nice prog went a step further and wired a relay 12ma to the output straight into usb mouse counts up codes but cant see seperators so it just keeps counting ?(timing ithink) el ecu in nc fairlane

Cool idea! Hope you used a diode across the relay to protect the ecu when all those fast codes come through

If you can take a video of an LED flashing the codes, I'll see if there is a bug in the program, or a difference between the speeds of EF/EL ecu code outputs. It does support separators, but you have to let it count them first. When you press right mouse to stop, it will display them as a separator

If you can supply that video, and there is a difference, i'll add EF/EL specific menus to the prog.

Thanks for the input

the link aint working anymore

Link updated - they seem to have made some changes to that site and lost the file - i certainly didn't delete it.


Should work ok now

any news on a pocket pc version??? would be so handy!!!

sorry, never got around to it. Been busy elsewhere learning PIC microcontrollers - may be doing a mini diagnostic gadget with LCD readout very soon - watch this space

PICbasic is awesome, if u get stuck i may be able to get my old man onto it if ur willing to share the source. he builds most of his gear from pic processors. he's also into renewable energy and cool stuff like that.

I also understand PICbasic, not as well as he does. a copy of ur source would be awesome.

me and dad have had thoughts of building our own trip computers using a pic processor but the data line from the instrument cluster has a strange data rate.

so it would be like an OBDII Scantool???

or just something to give u the codes?
and maybe when to goose the throttle?? (hint hint. i can never get it right!!))

I'm currently fiddling with the 18X picaxe, and I have it talking to a 16x2 LCD display to read a pot value, convert that to a character from A-Z and display it to screen. Basically, you dial in a letter, hit a button, and it prints it on the LCD and increments the cursor position.

Just fiddling at this point, but once we get moved to sydney and work settles down, i'll be making it display fault codes to screen.

Depending on how well I can optimize the memory, it may just put out the codes, but I would like it to print the fault reason too.

Might need the bigger 40X chip, or just the 18X and a 32K NVRAM chip for storage.

Have got it powering a Mosfet pretty nicely for motor control, and fiddled with the servo command to some extent. I must say, they aren an awesome chip, and I bet a lot can be done with them on Fordmods

absolutely, what the old man can do with them is awesome, they can be used to turn a 2 channel tait into a 430-490mhz set with 25khz steps!!!

i'll have a chat with him and see if he's interested in joining the forum.

do you know the data rate for the data stream to the trip computer?? we were working on making our own trip computer with logging to eeprom and then removing from the car and uploading the data to pc. there was also talk of interfacing a SIRF III GPS unit and logging that aswell. big project i know. dunno if members of the forum would support this. the E series is getting old now.

Also i don't see much of a market for such a device as the AU series has a different cluster setup, the trip computer is incorporated in the cluster itself

no idea about the data rate, sorry, but someone else on here (lukeyson?) was fiddling with this idea a while ago I think. Whoever it was found that the data stream was not quite "right" so to speak, which made things hard.

If enough people are interested in the Picaxe, it might be an idea to start up a thread in the Geek section if people want little proggies done up to do stuff like variable intermittant wipers etc. The 08M chips are great for little projects like this.

IIRC a fella called 'Dang' sorted out the odometer programming on E series - from memory he also cracked the trip computer also.
Just search for any thread he has written to.

just posted up a q about the data rate, the old man is interested in this again. i'll be in touch, nice DP btw

Well done EB!
There are obviously some clever little vegemites here.....(well a lot damn quicker than me anyway).

This will help heaps of people.

juts letting you guys know 'Dang' was pretty unhelpful on the topic.

so the project is on hold until i can find someone (preferably a ford engineer) who can give me the info i need such as data values and trip computer hardware info or decent internal pics or someone to donate one to the project as i don't have one to pull apart.

we really need one to reverse engineer from. pretty hard without one.

Hey, just went name trolling.

All my work was on a BA or newer, so I'm not sure if that's helpful here. Currently writing a Win32 app to use an ELM327 to get all this stuff.

auMatt is currently writing a utility that deals with Clusters - I've seen it do diagostics and set some things like police mode. Not sure if he's adding in the ability to read the IC trouble codes.


Lukeyson

ELM327 isn't cheap.... i'm looking at doing a project with pic processor(s).

can the cluster actually be accessed from the OBD port?

ELM327 already is a PIC.

Actually, you can find them for $50 including shipping from China on eBay.

Curious that you say ELM isn't cheap. It's about as cheap as you can get for a tool that does all OBDII protocols. Compare that to the $3000 VCM from Ford, or a $500 all-protocol J2534 tool (Or $300 for a CAN/ISO tool which works on a BA, but not an AU), and it's awesome. Slow, but awesome.

But enough of the thread hijack. I'm curious to see what you can come up with.


Lukeyson

it's time to start a new thread.
So the ELM327 is a pic processor based device with a usb interface??

The thread we're in for heavy duty OBD2 stuff using an ELM327 is here:

http://www.fordmods.com/forums/viewtopi ... highlight=

It's a Microchip pic 18f248.


Lukeyson

Link is down again. Any chance someone can send me a link?

Cheers