Hello David and welcome to 5series.net! Yes, it was a nightmare, but it was satisfying to finally get it fixed.

I can attest to the ICOM A2 working, but I have no idea if my ICOM B is exactly like the one you have or not! I have never been able to use it but I am curious now if the inside of mine looks just like yours.

I got mine from OBD2Buy.com as a set. I was wary about them, being from China, but I can say the ICOM A2 works very well. The ICOM B is a mystery, I may run ISTA-P now that I have MOST diagnostic port light, just to see if my ICOM B actually works or is exactly like the one you have. The clone purchasing is always a crap shoot, both ICOM Next clones were nothing but non-working wastes of money.

I will try out my ICOM B Friday and let you know how it is, it is only supposed to be 18 degrees for a high tomorrow and my garage heater is far from adequate. I am very curious myself.

 

Easy to check, just by connecting the icom B to the Icom A, If it's just a red led light, it's fake, otherwise you should see a green light for the SYSTEM on the icom b, also there is another led for MOST, which also should be green, but I think this last one need to be connected to the car to light up, not 100% sure.

But thanks, keep me posted

 

I am not sure if you read the posts, but I was having trouble with the MOST diagnostic port light not working because of the CCC system being in limbo and having obvious missing modules. I have tried the ICOM B many times, it never worked. But here are some facts:

1. Looks exactly like the one you have pictured. Not sure about internally, but the same exact design as the one you posted externally.
2. VERY light and has a not much there quality to it. It does hook up securely to the diagnostics port connector and seems to be physically okay.
3. ISTA+ does show the ICOM B hooked up if it is connected when opening ISTA+ (on the ICOM Connection page). This gives me a little hope it may work.
4. When hooked up to my ICOM A2 clone, it does show when it is hooked up or not when you go to the web setup page.
5. It has proven to kind of work intermittently (as far as the ICOM B System status light). Sometimes it stays red, other times it turns green and seems to flash like the ICOM A2 does (means sending data back and forth.) When it is red, it also does not show up in the web setup page or ISTA+. It has a very loose USB port, yet the cable that comes with it fits better than most of the other USB A to B connectors I have laying around my house. It does work more often than not, often a simple key off, reconnect ICOM A2 to OBD gets it showing green.
6. Have yet to see the MOST light work, but I also had a non-working MOST bus as the time.

I am very curious myself, so tomorrow morning I will try it. It was a high of 18 and currently 10 degrees where I live right now. It will warm up enough for me to try it out tomorrow and see what happens as I am curious myself if it works or is just a paperweight.

 

Yes, I read about the issues you were experiencing.
I realized that something was wrong with the ICOM B after opening ISTA. Most of the MOST modules were red because the ICOM B was breaking the loop; it’s just an empty case with no connections inside. In fact, if you look closely at the ICOM B with some light, you can see through it where the optical connection should be—it’s completely hollow inside (as was the case with my bad ICOM B, see picture).

 

Mine is apparently a more convincing fake than the one you are showing. Mine actually detects the MOST bus light, showing both lights lit up and even turning red occasionally.

I ran ISTA-P, and sure enough it detected I had a ICOM B, so no warning about needing something connected there to proceed. Yet, it still failed when it started to read the radio modules and gave me the same error as before.
I tried BMW Standard Tools, tried MOST and MOST_Async and ensured it was on port 6802 . It looked promising at first, but it was reading the Voltage from the ICOM A2. Trying to check module, or update them in WinKFP, it gives the COAPI error. I tried it with INPA, ISTA-P, NCSExpert, and WinKFP.

Mine is so convincing of a fake, it shows the MOST ring working, flashes green, and even turns red on occasion (like it should when working). This seems to be a timer event programmed in, as it does this red flash at the same interval whether you are using it or not with the software. It truly does read the MOST light, and even flashes with it. I am guessing mine has detection circuitry for MOST signal, but no chip which would actually read or write any actual data inside of it. It gets detected by the software, detected by the ICOM, but is just a "sophisticated fraud". At least it is useful as a MOST light detector, I guess?


Look, you can actually see all my MOST modules showing now, compare that to before!

The back, it came with the sticker to attach to it.

Showing both lights green and flashing with the MOST signal.




Look, actually showing red light! I got all excited, thinking it would actually work!

This is the same error it did before, but at least now it is not warning me I need a MOST bus connection to proceed.

 

A glorious fake ICOM B, lol!

Jokes aside, if you don’t mind me asking, when you’re trying to use INPA, Winkfp, etc. are you using Itool Radar and "reserving" the ICOM? Then, on EasyConnect, do you choose MOST_ASYNC and lock the ICOM?

One more note: maybe the ICOM A2 is different from the ICOM Next, but in EDIABAS.ini, the port should be 6801, not 6802.

Also this is a nice post about the ICOM B http://blog.obdii365.com/2018/02/21/...se-bmw-icom-b/

 

Yes, I have the Cadillac version of the fake ICOM B. The prankster ICOM B! (lol)

Yes, to use the ICOM A2, you set EasyConnect to Remote, (IP Address), Base, and port 6801 (Then select ICOM lock). To use the ICOM B, you use Remote, (IP Address) MOST or MOST_Async, and have to set it for port 6802. I tried various combinations with EasyConnect (Most, MOST_Async, Most_Asyncabc123 or whatever.) It will not work with any of the BMW Standard Tools at all.

You do not want Port 6801 for the ICOM B, that is how the software differentiates and two devices cannot share the same port. ICOM B is set to port 6802. You can verify this with the web interface. It will show the ICOM B on port 6802.

Of course for ISTA+ or ISTA-P, you want the ICOM free and not locked. ISTA locks it itself. I also tried manually editing the Edibias.ini and Renote.ini.

This ICOM is a great MOST light tester at least! The Chinese think of everything, except apparently working ICOM B units!

 

Ah ok, I didn't know that you need set the port to 6802 for MOST. Good to know

 

If you use the easyconnect program you don't have to worry about port allocation. Confusion really starts when you start using other versions of ediabas that provide more options to configure

 

That's what I thought. On EDIABAS.ini you set interface to REMOTE, [TCP] uses the ICOM IP address and port 6801 and EasyConnect handles the REMOTE.ini

Let me ask you one thing @seanjordan20 watching youtube videos I see that on EasyConnect the MODE selection is a dropdown menu. In my case it never populates the options(similar to the image below), I have to enter manually eg. MOST_ASYNC. although it works, it would be nice to have it auto-populated every time I open EasyConnect and the options are there. Any idea about this?