23 October, 2014

Monitor your vehicle with Android Torque OBD2 reader and bluetooth


Today all cars bring a connection to the OBD diagnostic system ( most comprehensive in English) to connect to the control of the same, a small computer that controls many engine parameters and car electronics to improve consumption and seek mechanical (or user through the control panel) of the potential problems and maintenance required.
The vehicles are increasingly complex, and the fact that the unit warn you of these problems often prevents the operator hours of maintenance shop.
In Europe, according to Directive 98 / 69EG, gasoline cars from 2000 onwards, diesel cars from 2003 onwards and trucks from 2005 onwards must be equipped with an OBD.(Wikipedia)
Those who like "tinkering" with the car like me, to know it like the back of your hand, we can use this to read the status of the vehicle with a cheap bluetooth connector like the following image:

vgate, a cheap, simple and reliable reader ODB2
(This document was translated using Google Translator from the original spanish article)


With torque we can review possible errors stored vehicle in the exchange (giving us the meaning of the error, though in English, thanks to its huge database for several cars), real time access to the different values ​​of time (with dials fully configurable suit the user), record the journey recording the GPS data on a map of Google Maps, record video with the dial / we want is inserted in the video itself, recording statistics, etc ...



Home Screen

To do this we only need a phone with android installed with Torque and link the ODB reader mobile bluetooth. The connection on the Dacia Sandero is in the glove box, a perfect always leave connected the Vgate site. 
Dacia panel is very limited data regarding the vehicle control; has no fuel consumption, or medium, etc, and although your PBX does not provide all the information they give other high-end cars (mainly due to the lack of sensors to reduce costs), yes we can control many parameters of our trips, and even record the trip as well as added a speed dial on the video in real time (this with a plugin to be installed to Torque). 
Some things are just curious, and we soon tire of them, but sometimes it comes, if we travel frequently and the price that is being gasoline, know which route is cheaper in kms and / or fuel . 

In my case, the screen on my Samsung S Torque SCL usually wear well: 



Although I also like this other configuration: 


As a curiosity, tell you that the ODB connection not only allows us to do this; with the appropriate cable we could even reconfigure the unit, changing the parameters for scheduling the operation of the carburetor; air inlet, fuel, position of various valves depending on engine speed, etc, with the ability to tune it to make more horses or reduce consumption and extend engine life at the cost of losing a little strength. 
A friend told me that cars like the Seat (Leon and others), with largely Volkswagen technology, allowing us to set things like the windows close automatically when you close the doors with the engine off, adjust the opening of the EGR valve , etc. 

More data: 
Web Torque 
On Board Diagnostics - Wikipedia (English)

1 comment :