Kyle E. Grathwol Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Let me preface this post by saying I AM NOT TRYING TO SELL YOU ANYTHING. I want your input. I am a Equipment Manager for a highway construction company. We specialize in highway milling i.e. grinding asphalt off the roads prior to paving. Six of our machines are very sophisticated and have 5 on-board PLC type computers. I developed a remote diagnostic system for our machines. This system allows me to connect to these machines and troubleshoot the PLC's from anywhere I have an internet connection. A colleague of mine connected to a machine working in Columbus Ohio from his home in Germany. We work in several states so remote diagnostics will be very valuable. This is where I need your help. I can modifying this system to do the same thing with automotive diagnostics. This would allow a shop owner to place a 8"x5"x4" box in a vehicle with intermittent drivability problems and collect data. The shop owner can run the diagnostic software from his shop or the vehicle owner can call the shop when the problem is happening and the technician can view live data from the shop. A "good customer" could call a shop owner at 8:00pm with an intermittent problem that is occurring and the shop owner could connect to the car from his home computer and view live data. When you are connected to the vehicle it is just like you are sitting in it with your laptop connected viewing live data. Do you think there is a market for such a device? To make any money, I would have to sell it for about $2,000. Does the value justify the cost? Please be brutally honest with any input or advice. By the way, we have 9 Super Duty trucks with the 6.0L and I had the opportunity to personally replace a HPOP in an early one. I have a whole new level of respect for you guys working on the 6.0 on a daily basis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Browning Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Kyle that is a very interesting concept and I like it, but I like all gadgets! The best value of a device like that would be for fleets that have vehicles that are great distances away. It could be useful for monitoring a problem vehicle. I am not sure if you are aware that most dealers also have Customer Flight recorders that connect to the DLC in their vehicles that can monitor 20 or so parameters and make a recording initiated by the operator pushing a button on a wand or by preset triggers. Unfortunately, your "remote" version would likely be too costly of an investment for many dealers as it might be used infrequently. Since our customers are local to us, the CFR works just fine. Aren't GM products capable of this with the ON-Star system? As satellite systems become integrated into more vehicles I would think the capability to build this right into the vehicle is there... then Engineering can access a problem vehicle directly. It has a LOT of potential but for me personally I simply don't have a use for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DwayneGorniak Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Hmmmmm. I think I like it. This could be an alternative to buying a three thousand dollar VCM with cables that fail. An alternative to turning the VCM into a wireless unit. It depends on it's capabilities. Is it capable of running the self tests and working with our IDS system. Would it be cable of reprogramming from our IDS systems? We all have a pretty good idea of how many recallibrations have been released for the sick litre in the last five years. 350 maybe? It would have to be capable of replacing our VCM and be cheaper to be attractive. But hey, I like the idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Browning Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Hmmmm, I did not look at it THAT way! If it could work as a wireless VCM /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbup.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Amacker Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Do you think there is a market for such a device? To make any money, I would have to sell it for about $2,000. Does the value justify the cost? Please be brutally honest with any input or advice. Kyle: It's nice to have you on the forum. Your idea sounds very interesting and there could be a market for it. My concern is how reality affects tool development- a bright guy like you puts a ton of R&D into a product, investing his heart, soul, and refinancing his house to fund it. After considerable snafus, upgrades in software, ironing out all of the wrinkles and glitches, you finally have a product which not only has a practical purpose, but also a market. You are proud of your achievement, and rightly so. This is where things could go sour- you apply for a patent, to find someone else has already applied for a similar patent, and so the patent office won't award you sole rights. Shortly after that, an offshore company expresses an interest in producing your product, giving you $XX commission per unit. You decline, stating your R&D costs are quite high and need $XXX per unit. Being that they have been in the tool/software business for many years, they know that they can step on your toes, produce the unit exactly as your patent shows, distribute it in your back yard, and pay you nothing. They know that it will cost large dollars for you to hire an attorney and file a suit against them to prevent US distribution. They know that you are a sole proprietor and probably do not have the financial resources to support a suit that may last years, and they take advantage of you. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but that's how life works. On a similar topic, I recently had a national automotive training company plagiarize my work in a blatant manner. One of their trainers/employees bought one of my PSD books, scanned the pages and cutaway component pictures into JPG's, made a Powerpoint presentation out of it, and taught the PSD class to unknown quantities of government agencies, just like I do. In addition to this, this company (who employs 5-10 trainers) copied this Powerpoint presentation onto CD's, distributed the CD's to the rest of their trainers for use in PSD training programs across the US, and sold these PSD CD's in class to students. The guilty parties clearly admitted to me over the phone what they had done and stated that they did not know it was illegal. (Huh?!) After a couple of phone conversations, it was turned over to our respective attorneys to resolve. The end result was that my attorneys (one of who is a close family member, and another who is a specific copyright attorney) stated that for me to recover damages would require my filing a suit at a cost of $20-30K. They advised me against this, because in their experience, the odds that I recover the original monies plus damages is unlikely. In the US courts, putting a value on intellectual property is a difficult process and too risky to chance a substantial suit on. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but that's how life works. I encourage you to continue your product development, but at the same time keep an open mind about it's outcome. Don't get yourself in too deep financially and don't put all of your eggs in one basket. With the level of technology that we have today, it is inevitable that wireless diagnostics will be a part of the future technician's tool kit. QualComms have allowed managers to view a truck's live scan data via satellite communications for years, and I'm sure it won't stop there. I have a wireless Ease unit for evaluation that I haven't even had time to install or try out yet. I'd like to end this on a positive note- what books of mine do you have? I think it's time for an update. Send me your old copies and I'll send you the latest versions. I'll be teaching a condensed 7.3/6.0/6.4 PSD class that's open to the public in Akron this June. Send me your phone number privately, too. I'd like to hear more about this wireless system. Have a great weekend! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle E. Grathwol Posted April 14, 2007 Author Share Posted April 14, 2007 Quote: Would it be cable of reprogramming from our IDS systems? We all have a pretty good idea of how many recallibrations have been released for the sick litre in the last five years. 350 maybe? It would have to be capable of replacing our VCM and be cheaper to be attractive. But hey, I like the idea. Whatever you can do with a laptop, my device will do it. In fact, if your shop laptops are being used, you can plug a wireless receiver into it and use it over the shop WLAN inside the shop and connect to it from any computer in the company. It is very durable as there is no hard drive involved. Quote: After considerable snafus, upgrades in software, ironing out all of the wrinkles and glitches, you finally have a product which not only has a practical purpose, but also a market. You are proud of your achievement, and rightly so. Thanks Bruce for taking the time to give a very detailed response. I am currently using this system on one milling machine successfully and will be installing it on 2 more as soon as all the parts arrive. The bugs are all worked out. To be very honest, the only variable is the quality of wireless broadband coverage in different areas. I have been talking with Mike Tighe at AATEC because I really like the AutoEnginuity diagnostic software but I could load anything the customer wants. Would you be interested in demoing a unit if I can scrape the cash together to build you one? I have 2 kids in college so extra cash is non-existant. Yes I agree it is time to update my library. I would be very interested in attending your seminar. Hopefully all 5 of us will be able to attend. On a side note. My latest obsession is CAN. I have a device and software to sniff CAN messages as they are broadcast across the CAN bus. This is raw CAN data but I have been able to identify the messages I need for my application. If you suspect that there is info on the bus that the OEM's are not releasing, we may be able to grab it, scale it and use it. Just a thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Amacker Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Quote: I have a device and software to sniff CAN messages as they are broadcast across the CAN bus. This is raw CAN data but I have been able to identify the messages I need for my application. If you suspect that there is info on the bus that the OEM's are not releasing, we may be able to grab it, scale it and use it. Just a thought. Wow, this is not my department, but I know CAN protocol is a big stumbling block for the aftermarket scan tool manufacturers. Ford has not released the CAN bidirectional data, which means no aftermarket scan tool does bidirectional on a Ford. This makes working on a 6.0 really a challenge without the IDS/PDS/WDS. Hmmmm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DwayneGorniak Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Kyle, I agree with Bruce. I really hope this works out for you and I see your product someday. Don't flaunt your product too much to the wrong people before you have all the patents in place. If you can beat the CAN network, you've got it made. I like the idea of this unit being able to work with Autoenginuity as well. I have been looking online at Autoenginuity myself. If I could have a tool like that would work on my laptop with the Ford IDS system and with Autoenginuity, I would be a happy camper. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Browning Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Kyle, I agree with Bruce. I really hope this works out for you and I see your product someday. Ditto... and I would be happy to help you promote it. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle E. Grathwol Posted April 16, 2007 Author Share Posted April 16, 2007 Thanks for the input guys. I am going to see if I can locate different components to try to bring the price down. Thanks again for your time and input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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