stevj
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- Aug 23, 2018
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This is a long post, but I hope these points will inform and educate anyone thinking of purchasing the Ram 1500 wiring diagrams USB from Ram Tech Authority, and perhaps prompt a knowledgeable and helpful response or two.
Background -
I have the Ram 1500 DT CD-based Factory Service Manual from Ram Tech Authority that I bought from them back in October 2018, just after I got the Ram. It's HTML-based, and requires (forces, actually) Internet Explorer to run (I'm told it will also run in the Chrome browser, but I have not been successful). I copied the contents of the CD to a folder on my my hard drive and made a desktop shortcut to start it in IE11. All was good.
Not my first choice of format, IE11. Stuff is easy to find in the FSM if you already know where to look, but there's no ability to search (as with a PDF-based document), and this makes finding stuff difficult if you don't already have an idea where it might be. But I can print out pictures and procedures and take them to the vehicle as ready references. Work gets done.
So....
Pleased to finally see wiring diagrams for sale at the very same Ram Tech Authority, I forked over just shy of $150 for this USB version they sell. That was total cost, including sales tax and postage. Only took a few days to arrive and I was off to the races.
Or so I thought.
Size of a credit card and has a 2GB (yes, 2GB) USB thingy that swings out for use. Gotta be careful with that. It feels fragile when extended for use.
It forces Internet Explorer, just like the FSM. Okay, I'll endure. After all - now I have wiring diagrams, right?
After a frustrating first hour with it, I was hit hard with a dose of reality and concluded the purchase of this thing was a mistake.
Or perhaps I had unrealistic expectations, but right about here is where the excrement began impacting the rotating blades of my oscillating appliance.
Don't take my word. You decide:
1 - Inserted into any USB port, it did not autostart as it was advertised to do.
2 - It would not run using the instructions provided in the Readme file. No other instructions of any kind were enclosed.
3 - Looking into the autorun.inf file I discovered this thing has a COPY PROTECTION scheme (more on this in a bit), but reading this file also told how to get it started from the Windows File Explorer. Here's a picture of the contents of this USB device. You sharp-eyed folks will immediately notice that this USB stick thinks it's a CD, and that it's mounted. Well; then it should have auto-started.
I've never seen a CD-format partition on a USB drive before. I must do research on this, and perhaps I'll discover a way to back this thing up. The use of a CD-format partition, in concert with the copy protection, means a few very frustrating things:
4 - Can't make a backup copy. I want a safety backup for the usual reasons. Hope this one doesn't fail while I own the Ram.
5 - Can't copy the contents to my hard drive and run it from there because the copy protection scheme checks for the presence of the USB stick when it starts, and even with the USB stick inserted, running from the hard drive will fail.
6 - Can't find a way to print an entire wiring diagram. Instructions to print are not included. Any attempt to print gives this output to my printer (a partial pic to keep this post size under control, but you get the idea).
7 - If I try to save a diagram out as a graphic, my screen goes dark and this warning message appears. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic. PrintScrn is disabled while the program is running.
Tried it anyway - no program I have would open the saved file, even though it claimed to be a .png. And that second sentence is wrong, because as soon as I closed the program, the saved file was immediately deleted.
8 - Any attempt to print by selecting Adobe PDF or Microsoft Print to PDF immediately grays out the PRINT button. Starting the program with either of those two choices as the default printer will lock up the program mid-start and require use of the Task Manager to close. I then have to re-assign a default printer for the program to run.
9 - Can't take a screengrab and print that. As mentioned above, PrintScrn is totally disabled while the program is running. Even if I minimize the program, I cannot use PrintScrn on any other window on my computer until the program is closed.
I can, however, take a picture of my computer screen with my cell phone ....
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!
10 - The only way I could see an entire wiring diagram is to make it very much smaller using the zoom controls on the page and output as Microsoft XPS document. This creates a document with a .oxsp suffix that, just like the .png example in item 6 above, will be immediately deleted for me when I close the program.
And there you have it, folks: My Nightmare and welcome to it. Yours, too, if you buy one of these.
WTFO!
I sent Ram $150 and I got a tool(?) with a convoluted and difficult interface, and with limited access.
If I returned it, I'd "only" be out the return shipping and a rather punitive 25% "restocking fee."
"I am disappoint" as a Russian friend would say.
Still, reckon I'll keep it, as the cost of returning it sucks. With time, patience and perhaps a few helpful hints from you kind folks, the challenge of making a working backup copy and successfully printing to PDF will be minimal.
All thoughts and comments welcomed.
Thanks for listening.
Steve
Background -
I have the Ram 1500 DT CD-based Factory Service Manual from Ram Tech Authority that I bought from them back in October 2018, just after I got the Ram. It's HTML-based, and requires (forces, actually) Internet Explorer to run (I'm told it will also run in the Chrome browser, but I have not been successful). I copied the contents of the CD to a folder on my my hard drive and made a desktop shortcut to start it in IE11. All was good.
Not my first choice of format, IE11. Stuff is easy to find in the FSM if you already know where to look, but there's no ability to search (as with a PDF-based document), and this makes finding stuff difficult if you don't already have an idea where it might be. But I can print out pictures and procedures and take them to the vehicle as ready references. Work gets done.
So....
Pleased to finally see wiring diagrams for sale at the very same Ram Tech Authority, I forked over just shy of $150 for this USB version they sell. That was total cost, including sales tax and postage. Only took a few days to arrive and I was off to the races.
Or so I thought.
Size of a credit card and has a 2GB (yes, 2GB) USB thingy that swings out for use. Gotta be careful with that. It feels fragile when extended for use.
It forces Internet Explorer, just like the FSM. Okay, I'll endure. After all - now I have wiring diagrams, right?
After a frustrating first hour with it, I was hit hard with a dose of reality and concluded the purchase of this thing was a mistake.
Or perhaps I had unrealistic expectations, but right about here is where the excrement began impacting the rotating blades of my oscillating appliance.
Don't take my word. You decide:
1 - Inserted into any USB port, it did not autostart as it was advertised to do.
2 - It would not run using the instructions provided in the Readme file. No other instructions of any kind were enclosed.
3 - Looking into the autorun.inf file I discovered this thing has a COPY PROTECTION scheme (more on this in a bit), but reading this file also told how to get it started from the Windows File Explorer. Here's a picture of the contents of this USB device. You sharp-eyed folks will immediately notice that this USB stick thinks it's a CD, and that it's mounted. Well; then it should have auto-started.
I've never seen a CD-format partition on a USB drive before. I must do research on this, and perhaps I'll discover a way to back this thing up. The use of a CD-format partition, in concert with the copy protection, means a few very frustrating things:
4 - Can't make a backup copy. I want a safety backup for the usual reasons. Hope this one doesn't fail while I own the Ram.
5 - Can't copy the contents to my hard drive and run it from there because the copy protection scheme checks for the presence of the USB stick when it starts, and even with the USB stick inserted, running from the hard drive will fail.
6 - Can't find a way to print an entire wiring diagram. Instructions to print are not included. Any attempt to print gives this output to my printer (a partial pic to keep this post size under control, but you get the idea).
7 - If I try to save a diagram out as a graphic, my screen goes dark and this warning message appears. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic. PrintScrn is disabled while the program is running.
Tried it anyway - no program I have would open the saved file, even though it claimed to be a .png. And that second sentence is wrong, because as soon as I closed the program, the saved file was immediately deleted.
8 - Any attempt to print by selecting Adobe PDF or Microsoft Print to PDF immediately grays out the PRINT button. Starting the program with either of those two choices as the default printer will lock up the program mid-start and require use of the Task Manager to close. I then have to re-assign a default printer for the program to run.
9 - Can't take a screengrab and print that. As mentioned above, PrintScrn is totally disabled while the program is running. Even if I minimize the program, I cannot use PrintScrn on any other window on my computer until the program is closed.
I can, however, take a picture of my computer screen with my cell phone ....
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!
10 - The only way I could see an entire wiring diagram is to make it very much smaller using the zoom controls on the page and output as Microsoft XPS document. This creates a document with a .oxsp suffix that, just like the .png example in item 6 above, will be immediately deleted for me when I close the program.
And there you have it, folks: My Nightmare and welcome to it. Yours, too, if you buy one of these.
WTFO!
I sent Ram $150 and I got a tool(?) with a convoluted and difficult interface, and with limited access.
If I returned it, I'd "only" be out the return shipping and a rather punitive 25% "restocking fee."
"I am disappoint" as a Russian friend would say.
Still, reckon I'll keep it, as the cost of returning it sucks. With time, patience and perhaps a few helpful hints from you kind folks, the challenge of making a working backup copy and successfully printing to PDF will be minimal.
All thoughts and comments welcomed.
Thanks for listening.
Steve
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