Files from any tool
How do PCMFlash files work on a file portal?
PCMFlash reads come to your portal like any other file. How the customer sends them, and what your tuner gets on the job.
In short
A PCMFlash read uploads on your portal and lands on one job in your queue. PCMFlash reads are usually plain files, so your tuner opens them straight away, and the tuned file goes back on the same job.
What is PCMFlash?
PCMFlash is programming software that runs on a laptop with a J2534 adapter, such as a Scanmatik, with a module for each family of ECU. It works over OBD and on the bench. Many experienced shops keep it for the units they know it handles well.
How does a PCMFlash customer send a file?
They sign in on your portal, upload the read and pick the work. Because the file is usually a plain binary, the portal can often read the ECU and its hardware and software numbers straight from it, and the customer only confirms the car.
- 1Express and Urgent firstJobs paid for speed sit at the top with their turnaround target.
- 2Find any jobBy number plate, job number, VIN, name or email; filtered by status, payment and priority.
- 3The car, the ECU and the workEvery row carries what the portal read from the file and what was ordered.
- 4Where every job standsPending, processing, waiting for payment, done: counted as they move.
A sample shop; your portal carries your name.
What does your tuner get?
A job in the queue with the file attached, the car, the ECU and the requested work on one screen. Your tuner can open the maps of the file in the browser and see what changed against stock, or download it and work in their usual editor. The finished file is uploaded to the same job.
Why does the file's software number matter?
Because it tells you whether you have seen this calibration before. Every finished job goes into your own library, searchable by software, hardware and ECU. When the same software comes back, the portal offers you what you did last time, and File Match can send the very same read by itself, after checks, when you tuned it for the same work before.
Questions
Is a PCMFlash file decrypted?
It usually does not need to be. A plain read goes straight to your tuner.
Can the portal read the ECU from a plain read?
Usually. When the file does not say enough, the customer fills in the rest on the same page.
Can customers see the maps?
No. Maps in the browser are for your tuners, and each role sees only what their job needs.
Just need a file tuned? Our own engineers tune a read from any tool for £50 a file, every extra included. Our file service ›
Read next
-
OBD, bench, boot and BDM: what does each read mean?The four ways a car's file gets read, in plain words: what each one needs, what it gives you, and what a file service should ask the customer who sends it.
-
What do an ECU's software and hardware numbers tell you?What the hardware number, the software number and the data set in an ECU file tell a tuner, and why they decide whether you have seen this car before.
-
What do the ECU file types mean?What the common ECU file extensions mean, which tool writes which, and which ones a file portal should accept. A plain reference for file services.
Name your portal. It is ready in under a minute.
Pro: today you pay this month in full, or only the days left if the 1st is less than 10 days away; then £49.99 on every 1st.
- Your name and logo
- Files from any tool
- Updates done for you
- Moving from another portal, free