Extracting useful data from your OBDII port

[zzcoopej]

Can I apply for beta tester also? If help needed, I'm a software engineer also.

Sure, please send me a PM with some details of your background and email address. You need a high speed OBD adapter (eg Scantools ObdLink LX) to use the app so ensure you have one before requesting to be a beta tester. I have 6 testers so far, about 4 spaces left.

 

[gwatpe]

https://www.scantool.net/obdlink-mxwf.html

The WiFi adapter mentioned above is supposed to support 70 PID's per sec. but states it is unsuitable for hybrid vehicles. ????

 

[anko]

I've had the WiFi version on trial. It was faster than my Chinese clone, but not faster than a much cheaper iCarsoft variant, for example.

Nevertheless, it did work, with the same limitations as the others I tested. It does not set up flow control for non standard ECUs. The software must do this for you, but most (if not all) apps available don't do that.

The app zzcoopej is working on will do that for you.

 

[anko]

Was able to monitor various parameters from my couch, while the car was on the driveway, being charged. Something I did not expect to see when the charge was complete:

Current Capacity (battery health) is relatively weak showing 33.8 Ah
SOC as sent to the dashboard was 100% (obviously and confirmed)
Real SOC was 105.5%
Remaining Capacity was 35.6 Ah

Does this mean my battery is not in an as bad as shape as I thought?

 

[t3lmo]

Using usual Torque Pro (the shapes look like) to read those parameters?

 

[gwatpe]

I had thought the same re Torque.

These are presumably user set PID. I suspect that coding may be responsible.

The zzcoopej app, EvBatMon has been right on the money for my PHEV Ah and battery health. I will be looking into a new WiFi adapter and maybe a tablet. The tiny fonts are giving me a challenge to read on my phone display.

I would be happy with rock solid data transfers and only the update rate being affected by how fast the adapter was. Probably only need 8 PID's / sec on any screen. I would be very selective of what to record. Setting up a driving test to compare data with, will also be challenging. Where is that personal test track.

I suspect we will need to use an external application to manipulate the PID outputs to crunch the numbers. I am not sure how easy it will be to use JAVA to manipulate data when divisions may be involved. Will need some robust error checking routines to avoid the execution errors.

 

[anko]

Using usual Torque Pro (the shapes look like) to read those parameters?

Yes.

These are presumably user set PID. I suspect that coding may be responsible.

And yes

And more.The issue is that TP (and most other apps out there) are not set up to deal with the fact that:
- The PHEV specific ECUs need Flow Control
- The PHEV specific ECUs all the same Mode and Request numbers. TP is not able to tell the responses from various ECUs apart

So I had to add some sort of proxy program that runs on a Raspberry PI and resolves these issues for me.

The project of zzcoopej is basically to build another scan app, that does not have these limitation so does not need a proxy prog. So far, he is make good progress!

 

[Oscarman]

I've had the WiFi version on trial. It was faster than my Chinese clone, but not faster than a much cheaper iCarsoft variant, for example.

much cheaper iCarsoft variant - is that the i-1620?
If so does anyone have experience/contact details of UK supplier?

 

[Oscarman]

Sorry in my previous post that should have been i-610.
Amazon have this unavailable and I can't seem to find a UK distributor.

 

[anko]

i620 is BT, i610 is WiFi.

I have the i610 and am quite happy with it. Reasonable faster than my previous clone.

One thing that may be relevant to perspective buyers of the WiFi version: If multiple devices are connected to the dongle, these devices cannot see each other. So it does not 'bridge'. For me, this was relevant as I had both an Android phone hooked up as well as a Raspberry PI. And the phone could not talk to the PI. Now, I have a dual Wifi interface in mi Pi. Phone talks to PI, PI talks to car. Problem solved ;-)

 

[gwatpe]

Hi anko,

I see you have battery power from -60kW to +60kW. with a clock input, then an averaged energy can be measured. Presumably speed can be measured. Petrol consumption is a normal PID. Do we have generator power as a PID?? maybe not needed. The data could be combined to produce a number, that would relate to driving economy. Maybe we could use petrol cost and electricity cost as well and work out an instant $/km, that we could use to better improve our driving style.

I do remember back in the mid 1970's when I first had a CompuCruise, with instant mpg, how useful this was to improve driving style. The PHEV is a little more complicated, and does not come with any factory tools to replicate this. With some form of post PID number crunching, we may yet have a tool to do the same job.

If I was able to have instant $/km I would not need much else in the way of instrumentation.

 

[anko]

As a matter of fact, I already did have a dashboard with L / 100 km and battery kW / 100 km ;-) Indeed generator is not relevant as it is just converting L / 100 km into kW / 100 km.

 

[gwatpe]

Now with a combination to a single number, the $/km combined would take care of all PHEV hybrid and EV driving. Even if it had to be done with a proxy interface, it would be worth while.

With some relatively simple testing we could prove just how much benefit is achieved with any driving style.

If the petrol costs and electricity costs were user settable, then we could find at what points petrol operation or electric operation was best.

 

[gwatpe]

As a matter of fact, I already did have a dashboard with L / 100 km and battery kW / 100 km ;-) Indeed generator is not relevant as it is just converting L / 100 km into kW / 100 km.

actually kWh/100km is energy, like L/100km is energy.

 

[zzcoopej]

Anyone with a OBD Dongle that isn't on the Beta list yet, please message me with your email address.

Just a quick update, I have successfully run my Android App EvBatMon using a $10 "Ebay special" bluetooth OBD Adapter. It may scan slower (yet to test performance against my $100 scantools), however all the battery data can be retrieved just fine. So anyone with an OBD adapter is encouraged to grab one of the remaining 3 beta spots.

 

[anko]

As a matter of fact, I already did have a dashboard with L / 100 km and battery kW / 100 km ;-) Indeed generator is not relevant as it is just converting L / 100 km into kW / 100 km.

actually kWh/100km is energy, like L/100km is energy.

Yo are totally right. Slip of the pen (on the forum, not on my dashboard)

 

[t3lmo]

Just a quick update, I have successfully run my Android App EvBatMon using a $10 "Ebay special" bluetooth OBD Adapter (...) So anyone with an OBD adapter is encouraged to grab one of the remaining 3 beta spots.

I'm waiting to try

 

[PeterGalbavy]

I have an el cheapo ELM237 bluetooth thing that works fine with Torque, so happy to test!

 

[anko]

In parallel to the great work zzcoopej is doing with his self-contained EvBatMon app, I am still pursuing my ambition to hook up Torque Pro to the PHEV. See this little move to get an idea where I am now. It shows:

Front Torque
Front Power
Front Force at Wheels
Rear Torque
Rear Power
Rear Force at Wheels
Total Power
Power Distribution Front / Rear
Battery Power In/Out

All in one screen. All the way at the end you see a green light turn on. This is when the physical brakes are applied.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eut26zydrrr5053/Video 14-10-15 06 45 16.mov?dl=0

Btw: the solution shown here no longer requires a Raspberry PI or there like as man-in-the-middle. The connecting software runs on the phone itself.

 

[Trex]

anko is that battery power in-out figure (kw) anywhere close to the figure on the MMCS display of the Phev itself? Hope you know what I mean. I could not see your speed to compare.