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1996 Mercedes sl500 soft top and roll bar didn't work, at first, I tried to sort it out in many methods with no luck, finally I was recommended to use Foxwell Mercedes Benz 38 PIN adapter, it works works like a charm. 

 Car model and year: 1996 Mercedes sl500

Car Symptom:

not started for about 5 years. it had the hard top on it. The car would not release to hard top electrically. Did fine a nice you tube video on how to release it manually so i got that off.

Trying to get the roll bar and the soft top two come up. Both are down as of right now. After resyncing the windows i try a raise the soft top. No movement at all. what happens when i push the button forward is both windows come down, the red light in the button is solid till the window gets about 2/3 way down then begins to flash.
I do hear what sounds like a latch opening and closing.

Online assistance:

Yes, the pump should be running. If not, check fuses and the pump relay.

Also look down into the read latch holes and check the depth of the latch. They should both be the same. If not, one of the latches is still locked (I have had this happen when removing the hardtop). One of the symptoms of this is the sound of the latch trying to unlock.

One thing to try is to manually raise the soft top (Youtube) just to the point where the front bow contacts the windshield header. See if you can get it to cycle back down or even cycle forward.

What happened after following the above advice?

removed the neg lead from battery, left it off for about 4 hours. replaced then sync windows. tried top with no luck. Ok hydraulic pump not coming on. check voyage at relay found that when the switch is pushed forward i get voltage at pin 87 (this is the supply to the motor i think) but no voltage to pins 86 or 85 (the pins that pull the relay in) What i think there is something not allowing the pump motor to come on. But what/were does this come from? IDK
LOL need a shop/electrical manual any recommendations?

Go on with online assistance:

The pump relay is driven by the top controller, N52. There are many error conditions that can cause the pump to shut stop to protect the system, many of which are related to microswitch state issues. Try what I said about manually raising the top – the worst that can happen is you will have to put in back down.
FYI, here is the pump portion of the top system schematic:

No luck again…

OOps Sorry my bad.
yep did what you suggested opened and raised the top by hand, then tried to operate it electricity tried to raise and lower the top at about 1/2 up, also just touching the windshield liner and completely latched in full up. still nothing. no movement.
so i do think the motor has to run, how do i go about figuring out why the motor is not running?

Go on with online assistance:

Bummer! I was hoping that moving the positions of the microswitches may clear enough issues that the pump would run. Have a friend activate the top switch while you feel the pump relay – does it click?

No luck again…

Nope, tried that lol also did voltage checks at relay base, the supply leg is the only place i get anything. nothing at the control legs. So either i got a Bad switch someplace or BAD ecm or a broken wire or something like that is what i am thinking. Got to figure a way to find all the switches so i can check them. thats next lol. also sent a email to BBA se how much it going to cost to get the EMC fixed.

Finally solution is to purchase a Foxwell NT530 with Benz 38 pin adapter:

If you have one Baum Tools 38PINBOB* 38 Pin Breakout Box for Mercedes, you can still use a blink code reader to read the top codes, but these are pretty hard to find these days (I still have one) as they have long been superseded by modern, inexpensive code readers that have a 38 pin adapter. Instead of spending money on the breakout, I would recommend the Foxwell Tools NT530 with the Mercedes software and the 38 pin adapter (https://www.foxwelltool.com/wholesale/benz-38-pin-adapter-for-nt520-scanner.html)

I have one it works works like a charm! Indeed, it works so well that I rarely breakout out my Star system.

Enjoy!