Motoscan

[slparry]

A few years ago I bought a used alarm for my F800GS from a guy on the F800 forum who hated alarms and took his off his bike.

All worked as intended, could arm from the fob, or from turning the ignition off after 30 seconds or so. Arming beeped and flashed the indicators.

The only tiny tiny irritation was the red led in the dash wouldn't flash when the alarm was armed. It's no big deal but I tried to get it functioning.

At work we obviously had the BMW diag system and no matter what was tried the bikes ECU failed to "see" the alarm, which meant the arming light wouldn't activate. This appears to be by design as of course BMW want you to buy a nice new alarm to be coded to your bike not transfer them ...

Anyway, I recently invested in yet another diagnostic system to go with the yellow and the red GS911's I have. (ex IT geek so I just love gadgets)

The software is Motoscan, available for android phones, I also upgraded the bluetooth dongle to the one recommended by Motoscan as well as upgrading the software to the "ultimate" version.

Upshot is it allowed me to code the used alarm to the bike, finally, so the arming light on the dash now works, pleasantly surprised that a 3rd party app worked were the uber dealer system failed.

Oh and it also let me code a range to the 800GS OBC but of course because the fuel gauge only works for the last half of the tank it starts showing range from there.

[Stephen400]

I can wholeheartedly agree. For the money, MOTOSCAN is fantastic!

I’ve been using TEXA at work for probably 10 years, heard about the coding ability of the MOTOSCAN so thought I’d try it on an F800R that wasn’t displaying the gear sensor, 5 taps later, it’s working

I’ve since carried out several repairs/adjustments that wouldn’t have been possible before. It’s paid for its self 10 times over.

The live data isn’t as good and the coding features are less and less the newer model you plug in but really, for the money, brilliant bit of kit!

[Marcus_asparagus]

Sweet!

I’ve got the Motoscan app too, is there any other secrets I can unlock as it were?
Special menus, features?

Keen to learn…


Please feel free to explain to a stupid person…..

And this is on the R1200S and a F800ST.

Regards Mark.

[Stephen400]

Sweet!

I’ve got the Motoscan app too, is there any other secrets I can unlock as it were?
Special menus, features?

Keen to learn…


Please feel free to explain to a stupid person…..

And this is on the R1200S and a F800ST.

Regards Mark.

No secret menus im afraid, Perhaps I made it sound sexier than it is.

Here are a few jobs I've completed recently that wouldnt have been possible without Motoscan (mainly repairs avoiding using new parts/'dealer only' procedures)

I replaced a fried BMSK (ecu) with a second hand part, Ive done plenty before but in this instance the bike developed a mis fire caused by the traction control kicking in as and when it liked. After plenty of head scratches I found the coding option in motoscan to tell the ecu it was GS asc. Bingo, the fault is gone!

I worked on a 1200gsa with an interesting brake fault where it wouldn't hold pressure. Turned out to be an ABS unit fault, a bizarre mechanical fault inside the unit. I fit the cheapest second hand unit I could find but it would not work. Until I used motoscan to tell it the bike was a GSA then problem solved. I have heard several times "BMW needs to code it to the bike" which sounds specific, as in, code it to your bike and no other but now I'm thinking sometimes it is purely to code it as GS, GSA, RT etc. because it is the same part for all models, only the 'mode' is different depending on the style of bike.


After struggling with my cruise control mod on my bike for far too long I needed a simple on off signal from the tail light. The S tail light being LED uses pulse width to control the brightness (tail light vs brake light) I used the app to tell the ecu it wasn't an LED. Bingo, it stopped sending the pwm signal and just had on and off for the brake light. (lost the tail light but I fixed that the old fashioned way).

And just yesterday I found an old alarm unit, replaced the batteries and connected it to my bike, as Steve mentioned, the dash led did not work until I 'told' the bike it had an alarm.

Cracking tool for not a lot of money!


p.s. sorry for the slow reply, I can never get on this site!

[boxerscott]

Steve, you live in rural Wales ? Why the need for an alarm that is causing you grief?


Chris.

[ianbcr]

[quote="boxerscott"]Steve, you live in rural Wales ? Why the need for an alarm that is causing you grief?


Chris.[/quote]
In case those sheep from Wallace and Gromit come to his house.

[slparry]

Steve, you live in rural Wales ? Why the need for an alarm that is causing you grief?


Chris.

For the times when I visit Mordor (AKA England..... in particular Merseyside ... although thankfully rarely nowadays


as for the sheep they're often spotted conspiring

http://gwynfryn.servebeer.com:8081/main ... =main2.htm