N14 ecm flash problems

[Kiko]

Hello to all. I am fairly new on here. I have a problem with a new flash of a used ecm on a Cummins n14. The original ecm was burnt on this engine so a used ecm was bought and put on. It is a celery plus ecm but the file in it was for a m11 and didn’t work properly in the truck. I searched through incal and found a proper file, unpacked it for my insite v8, plugged into the truck and started to upload with insite. The upload got to 70 percent and then failed. It said no connection to the ecm. Now when I try to connect it will not. Also the truck won’t start anymore on this ecm like it would before. I am wondering if the ecm lost its file and now won’t connect because of that and if that is the case, what I can do about it. I’ve heard I can flash a blank ecm with calterm but calterm won’t connect either and I really haven’t used calterm to know how to do it. Thanks for any help with this.

[Mr Hagg]

Sound like you brick the ecm.. This is why I use a bench harness on these older ECM... If you have a bench harness you can try that but sounds like you are looking for another ecm... You can try to see if ecm lost power but more than likely its done for

[Kiko]

I was afraid of that. Dont know why it could have happened. Any ideas. Will insite or calterm connect to an ecm if it is blank.

[Colter]

It sounds like it's stuck in boot, a bench harness with a boot switch should recover it

[Kiko]

Is there any way to get this ecm to re boot with out a bench harness with boot switch. I’ve heard I can do it with calterm just don’t know how.

[Rawze]

(12-15-2023 )Kiko Wrote:  Is there any way to get this ecm to re boot with out a bench harness with boot switch. I’ve heard I can do it with calterm just don’t know how.

Used (or repaired by non oem) ecm never runs for very long any ways. Only a couple parts inside them might get changed, only if ur lucky, and all the rest of it have more than 8+ years of run time on them and are completely unreliable.

buy OEM and have it pre-flashed.. end of story and driving down the roads.


and yeah.. without a proper bench harness and performing recovery procedures, your never going to talk to it again, once you loose communications with it during a failed flash.

it could also be that the used circuits are so worn out they cannot take a flash any more too. Anything more than 8+ years old is past its expected lifespan. Most ecm's will live a few more years past this.. but it a crap shoot... because all the silicone substrates (chips), capacitors, and other components inside the thing eventually start breaking down due to heat cycling age, etc.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/transistor-aging
“For sale: Five-year-old laptop, but with like-new processor. Used only to compute at church on Sundays.” <... lol

[Kiko]

Thanks everyone for your help. I don’t have a bench harness for the celect ecms. I’m not sure what I’m going to do at this point but I appreciate everyone’s input.

[windowrattler]

I've bricked every celect plus ecm I've flashed in truck. I've also had 100% success flashing celect plus ecms.

Every time it "bricks". To rom boot it you disconnect the batteries for 5-10 minutes. Reconnect batteries. Key on for 5 seconds. Key off and connect to the truck with insite with the key off. It should be in rom boot when it connects. . Select calibration in insite and flash it with the key off. Sometimes I've had to do the procedure a few times to get it to rom boot. I'll try and find the actual document for it.

[windowrattler]

You also have to have insite set to j1708 not auto connect.