 'Browse'...
4. Browse to this CDROM (and if necessary, the USB_ALDL directory, if you have a Datamaster CD). Then hit OK.
5. The Installer should pick up and install a couple of driver files. You may have to go through this procedure twice to get it completely installed (one right after the other).
6. Once it's installed, you're ready to run your software. On my PC, the USB driver installed the cable as COM4. To find out where your cable was installed, you'll need to go to the Control Panel, then to System, then to Hardware Devices (it may be on a different tab that comes up by default), and then you'll need to look at Ports (COM and LPT). Look at the COM ports there.
7. Note that whenever the cable is not plugged in, the COM port will not exist (you can even watch this happen in the Hardware Devices list in step #6 above when plugging/unplugging the cable). So you need to plug in the cable before running any of the ALDL software - so the software can detect the COM port as it opens up.
8. If you need to Uninstall the drivers, this may be done by going to the Control Panel, and selecting Add/Remove Programs. Then scroll down until you find the FTDI Virtual COM Port drivers, and hit Remove.

TROUBLESHOOTING

I have had a few people tell me that the adapter wasn't working. However, I don't believe the driver software got installed properly. Every adapter that leaves is tested on an LT1 PCM before shipping. ;)

First and foremost, REBOOT AFTER INSTALLING THE DRIVERS. Yes, this makes a difference. I had to do this on my own laptop (running WinXP). Unplug the cable before rebooting - reboot your laptop - and then once you get logged on / back up in to Windows, reconnect the cable. If Windows comes back with "Found new hardware" - the drivers were not installed correctly.
Find out what COM port you are on, and if need be, move it (I recommend it be on one of the ports COM1 through COM4). Find your way to the Control Panel, to the System icon, and then to the Hardware tab, then to the Device Manager. Go to Ports (COM and LPT). You should see a USB COM port there if the adapter is installed correctly. Leaving that window open, unplug the adapter. The COM port should go away. Plug it back in, the COM port should reappear. If it's on COM5, you can right-click on the device, select "Properties", click on the Port Settings tab, select the Advanced button, and then select the COM1-COM4 (needs to be unused) from the box.

For a Full Graphics Installation Guide for the FTDI Serial Port (which is what I'm using), Click here for the .PDF file for XP Install. Remember that we are using the "VCP" version of the drivers, and not the D2xx version. Relevant info is on about page 10-11 of the manual.

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