So I was getting strange readings from my JLR setup (mongooser, laptop, V130), so I thought I would take a look inside the mongooser, to see its condition. Well, what a surprise. I apologize that the pictures did not come out to well.

Mongoosers may not be just clones, they might be the real deal.

The mongooser looks like a mongoose, the blue case looks the same, the sticker looks legit, but I thought that would be the extent of it. . But open it up and guess what, there are more signs of legitimacy.

The blue plastic shells have Drew Technologies molded on the inside.
The circuit board has Drew Technologies silkscreened on side 2.
The chips on the circuit board have been defaced so that their type could not be identified.
The quality of manufacturing is pretty good, unlike what I was expecting.
Take a look for yourself.

 

It may be ...

... but take a very close look at the silk screen legends under a magnifying glass and you will see spelling errors.

Yours must be from a different batch. Mine has a four pin connector for the cable termination in your fourth picture. None of the chips are defaced in mine.

 

plums - any chance you could post good pics / chip markings please?

 

The clones all have the same serial number on an "upside down" label, and they are screwed together with regular philips-head screws, while the genuine ones have torx screws.

Obviously the injection-moulded case is the same as the original, that's not too hard to procure from the original moulding shop.

The PCB is probably also a genuine item, but it's likely been populated with cheaper components, done after-hours on the cheap.

Just because it has some genuine parts in it, doesn't make it genuine.

Oh yeah, and the genuine ones don't overheat & burn-out if you update them to Pro, unlike the clones....

 

standby ... have to charge up the camera battery first

is yours as above?

I could have sworn that all were bought from the same family of sites.

Aren't you in the obd-ii industry?

 

When I first got mine, I attempted to update it to a mongoose pro, but the update software could not recognize the mongooser. I did not pursue it any further, for I thought that the makers of the mongooser did not intend for it to be updated. How did you force the update?

Or....

In the third picture, is that a spot for a JTAG connector across the bottom?

 

you got lucky ... update=brick ... not right away but soon