VCMII clone cheap alternative: VXDIAG Nano VS ELM327 running ForScan

VCX Nano Ford IDS and ELM327 running ForScan are supposed to be the cheap alternatives of VCM II Clone.

1.Decent VCX Nano for Ford

There’s various clones of fords VCM hardware but the cheapest is the VCX Nano. There are however fake ones out there so try and find somewhere with reviews so you can make sure it’s legit. I got one from AliExpress here

https://www.chinaobd2.com/wholesale/vxdiag-vcx-nano-for-ford-mazda-2-in-1.html

***You need the module programming hack .You have to activate the timer then go back to module programming then it works. Anyway, it depends on car model and year.

Connect to a 2005 Ford Five Hundred, recognized (Good)

Programming:

A required file “Extendprogramming.exe”, download on mega:

https://mega.nz/#!IAIg2BIC!Z9dYgJYmhixvwAbLIYAjSpzIxi9UBRa5xwlVH0yH_58

Decompressed -> select the car brand you want.

I want to program a key to the vehicle PATS system as I only had one key when I brought the car and really wanted a spare in case of loss or damage

This VCX nano for Ford & Mazda device was able to delete all old keys from the system then and add 2 new keys, whilst I was there I did some software updates on the PCM.

Installation tip:

With v106.2 running in a VMWare virtual machine. I found that, even though the laptop was within the recommended spec, it just wasn’t up to it whilst running as a virtual machine. Of the three vans I tried it on it could only read the Car Configuration Parameters off one of them, but didn’t always fail with the same error!

So I loaded a native v86.04 on the same laptop and the VCX Nano has worked faultlessly so far. My feeling is the laptop performance spec is critical: it seems to fail if there is any data underrun.

2.ELM327 running ForScan

You could also look at using ForScan. It’s free software and does most of the stuff IDS does (Can’t do ECU update but can do pump learn etc) You need to buy a ELM327 to use that but they are only £15.

Forscan and a decent ELM327 is all you need. It will do ~90% of what IDS can do, including all the learns and valve resets etc… You can get Bluetooth ELM327‘s but be aware that they can be a bit “flakey” sometimes, plus the Android and iPhone apps don’t have the full functionality of the Windows-based version.

I use an old W7 laptop with Forscan loaded on it and a “USB” cable type ELM327 and it works fine. TBH, Forscan is a lot more user friendly than IDS…don’t get me wrong, IDS is brilliant if you can get it to work with a VCM-2 clone but we’ve had a lot of trouble with a lot of the Chinese clones…some work but a lot don’t…it’s a bit of a lottery.

www.chinaobd2.com