Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread: BIN or XDF files?

  1. #1

    BIN or XDF files?

    Anybody got a bin file (or xdf file) for a gen5 camaro ss? Anybody know of a generic repository for such things? Would be really useful if there was such a thing.

  2. #2
    Tuning Addict 5FDP's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    Rogers, MN
    Posts
    13,607
    There is a tune repository with tons of factory tunes. It's on your customer page.
    2016 Silverado CCSB 5.3/6L80e, not as slow but still heavy.

    If you don't post your tune and logs when you have questions you aren't helping yourself.

  3. #3
    Advanced Tuner
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Posts
    550
    HPT won't save a calibration in *.bin format, and since about 2014 will no longer open *.bin files. You will have to find a means of extracting the calibration in *.bin format.

    XDF files are used by TunerPro software as the road map to edit calibrations. These are developed by users, and are not commercially available. HPT has recently added the option for users to incorporate their own custom parameters via import from an XDF file.

    Both of the above are things that highly advanced users or tunershops develop for a specific purpose. An example would be, enabling Serial Data communications to the IPC in an LSx Solstice conversion.

    XDF files for OBD-I and some Gen 3 (24x) calibrations exist, and have been posted to the internet. It is highly doubtful that anyone who has developed custom parameters for the Gen 4 or Gen 5 platforms will share these.

  4. #4
    Then I completely miss the purpose of adding a new feature to the 3.5 revision to add your own parameters. HPT has clearly made every effort to keep bin files out of the equation and if there's no way to obtain them or the XDFs online, how would someone like myself ever be able to take advantage of the feature?

    Sounds to me like some sort of elitist BS that's exclusive to vendors... keeping innovation in the hands of capitalists who can profit from it and out of reach of the common folk, many of which are brimming with skills and potential to advance automotive science. It's sad and it's a kick in the teeth to know that the means exist to tune my own hardware but I have to buy an overpriced plastic box for $400 because I'm not exclusive enough to do the work myself.
    Last edited by RRRocketMan; 05-19-2017 at 10:22 AM.

  5. #5
    Advanced Tuner
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Posts
    550
    Quote Originally Posted by RRRocketMan View Post
    Then I completely miss the purpose of adding a new feature to the 3.5 revision to add your own parameters. HPT has clearly made every effort to keep bin files out of the equation and if there's no way to obtain them or the XDFs online, how would someone like myself ever be able to take advantage of the feature?

    Sounds to me like some sort of elitist BS that's exclusive to vendors... keeping innovation in the hands of capitalists who can profit from it and out of reach of the common folk, many of which are brimming with skills and potential to advance automotive science. It's sad and it's a kick in the teeth to know that the means exist to tune my own hardware but I have to buy an overpriced plastic box for $400 because I'm not exclusive enough to do the work myself.
    Nice rant ... doesn't mean much of anything.

    A little history lesson for you ...

    EFILive has always had a provision to allow users to add their own parameters. But they offer zero help with this - you have to figure it out for yourself - including how to write the script for the new parameter.

    HPT has recently added this functionality, and went the extra mile to configure their software to import user defined parameters from an existing XDF file - so that you also don't have to learn how to write a parameter script in HPT format.

    Working in binary and chasing down new parameters is a self taught endeavor. There are no classes for this, and often no road map for the particular calibration that you are working with. It can be a great deal of trial and error - and bricked controllers - all in the name of exploration.

    Just because you currently lack the skill to use this feature, does not make it a useless feature. Microsoft Office (Word / Excel / PowerPoint) have many features that the average user don't even know exist - but these features are still valuable to advanced users.

    So, stop complaining that other people know something that you don't - that is just life. If you are interested in learning how to work with binary code, then roll up your sleeves and start the self-educating process.

  6. #6
    This feature is nothing akin to anything Microsoft has written. It's advanced software engineering, and for your information I'm a casual programmer who's no stranger to writing scripts. I just don't have any application-specific knowledge of how to apply it to this task. But that's not really the central issue.

    Look at the target market. Are you telling me that >50% of HPT users can accomplish writing an XDF file for themselves? That's a rhetorical question btw. This feature caters to an extremely narrow niche of highly skilled and highly specialized individuals and is useless for most people. And why is it that nobody wants to teach this holy grail of skills? We're not all Leonardo DaVinci. If there are people who know how to do this stuff then they either invented it or learned it from somewhere else. What's the harm in throwing up a link to some literature somewhere on how to make an XDF file? What's the harm in allowing a person to own the bin file for their own bloody car so they have something to dig around in and teach themselves the ins and outs. I have 2 tuners. The other is DHP. That one worked in bin files. They must have been too stupid to protect their own IP right? Or maybe they just didn't feel compelled to shackle their customers in every possible way.

    But at the end of the day you are essentially right. I'm just a poor dumb shit so fuck me for trying to put some effort into doing the work myself instead of just opening my wallet. If I'm not brilliant enough to will the knowledge into my own head, then I don't deserve to use this generous gift offered by the great benefactors at HPT.

  7. #7
    Advanced Tuner
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Posts
    550
    You may want to reduce your caffeine intake a little ... just saying.

    We live in a world where "intellectual property" is a semi-tangible commodity, and often worth hard currency. Don't expect BlackBerry to tell you how to encrypt cellular communications, simply because you asked.

    OK ... enough said .

    Some basic skills in hexadecimal (base 16) are required - which you may already have. Understanding that a signed value may have half of the resolution of an unsigned value, for a given value range (generally 8 bit or 16 bit data) - 32 bit data is often floating point, and is its own special animal.

    An example - 8 bit data. It has a raw value range of 00 to FF (0 to 255). If this 8 bit data cell was used for a MPH parameter, with a possible range of 0 to 100 MPH (unsigned), then the maximum resolution would be to the nearest 0.4 MPH (approximately).

    When I say there is no road map for calibrations, I am not kidding. I am self taught in working with calibrations in their raw form. I have tracked down a few parameters not available in commercial software, but it takes a great deal of time and effort.

    A few years ago I was determined to find a "switch" (on or off parameter) in a calibration. I found it, but it took 3 weeks and 473 field tests in the vehicle - I will never do that again!

    As far as links to websites, I would have to undertake a search - Google works just as well on your computer as it does on mine.

  8. #8
    It does... and I have... but most of the hits I get in the results page lead me to websites selling something that defeats the purpose of doing it yourself.

    I heard somewhere... maybe it was over at Camaro5, that there were limited maps of popular GM ECUs that had already mapped certain blocks of memory and had descriptors of the PIDs ready to use. In that case, provided you found what you wanted in that list, you would have the tremendous advantage of knowing the PID and its address already, saving yourself the field work. I suspect "some" currently unexposed parameters that would be of great use to tuners (such as fuel system limits imposed on pressure/voltage) may already have been mapped because we know there are EFI users and certain vendors that have already cracked their fuel systems. Naturally if you ask around you may get a tip but if there's already a concerted effort going on to mine all the tables and such from popular ECUs, it seems to me this would make a good open-source project. It lends itself to that sort of hive mentality and a lot of valuable tuning knowledge could be made available as a result of it. I know you'll say "in a perfect world..." so yeah, I get that but it just seems to be harder than it should be to jump right in and get to work.

    With most hobbies of mine, there's no profit being made in it, such as video game modding for example. I guess I'm used to a community mentality so if this is my wake-up call, so be it. I know if I discovered something in the tunes that nobody knew about, I'd just post it, but that's me. Anyway, I will continue to search the internet for educational material. Maybe I'll get lucky.