I've only used my Harbour freight charger on 10 amp mode and it's more than enough to use to maintain power for diagnostic. Nothing much you'll be doing during diag that will use more than 10 amps for long duration. These huge MB batteries help buffer too.

 

This is overkill for home shop but it's what Mercedes uses and I know of several European motorcycle manufacturers that use this exact brand too. Around $1200 USD, maybe find a used one but still it's a lot of $$ for home shop use. Professional shops use them because it pretty much makes a one-time job and guarantees not failing and starting over, and over on a single job when the power supply fails midway through a job. Time is money for the professional.

 

I'll will try this one.
I like the dedicated power supply function with constant 13.6 V output…

Using Supply Mode on GENIUS10
NOCO GENIUS10 is equipped with a Supply Mode. Supply Mode converts the charger to a constant current, constant voltage DC power supply. It can be used for powering any 12VDC device, like a tire inflator, oil changer and more. As a power supply, it can also be used to retain a vehicle’s on-board computer settings during battery repair or replacement. 13.6V Supply provides 13.6-volts at 10A with overload protection at 12A (Max).

 

delete pls.

 

...so I got one of these SDconnect C4 multiplexers and Xentry/DAS for my R230 Benz, works well but when turning on the ignition I noticed how power hungry everything is.
Fully charged batteries but Xentry/Das showingvoltage as 11.9 .... 11.8V after a while on top of the notebook screen...
I could turn the engine on and let the alternator keep everything going but when working with Xentry you need to cycle ignition often...

How are you guys dealing with it, don't think one of these low cost chargers will make a difference...I read that maybe 100A would be needed and a stable voltage supply around 13V? I do not want to damage anything with the Battery Control Module (BCM) either.
Maybe I am overthinking this?

You need something in 15-20A range.

Here is what I use at home or on neighbors cars.

Steady 14.4V (checked with oscilloscope) amps as needed.

Amazon.com

 

Not sure about this one, more of a charger...

 

Got his one on Amazon.com
20A and also dedicated power supply mode.

 

Got his one on Amazon.com
20A and also dedicated power supply mode.

Let us know how it works in real life.

 

From personal experience my HD charger/booster won't maintain over 12V on its 10 amp setting when I'm using Xentry. Its remarkable how heavy the key on drain is. The 30 amp setting is overkill but I don't have anything in between. I'm just guessing but that 20 amp unit should be right on the money.

 

When you look at the alternator specs 125+Amps at idle it all makes sense... For hobby use simply connecting another vehicle at idle with cables makes probably most sense since it allows you to cycle the ignition?

 

I'm here and in the market for a solution...

Waiting to hear the verdict on the Clore 2320. Thinking that, however, 20A is on the low side. I'd run across another thread in BenzWorld talking about this subject and there was a mention of PowerMax PM3 I believe it was; seems that there might be newer versions ("PMBC" I think they're badged) which are in the 75A to 125A range.

 

I have not tried it, the price is great...almost certain that charger + 20A power supply is fine for maintaining voltage during diagnostics, but likely most chargers will be as well...
for module programming I am thinking MB has some kind of guidline of the range the voltage can swing in order to not compromise the flash procedure. I am not an expert at all and not programming, I just don't want the battery to go down during diagnostics...

 

I suppose each vehicle will be slightly different but for my ML350 Bluetec 20 amps would be adequate. My 30 amp setting holds the battery well over 13 volts. The 10 amp setting is clearly too little.

 

I think that when I next have the opportunity to do so I'll key-on the car and measure amp draw, that'll tell me for sure (and then, of course, bump that up a bit; but in general it should take the guess work out, for this car).

 

That's why for home use I opted for charger that displays current.

Battery fully charged. Constant voltage 14.4V, diminishing current 0.9A

Door open. Current jumps to 4.7A

Key on, all accessories off. Current 11.6A

 

Probably vehicle specific, workshops use professional and expensive supplies with ~ 100A rating in order to keep voltage stable at around 13.2V (but depends and I don’t know). Programming is just completely different… and personally wouldn’t gamble using a cheap box and hope for the best 😉

 

Yes, it is vehicle specific. MB recommends 14.2V while flashing. BMW 14.4V.
Key on drain varies by vehicle as well. W221 is about 40A, W222 45A.

Here is R230 with key on.

 

Well, crap. I don't have anything to measure DC amps. I think I'll just get the 55 amp one from PowerMax: minimum would likely be 40 amp in which case 15 more amps would give some breathing room. $200 is money I wasn't expecting to be shelling out but it's worth it rather than having to constantly battle low voltage when doing a simple scan.

 

Don't overthink this. Point is not to let battery fall below 13V (yellow icon on DAS screen) unless you are flashing. Finish diagnostic session, disconnect DAS and let charger bring battery up.

 

You could do what various shops near me do....buy RV battery chargers.

Amazon.com

Those maintain voltage around 14v. They are an acceptable alternative if you can't stomach paying $500+ for proper ones.

 

As Witek_M said, don't overthink it for simple Xentry/DAS diagnostics...

 

That RecPro is likely the same contents/core as the PowerMax but the PowerMax, for roughly $50 more, gets you a display for voltage (not sure if anything else) and cables (if you split this amount between the two "additional" things then each is roughly $25; perhaps it's a little on the higher side for each "feature" but I don't think it likely by much).

I have yet to be able to operate DAS w/o going under 12v. I have found the software to be insanely slow to get loaded up, and as such when I run it I'm going to be using it as much as I can (shutting down between activities to recharge the battery [been there, done that] then requires to once again take a bunch of time to reenter DAS). I HAVE used a power supply but it just doesn't cut it- maybe this function is defective: an old NOCO Genius which I don't know what amps it puts out (jump start can do 50 amps, that's about all I know about it).

 

No idea of the configuration of your DAS, but I'm running some pretty old Dell D830 laptops. I found that maxing out the memory (still not much!) and installing a fast 120 GB solid-state drive helped a lot with the speed. Cleaning up some of the unwanted MicroSoft crap helped a little more.

 

I just got Xentry/DAS on SSD, and using it with a Lenovo T420s (4GB), upgraded to 16GB (cheap). Happy with the speed.

 

I have a Dell 6430 with the faster processor (option) and 16GB of memory and a 256GB SSD. I hate Windows (don't run it on anything else), but I don't think that it's the OS. When I have time I'll dig into things a bit more. But having to wait 10 to 15 minutes to "load data" is really annoying (fortunately I'm not relying on this to make money AND I've always got stuff I can do in the shop while waiting).

 

Pretty sure it has all to do with the Benz and not the computer hardware, the Benz is old and likely so is the CAN communication protocol, the speed I mean, probably like dial up vs fiber these days
Having said that, I do not have to wait 10 to 15 minutes to "load data"...

 

I have never had the "load data" delay on any of my systems (five so far) on a number of W220, ML and GL vehicles. All have been on Dell D630 or D830 systems, except for the first one on an IBM laptop back in the dark ages, but even it didn't have that delay.

I would suspect your program.

 

I would suspect your program.

DAS? (I got the software, SSD, from a recommended seller)

Next time I hook things up I'll look to time things and post what I find.

 

Yes, DAS for "older". I was questioning what wallyp meant by [your] "program".

 

I am neither a software engineer nor a software expert.

Based upon casual reading on DAS starting before I built my first system on an IBM Thinkpad years ago, these are some of the things that I think that I have learned.

The original DAS software as used by Mercedes Benz appeared to be continuously modified, at times with monthly updates online.

The software was hacked by Chinese software engineers over several years. Each hacker appeared to select a different version to clone and modify. The modifications are not uniform, with some vendors doing the minimum modifications necessary to make the software work, and then continuing to make modifications as users complained. Others seem to have made more thorough modifications. Later vendors would "borrow" a hacked Chinese system and make and sell their own modifications.

It seems obvious to me that there are dozens of different versions and modifications, and I very seriously doubt that anyone really knows exactly what software they have.

I appear to have gotten lucky quite a few years ago to have bought my third or fourth set of software from a Canadian software engineer who, as a fun hobby, thoroughly massaged the software, using two or three Chinese versions as the base. Unfortunately, he simply disappeared several years ago.

Good luck.

 

I bought the PowerMax 55 amp power supply. Used it once so far and it seems to do the job well. As a battery charger I'm not all that excited about it: no real clues on the state of charging- only has display for voltage.

Regarding the DAS launch times, there's about a 22 second delay after hitting enter from the NOTES page. It's after model selection that it takes a long time, about 4 minutes. For more things my Foxwell is more efficient and convenient. When I need to really dig into things I'll suffer the 4 minutes or so load times of DAS.

 

Mine works way faster but I start entering the VIN, don't have to wait.