Introduction / Identification

Ports and Connectivity

Software Support

As of 5/5/2014 software support is as follows:

Neptune: Full emulation+data+onboard (stable)
ecTune: Emulation+data (stable)
Crome: Emulation+data (some versions)

Please note that each Demon has a serial number – NepTune and eCtune both license a single copy of the software to a single Demon.  The exact procedure for this is different for each software package.

Datalogging Memory

Demon II units have 4Mbyte (32Mbit) memory.  This is enough for several hours of logging at full speed on all channels, with compression turned on.

Switching Between Software

You can now more easily switch among the different applications using our Config Utility for resetting the state of your Demon.

Indicator Lights

Light behavior on the Demon II is the same as the 1.9+ Demon firmware.

The red LED serves as a hardware status indicator and/or busy light.

• Red light on solid = not receiving power from the ECU: physical connection issue to ECU
• Red LED will blink when logging packets are being captured

The green LED is more of a data packet and status indicator light.  It typically behaves as follows:

• Solid green light when the Demon is powered on and all systems are go but no packets are being received
• Green light is off when the device is busy OR Demon is powered off
• Fast green blinks mean the Demon is receiving good datalogging packets from the ECU.

Troubleshooting:

• Red light onwith USB plugged in means the Demon is NOT receiving power from the ECU.
  • You will only see this condition when the Demon is being powered by USB
  • Check 28 pin socket bridge pins and connection
  • Check ECU CN2 – 4 pin port connection.  This is REQUIRED for proper Demon operation
• Green light off means no power to ECU.  Red on / green off is expected with no power.
• No lights at all when USB is plugged in generally is a fault condition.
  • Try removing the Demon from the ECU.  If the Red light comes on, check the chipping job and physical connections between the Demon and the ECU

Download link  Download link 2

In order to get a device back into a sane state, you need to CHANGE the vendor ID (which software it is set up for).  Once you have changed the vendor ID, unplug, count to three, plug back in.  You’ll probably have to answer “yes” to a few dialog boxes about setting up the hardware when you next use your software of choice.

Introduction / Identification

Software Support

As of 11/03/09 software support is as follows:
Neptune: Full emulation+data+onboard (release)
ecTune: Emulation+data (release)
Crome: Emulation+data (beta)
Please note that each Demon has a serial number – NepTune and eCtune both license a single copy of the software to a single Demon.  The exact procedure for this is different for each software package.

Datalogging Memory

The first production runs of Demons have 1 Mbyte memory for storing datalogging.  Current (starting around April 2010) production units have 4Mbyte memory.  Early production units can have their memory upgraded.  If you are interested in this service, purchase the Install Service item and note in the “Comments” field of your order that you would like the Demon memory upgrade.  You’ll have to send your Demon back to us – turnaround time is normally about 2 weeks.

Switching Between Software

You can now more easily switch among the different applications using our Config Utility for resetting the state of your Demon.

Indicator Lights (1.8 and older firmware)

The Demon has two LEDs to indicate its status, one red and one green.

The red LED serves as a hardware status indicator and/or busy light.  It can come on when:

• Demon is currently processing a command (upload/download/etc)
• Poor / nonexistent connection between Demon and ECU 28 pin socket.  (usual cause: faulty installation)
• Poor / nonexistent connection between Demon and ECU CN2 port.  (usual cause: cabling, cable backwards, faulty installation)
• Demon is powered via USB but there is no power to ECU
• NEPTUNE RTP ONLY: No serial communication between ECU and Demon
• Red LED will blink when onboard packets are being stored to memory

The green LED is more of a data packet and status indicator light.  It typically behaves as follows:

• Lights up solid green when the Demon is powered on
• Blinks when the Demon is communicating with the ECU (assuming data packets are configured correctly)
  • Fast blinking means data is flowing properly from ECU to Demon via CN2
  • Slow blinking likely means data timeout / incorrect connection/configuration

Indicator Lights (1.9 and newer firmware)

Light behavior has been changed in the new firmware.

The red LED serves as a hardware status indicator and/or busy light.

• Red light on solid = not receiving power from the ECU: physical connection issue to ECU
• Red LED will blink when logging packets are being captured

The green LED is more of a data packet and status indicator light.  It typically behaves as follows:

• Solid green light when the Demon is powered on and all systems are go but no packets are being received
• Green light is off when the device is busy OR Demon is powered off
• Fast green blinks mean the Demon is receiving good datalogging packets from the ECU.

Troubleshooting:

• Red light onwith USB plugged in means the Demon is NOT receiving power from the ECU.
  • You will only see this condition when the Demon is being powered by USB
  • Check 28 pin socket bridge pins and connection
  • Check ECU CN2 – 4 pin port connection.  This is REQUIRED for proper Demon operation
• Green light off means no power to ECU.  Red on / green off is expected with no power.
• No lights at all when USB is plugged in generally is a fault condition.
  • Try removing the Demon from the ECU.  If the Red light comes on, check the chipping job and physical connections between the Demon and the ECU

ECU Chipping

You need to add a few additional components to the original Honda ECU. It requires some soldering skills and should not be attempted unless you have soldered before. (Chances are you know someone with soldering skills that could help you). Here is a picture of the P28 ECU that I chipped, before any of the parts were put in:

Before you can solder the parts in, you will need to de-solder the holes in the circuit board since they come filled with solder from the factory. You can buy a “solder sucker” to do the job, however unless you get a nice one (expensive) they don’t really work well in my opinion. The cheap and easy solution is to buy some solder braid. It’s just braided copper. Simply place it over the hole to be de-soldered, and place the soldering iron on top of the braid. It will then wick up the solder into the braid. It’s available at radioshack:

You’ll want to use a decent quality soldering iron to get the job done nicely. The important thing is to not use too much heat, and also make sure the iron has a fine tip on it. I’m using a standard Weller iron:

Here is what it should look like after the board has been de-soldered:

The parts that need to be added are boxed in with a dashed white line. The parts consist of (2) .1uF ceramic capacitors, (1) 1k resistor, (1) wire jumper (simply a piece of wire…I used a lead of the resistor), (1) 74HC373 chip, and (1) 29C256 chip (thats the EPROM). The resistor and capacitors have no polarity, so you don’t have to worry about installing them backwards. The 74HC373 chip does have a polarity. Pin 1 will be on the left side of the pic (you’ll see in detail later one). The same is true for the EPROM chip. Since it would be impossible to burn a chip and have the tune be perfect, it becomes obvious that you don’t want to solder the chip in. Instead, use a socket so that it can be removed. You have two options: for less than $1, you can get a standard DIP socket. The problem is these are very hard to insert and remove the chips since there are 28 pins (it requires a lot of force and is hard to grip the chip). Your second option would be a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket, which costs less than $10. It is a socket that has a lever: pull up the lever, set the chip in/lift it out, and flip the lever back – VERY nice to have since you’ll be doing this many times while tuning. Be careful when ordering the ZIF socket, as many of them are too large to fit on the board without running into things. The first ZIF I bought was made by Aries, and it was a very quality piece, however, it was too large and bulky to fit without a lot of modification to other components on the board. I ended up ordering a different one that was much more compact. I am unaware of the brand, however it is blue and is referred to as a low-profile ZIF. The only problem was that the lever end of it was in the way of the 74HC373. The easy solution is to buy a standard DIP socket as mentioned above. Solder this onto the board. Then, stack the ZIF onto this socket, which raises the ZIF away from the board enough to clear the surrounding parts. This setup worked very well for me. The following picture shows the too-big-to-fit ZIF in the back-left, the low-profile ZIF in the front left, and the DIP socket on the right:

The ZIF socket stacked on the DIP socket for added height:

And finally, a couple of pics with all of the parts installed:

I ordered most of my parts from www.jdr.com except for the low-profile ZIF socket and DIP socket, which I obtained from www.jameco.com. The following table containse the exact part numbers that I ordered. You’ll notice that I ordered two EPROMS. This way, it will be easier to burn one while the other is installed.

Additionally, I have recently located all of the parts you will need from one source. DigiKey is where you can find them. Their inventory selection can be overwhelming, so here are the part numbers you will want:

And for a final update to this page, I’d like to add that you can find ALL of the necessary chipping parts at moates.net. It is a great deal in my opinion, and you’re guaranteed to get the correct parts the first time around. It’s under the name of “Honda ECU Chipping Kit”.

With that out of the way, you’re looking at this page because your USB drivers are very broken.  You have devices in Device Manager with yellow exclamation marks that cannot load, cannot start or just plain don’t work.  This procedure will forcibly remove everything FTDI related and allow you to start over with a clean slate.

1. Step one: download FTCLEAN from FTDI’s website – link
2. Step two: unzip the file into a directory on your computer.
3. Step three: run FTCLEAN.EXE
4. Step four: click “Clean system” then click Yes to confirm
5. Step five: REINSTALL FTDI DRIVERS!!!  You should be starting from scratch.

Almost all Moates.net products have a USB interface to connect to a computer. (ALDU1, HULOG, Hondalog, BURN1/2, Ostrich 1/2, Roadrunner, Quarterhorse, Jaybird) Fortunately, all Moates.net products with a USB interface use the same USB support chip so they can all use the same drivers. This makes it easy for you – one driver install will take care of ALL Moates products! Check out USB Driver Installation for more on how to reinstall drivers.

The chip in our devices is made by a company called FTDI. This chip is VERY common and is used in everything from USB-serial and USB-parallel adapters sold in computer stores to other automotive electronics products. This is important because of the possibility of a driver conflict between drivers for your Moates.net devices and other devices that also use the FTDI chips. AEM FIC, Hondata S300 and K-Pro and the USB Instruments Stingray and Swordfish (among others) have a tendency to obliterate our drivers and cause driver conflicts. Be warned: the troubleshooting instructions later on this page may cause other devices that use the FTDI chips to stop working. Tip: If you start having driver conflicts, installing the latest drivers from FTDI will often be enough to resolve conflicts and make everything work again.

Making Sure Everything is Working and Configured

First step to making sure you don’t have a connection issue is to unplug all USB devices that are not absolutely necessary from your computer.

First, Right click on My Computer. (You might find this on the desktop, you might find this in your start menu. Desktop pictured)

Next, go to the Hardware tab and select “Device Manager.” (note: Windows XP is pictured, but the exact placement of device manager may vary slightly in Win98 and Vista)

Next, go to the “Ports” section of device manager and click the + sign next to it to open it, if it is not already open. You should see something like this:

Now plug in ONE of your Moates.net devices. We are going to plug them in one at a time to figure out which ports Windows is assigning to them. Assuming everything is working, you should see something like this in device manager:

The “USB Serial Port” device pictured is using COM10. Some software has issues with COM ports greater than 8, so the first thing we are going to do is change the port it uses to a port less than 8. Looking at device manager, you can see that Bluetooth Communications Port has used COM5 and a Communications Port has used COM1. We should not use either of these ports. We are going to change to COM3, which is unused. First step: right click on the “USB Serial Port” device and click “Properties.”

Next, click on the “Port Settings” tab at the top of the Window.

Next click the “Advanced” button.

On this screen, there are several things to change. First change the COM Port Number to COM3, the port we decided was open. If all of your ports say “in use” you can still select them, but it is recommended you find an unused port under 8. Second, set the Latency Timer to 1 msec. When you are done, click OK on this screen and the driver screen that follows until you are back at Device Manager.

These are the optimal settings for our devices (COM1 – COM8 and Latency = 1ms). If you had trouble, try again with these settings. Remember which port your device was using in device manager when it comes time to configure your tuning software.

Common Issues with USB Drivers and Connections

It is possible to disable devices in Windows. Sometimes this can happen accidentally. If a device is disabled, it has a red X across its icon, like the Bluetooth Communications Port in this picture.

To enable it, right click on the device and select “Enable.” Afterwards, the device should not have a red X across its icon.

Devices can also have issues loading or have device driver problems. When this happens, a yellow exclamation mark appears. Almost 100% of the time, this is a sign that you need to reinstall device drivers. If a simple reinstall does not fix the issue, there is a more heavyhanded method to reinstall drivers using FTCLEAN.

As a rule of thumb, the WHQL drivers which will be downloaded automatically will work fine.  However, it is recommended that you use the drivers from our site with Win98, WinXP and Vista.  Automatic drivers will generally work fine for Win7 but there are certain known good drivers.  We specifically recommend the latest drivers available from FTDI for machines running Windows 8, 8.1, Win10 or newer.

Specifically recommended driver versions:

• Windows 98/ME drivers can be downloaded by clicking here.
• Windows 2000/XP/Vista drivers can be downloaded by clicking here.
• There is a Vista Specific Guide that may be helpful to those running Vista.  Vista is also known to work well with the 2.08.x.x series of drivers in addition to the drivers listed above.
• Windows 7 is known to be stable with the 2.08.24 driver (available under “no longer supported drivers”) as well as the 2.12.x.x series (latest at time of writing) which are both available here.  In some cases, the 2.08 series works better than 2.12 series, your mileage may vary.  Use of drivers older than the 2.08 series is not recommended!
• 8 and 8.1 are known to be stable with the 2.08.24 driver (available under “no longer supported drivers”) as well as the 2.12.x.x series (latest at time of writing) which are both available here.  In some cases, the 2.08 series works better than 2.12 series, your mileage may vary.  Use of drivers older than the 2.08 series is not recommended!
• Windows 10 and newer machines are highly recommended to use the latest and greatest VCP drivers available directly from the USB chip’s manufacturer here. (at time of writing: 2.12.28.0)  In rare cases, the 2.08.24 driver (available under “no longer supported drivers”) can work better but this is NOT recommended.  Use of drivers older than the 2.08 series is known to cause issues!

If you have trouble, start with this troubleshooting guide.

If you have trouble, you may also want to look at FTDI’s Installation Guides for your OS.

This article was accurate as of the time it was written (2009) but things may have changed.  At Moates.net, we rely on information from our users about what works and what doesn’t work.  Please investigate on PGMFI.org and elsewhere to confirm the information you find here!  Things may have changed and we may not be in the loop.

Unsupported Vehicles

• V6 Hondas have very limited hardware and software support
• K-series Hondas have no support from hardware we make at this time
• 2001+ non-K series Hondas (D17, R18, etc.) have no support from hardware we make at this time
• Automatic Hondas have very limited support. Very little has been done with automatic transmission controls and many tuning packages eliminate the code used to control auto transmissions.

Unsupported ECUs

• Anything pre-1988 probably lacks spark control. There isn’t much if anything available software-wise for these ECUs. You might find 24 or 28 pin EPROMs inside, you might not. Your mileage may vary.
• 1988-1991 DPFI (Dual Point Fuel Injection – Throttle Body Injection) ECUs have zero software support. 90-91 models can be chipped like an OBD1 ECU hardware-wise, but that doesn’t solve the software issue.
• 1988-1989 Civic Si (PM6) and 1988-1991 CRX HF ECU (PM8) require a daughterboard we do not sell in order to be chipped. Use a 90-91 ECU on these model years.
• 1992-1995 JDM GSR Automatic ECUs (hardware design makes chipping them impossible. Auto JDM P30s are ok)
• 1996-2001 ECUs (OBD II – hardware design makes chipping very difficult to impossible, requires surface mount soldering tools and chips no longer available on the market.)
• Prelude ECUs (trivially chippable, but unless you are going to develop the software support, it doesn’t currently exist)
• V6 ECUs from Legend (early models can be trivially chipped, but unless you are going to develop the software support, it doesn’t currently exist)
• NSX ECUs (early models can be trivially chipped, but unless you are going to develop the software support, it doesn’t currently exist)
• Basically any ECU other than an Integra or Civic ECU is not well-supported

This information was last updated 2/4/09 by Dave Blundell.

Hardware Supported

Currently, the Demon 2 is the only supported hardware for Neptune.  We sell the Demon2+Neptune RTP setup.

Discontinued Hardware

If you have discontinued hardware, you can get current production hardware (Demon2) for half off with our trade-in program.  More details here.

The Demon (or “Demon 1”) is no longer in production and has been replaced by the Demon2.

Demon1 hardware

The original Neptune RTP board was designed by Moates.  It is no longer in production and has been replaced by the Demon2.

Original Neptune RTP Hardware

Periodically we release new firmware for our products. We generally recommend AGAINST updating firmware unless you have a very specific reason for doing so, as there is always the chance something will go wrong during an update leaving the device bricked in a state where it has to be sent in for repair.

If you are attempting to update your firmware because you think your current firmware is corrupt, be advised that you will not be able to update your firmware unless the old firmware actually works (a little) and is able to accept new firmware. You will have to return your device to us in these cases.  Some newer r

Again, most of the time problems can be resolved without a firmware upgrade. Consult this site and/or contact us at [email protected] if you think you need a firmware update.

Firmware Update Procedure

The information on this page pertains to the following devices:

• APU1 AutoProm
• Ostrich 1.0
• Ostrich 2.0
• Flash & Burn (BURN1 / BURN2 / Jaybird)
• Roadrunner LS1 16-Bit Emulator
• QuarterHorse J3 Ford Emulator
• Demon integrated tuning device
• NEMU integrated tuning device

Directions for updating firmware:

1. Download the following utility (new version as of 2017):
   Firmware Update Utility
   and unzip it to the location of your choice.
2. Download the appropriate firmware package for your hardware from the table below and unzip it to the location of your choice (preferably to the same location as the update utility).
3. Connect your hardware to your PC and close all software applications.
4. Start the firmware update utility. Your hardware should be automatically detected. If it isn’t, click the “Detect” button
5. Click the “Browse” button in the update utility and browse to the firmware package you downloaded and unzipped in step 2 above.
6. If the package and hardware match, the “Update” button should be available. Press it now.
7. Once complete, the updater should notify you of success and display the new version information.

Firmware downloads for individual units: