Question about willem Eprom programmer

[rons85]

Having a Prom programming "issue" here. I picked up a cheap Willem Enhanced Universal Eprom programmer from Ebay. There isn't, of course, a lot of support for something like this - the website you go to for the software is mostly Chinese, and not real helpful. The driver software does install OK and it Seems to function properly... In any case - trying to play with a 2732 chip from an '85. I have both the (apparently) factory chip and a Hypertech one - somethng I bought several years ago. And a tube full of New 27C32 eproms. Also using TunerCat for the editing software with the correct for the car $1F mask (definition file). There seems to be a problem with the way the programmer reads the chip. The programmer software requires you to configure a set of DIP switches to match the chip you are reading - that seems OK. You then clear (flood) the program buffer and finally read the chip. All OK - it comes up with a 4K file, like it should. Trying to open that file with TunerCat comes up with a problem - it claims to not have the correct mask, but will open the file - with garbage data, apparently. I have also a copy of a downloaded (from the DYI-EFI site) BIN file that is supposed to be correct for this car and which Will open OK with TunerCat, looks fine. Another test - take That "good" .bin file and use the programmer to burn a new chip. It burns OK (comes up with a message that the chip is not blank, but lets you continue with the write..). Now read the chip and save the file - that file has the same problems with TunerCat that the OEM chip file does. From all this I believe that the problem is the programmer not reading the chip correctly - perhaps the offset value incorrect? Anyone have any idea what to try next? BTW - this is on a Win XpPro with SP2 installed. Toshiba Satellite laptop. I still need to go into the bios and verify the Printer port setting is "normal" or ECC - something that the programmer instructions tell you to do. I cannot imagine that it would be set to anything else, but...

[rons85]

Just to update anyone interested... After fussing around with the Willem programmer for a few hours I gave up - it will not correctly read a 2732 chip. Darn, so much for the Cheap way out. So I picked up an Xtronics Pocket Programmer - problem solved. Throwing money at the problem usually does that.....

Also - after complaining to TC at Tunercat about not being able to fix the code 33 (High MAF reading) problem on the '85, they sent me a revised/updated mask file that now includes the switch to disable that particular code. Life is good - that is the single reason I dove into playing with the eprom to begin with!

Now I can Play with other stuff and see how much trouble I can get myself into