9 Pin Serial Cable Wire Colors

1. 9 Pin Serial Connection
2. 9 Pin Serial Cable Diagram

Starting with model year 2016 and newer trucks, commercial vehicles started showing up with the new green 9-pin plug in the dash. Previously they were black in color and now they are green. If you have a black cable, you will find that it will not physically fit into the green diagnostic port; this left technicians with new many questions, including:. So, what is going on here?. Why did the truck manufacturers make our lives more difficult?. Can I just but a new cable for my truck adapter?All of these are very good questions but before we can answer those we need to dig a little deeper and explain why the change occurred. You will also see this new green connector referred to in several different ways:.

9 Pin Serial Connection

Type II Connector/Cable. CAN500 Connector/Cable. Green Connector/Cable. The adapter connectors on trucks have been evolving since trucks first went electronic. We have that goes into the history of the first two setups and explains J1708 and J1939. Essentially, trucks have gotten more and more complicated-there are more computers, more wires, more sensors, and more technology on trucks.

While 10 years ago trucks may have had 2 or 3 Electronic Control Units (ECUs), today’s modern trucks are quickly approaching 20 different ECUs. With all this new “traffic” on the vehicle network, the old speeds of the “black” connector trucks were limited at 250 kbs on J1939. With the new “green” connectors, this speed is doubled to 500 kbs.The main reason for the new “green” connector is that not all truck adapters and scanning tools are capable of reading 500 kbs, and it was feared that technicians would hook up older tools and cause damage to the tool, the truck, or both. The solution was to make the “Green” adapter slightly different so that it works on both the green and black adapter, thus making it backwards compatible.To further explain this, 250 kbs and 500 kbs are the speeds at which messages are broadcasted on the vehicle. There can only be one speed per datalink, so if any devices (truck vs adapters) on the datalink are set at different rates the entire datalink will crash. To make things more confusing, in 2017 we started to see the introduction of multiple CAN channels.

Think of a CAN channel as its own network on the vehicle, and it is running at the 500 kbs speed. Well, even though the speeds are greatly increased there is still a LOT of traffic going through it with the number of sensors and ECUs. For this reason, the introduction of multiple CAN channels came to be. The first iteration of this setup was simply using one CAN channel for “powertrain” components, and another CAN channel for everything else such as body controllers, radios, seats, and whatever else.Normally you will find all your traffic for powertrain on CAN1, however that changed for the first time in 2016. This is when Peterbilt, Kenworth, and Volvo decided to move the powertrain traffic over to CAN3, which now created a problem.

Using your “normal” diagnostic tools with green connectors as explained above, they will not function. You now need to purchase a CAN3 to CAN1 cross over cable. To summarize, I’ll use an analogy. Let’s take the modern Interstate system, and think of all its roads as our vehicle network. Cities would be the equivalent to truck ECUs.

Everything is going along great, traffic isn’t bad, but now are cities are growing in population so we have more traffic and everyone is complaining how slow it is. The first solution we have is to increase the road speed (Our network speed from 250 kbs to 500 kbs).

This works for a while, but we again continue to grow and everyone complains. To increase the speed anymore would be unsafe, so the next solution is to add more lanes to our Interstate system (Adding more CAN channels). However, not all our vehicles can handle this nice new Interstate system and road speeds, os residents need to purchase new vehicles (Green Type II connectors) in order to do so. So where does this leave technicians, shops, and fleets that have older diagnostic scan tools with the “black” cables and can’t physically connect to the newer trucks? The answer to that question depends on which diagnostic tool that you have.

If your datalink adapter is cable of working with the CAN 500 kbs network speeds, you can simply look at purchasing a “black to green” cross over cable. Other datalink manufacturers have released their own “green” cables, while other manufacturers have done nothing. So let’s take a look first at all the options that can convert a black cable to a green cable for your tool, along with the CAN3 to CAN1 cross over cables. Grandview Engineering has designed a universal adapter to convert your current cable and setup so you can use your cables with the black end on the new green connectors found in 2016 and newer vehicles. The important thing for you to find out before using this option is making sure your tool can work on CAN500 vehicle networks. The following list of tools have been validated to work with this adapter.

If you find another one that does as well, please let us know so we can add to the list!. Cummins Inline 5. Nexiq USB Link. TEXA changed to the green connector style in late 2015, but in doing so they also changed the cable configuration. Today’s configuration is a two-piece setup.

9 Pin Serial Cable Diagram

Your first cable goes from the TXT box to an OBDII cable. You then have an OBDII to 6-pin, 9-pin, and OBDI cable. For customers that purchased previous to late 2015, you will have a different two-piece setup. You have a “master” cable that goes from the TXT to a round 14-pin connector, and then another cable that goes from the 14-pin to your 6, 9, and OBDII.

For these customers you would need to purchase two things in order to upgrade:. Now that you’ve figured out which option to purchase to use your old hardware, the next problem is the multiple CAN channels. While some truck diagnostic tools, such as the TEXA Truck, are able to manage this with software, the rest are not. This means you are forced to purchase a CAN3 to CAN1 cross-over cable. Several companies have released CAN3 to CAN1 cross over cables, and all of them work the same. The decision comes down to brand loyalty, price, and appearance.

Here are the known CAN3 to CAN1 cross over cables on the market today. Hey Tyler,This is a great website you have here. Very nice pictures and information.I am a College Professor in Ontario, Canada teaching Truck and Coach and I was wondering if I could borrow some of your pictures to include in my presentation to my students on vehicle communication? It would save me a lot of time in building my presentation.

If not, I fully understand. Keep up the good work.

Look forward to following your site.Regards,Bill AdamsTruck and Coach CoordinatorConestoga CollegeGuelph, Ontario.