Sorry the post doesn’t load nicely on mobiles. I’m working on it.
Not only are there now about 5 flavors of fake DiCE clones but also the Mongoose / Super J2534 clones now have fake less desirable versions.
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It might interest you to know that GENUINE Volvo Dice and Good “Full chip” clones have about the same 10% failure rate. That’s not really the point of this post, but it is interesting.
To quickly recap, Vida should be able to use ANY J2534-2 compatible device. Its not quite that easy of course because there are hundreds.
Like Vida, VDASH should support all J2534-2 devices, however my experience is that its not likely to go well trying to use the outliers. Stick to the well known supported devices , which are (in order of what i believe to be best to worst)
Mongoose Pro / Super J2534 with ARM processor
Full chip Dice Clone with M32C M30855FJGP processor
Vxdiag VCX nano (not the clones in DiCE shaped boxes) – Also Vxdiag are the worst Vdash compatible device you can buy. AVOID
Good Quality devices table
| Name | Generally Looks Like | PCB looks like | PCB looks like | Pros / Cons |
| Dice Clone (Full chip M32C M30855FJGP CPU , red or Green PCB) |  |  |  | High failure rate. 10% out of the box and often dont last a year before dying…or live forever lol. Slower than Mongoose / Super J2534. Lots and lots of cable (good or bad depending on your POV). USB ports break. USB Cables break, Lots of fakes that look identical from the Outside. Works with Vida2014d and Vdash and P3tool. Will not work with a genuine Vida subscription. Can be used for ECU flashing with Hilton Gutsav Shemtec Openmoose etc Only recommended if you need to use a remote tuning service as mentioned. |
| Mongoose Clone / SuperJ2534 (ARM cpu, orange or blue) |  |  |  | Super low failure rate. Maybe 1 in 200. Faster than DiCE (twice as fast for CEM Pin decoding) Works with ALL versions of Vida, including genuine Vida, Vdash , P3tool. Doesn’t work on 1st gen S40/V40 (1996-2004) apart from the s40/v40 thing No downsides. 100% recommended |
| SM2 PRO J2534 VCI |  | “Works” with Vida 2014d, probably genuine Vida too. Doesn’t work with Vdash. Not widely tested so cant say much more about it. Fine for diagnostics, but i wouldn’t trust it for programming. | ||
| VxDiag VCX Nano |  | My Least favorite tool. 1) Slow as fk 2) poor physical design with easy break usb port 3) awful driver software that has a license that expires and has to be renewed every 30-90 days. If you dont renew you cant us it. Sofware is detected as a virus. 4) the one time i tried CEM programming with it it bricked the CEM |
Table of Dodgy AF fakes to avoid
| Description | Generally Looks like | PCB looks like | PCB looks Like | Pros / Cons |
| Mongoose Clone / SuperJ2534 (IC5 cpu, orange or blue) | |  |  | These have a high out of the box can bus crashing failure rate of about 15%, but if they are working they tend to stay working and share the other benefits of the ARM processor version. There is no way visually or through software to tell if it is ARM or IC5. You have to open it. |
| Dice Clone (Vxdiag VCX chipset) |  |  |  | Even worse than an actual VXdiag. High failure rate out of the box causing can bus crash. Stupid Vxdiag software. Shows itself as DiCE- J2534 in device manager / Vida Doesn’t work in Vdash. How to tell without opening? USB LEDS are the wrong color, and will power up with just USB cable plugged in. An actual Dice needs power form the ODB2 port. Shows itself as DiCE- J2534 in device manager / Vida etc once the VXManager software is installed. |
| Dice Clone (Vxdiag VCX multi chipset) | |  | What a weird one this is. Vxdiag make tools for many brands, and this PCB can have jumpers moved to make it the tool for other brands….but why? nothing else for any other manufacturer looks like a DiCE so what wil lyou do with the PCB ?. and why does it have a Wifi Chip ? All the usual Downsides of a Vxdiag. Notice how the 12v power supply is cut off. How to tell without opening? USB LEDS are the wrong color, and will power up with just USB cable plugged in. An actual Dice needs power form the ODB2 port. Shows itself as DiCE- J2534 in device manager / Vida etc once the VXManager software is installed. | |
| Dice Clone (Mongoose Chipset) | |  |  | We know i’m a fan of Mongoose, but these implementations just dont work right and again, due to poor manufacturing have a high failure rate out of the box. How to tell without opening? USB LEDS are the wrong color, and will power up with just USB cable plugged in. An actual Dice needs power form the ODB2 port. Shows itself as Mongoose Pro in device manager / Vida etc once the drivers are installed. |
| Dice Clone (SM2 Pro Chipset) |  |  |  | A completely pointless pursuit. Costs more than a regular SM2 off of ebay. How to tell without opening? The descriptions on the websites mention that you must install the SM2 software. USB LEDS are the wrong color, and will power up with just USB cable plugged in. An actual Dice needs power form the ODB2 port. Shows itself as SM2 pro in device manager / Vida etc once the drivers are installed. Before drivers it shows as “unknown Device” which is really odd these days. |
- Ultimately all of these fake clones exist to fool you and separate you from your money.
- These fakes are at a price point where they hope no one will bother sending it back to China for a refund.
- They do not exist because they are better.
- They do not exist because they have greater compatibility
- They do not exist because they are more reliable.
- They have 0 benefits and only downsides.
Thanks, these pictures are great! Do you know anything about compatibility issues with other cars than the c40? I’m learning that 1st gen v70 seems to be an oddball for dice clones with some modules (srs, imm,…) on a k-line bus instead of a CAN bus. As I understand it some of these scanners aren’t set up to read them or are buggy.