Category: Product News

Together with Kvaser, we now offer a robust plug & play solution for all after-sales diagnostic tasks that can withstand even the toughest demands in the workshop environment. The combination of intuitive diagnostic software from Softing and the powerful U100 vehicle interface from Kvaser is the ideal solution for fault localization, repair and commissioning of individual components as well as entire vehicle systems, including electric vehicles and mobile machines.

During the development of electric and hybrid vehicles, high-voltage capacity decades (HV-C decades) are used to replace the DC link capacity in the vehicle. Thus, they simulate one of the most important energy storage devices of the power electronic vehicle system.

HV insulation fault simulations are used to test and validate safety-relevant system functions, either during the engineering process or also after repairs carried out by after-sales service or the repair shop, or directly on the vehicle.

Alongside interfaces for tapping individual I/O signals, HV measuring adapters also provide possible access to the HV power supply. In the case of HV breakout boxes, I/O signals and supply lines can be specifically manipulated by using suitable jumpers. Equipped with the original vehicle plug connections, this means that signals at the control unit plug can be measured without any contact or can be specifically influenced by interruption, short-circuit or connection of a bleeder and transfer resistor.

The new release 2.5 of the repair shop tester Softing TDX is now available. The new version makes it possible to define mandatory updates for programs and content, handle VCI configurations more conveniently and reduce cases of support thanks to additional information. Rights and user management have been further simplified to improve usability.

Users make high demands on the interface and the operating concept of today’s diagnostic testers. An intuitive user interface reduces both the time required for users to familiarize themselves with the tester and the usage time for diagnostic tasks during daily work. Creating elaborate, platform-independent testers is complicated and takes a lot of time – time that is often simply not available. Support from suitable editor tools, cross-platform development as well as prefabricated design templates can help. The effort involved in creating anything from individual functions to a complete diagnostic tester in a bespoke design is thus reduced considerably.

Nowadays, the development of vehicle components and their integration into the vehicle are hardly conceivable without high-voltage technology. The demands made on the electronic testing and verification systems used for this purpose are extremely high and diverse – particularly in the case of electric and hybrid vehicles. Here, safe measurement, testing, verification and application in the high-voltage range are just as important as knowing how to handle complex ECUs or use transparent and reproducible test procedures. Ideally, the tests and checks run automatically with processes and test results recorded accordingly for the necessary proof and certification. This also requires suitable simulations and HV-compatible accessories.

In vehicle manufacturing, very high demands are placed on timing, performance and system stability. For the vehicle communication interface (VCI), this means that the protocol stack for the communication software is executed in real time on the VCI without interruption and that communication with the host PC takes place via a powerful interface. Special requirements are also made of connection management to ensure and control secure access to a large number of VCIs. Softing´s answer to these high demands in manufacturing is the VCI VIN|ING 2000.

Reading out and documenting vehicles during and at the end of a test day is extremely time consuming. An interface is plugged into the test carrier, the tester application is connected, and automatic or interactive tests are performed. The procedure is repeated – per vehicle and per readout time, for example before and after a test drive. The solution for efficient and scalable diagnostics even when working at home is Softing DTS.monaco in combination with the VCI VIN|ING 2000.

The flash programming of electronic control units (ECUs) in vehicles has now become widely accepted: There are anywhere between 3 and 120 ECUs depending on the market segment. These can usually be supplied with new software directly or via a gateway using a tester. This capability is used in a number of ways, although a vehicle interface currently has to be plugged in to mediate between the programming application and the ECUs. In the future, over-the-air updates will open up further possibilities.