Hacking the Hansshow Ultra Mini display

[mpowney]

Today I installed the Hansshow ulta mini display in my Tesla Model 3 RWD. First off, a couple of points about installation that might be useful for a RHD / Australia / United Kingdom / Greenland / India / Pakinstan vehicle:

• The blue and white connectors that piggy back the Hansshow loom onto the Tesla wiring are located on the driver-side, not the passenger side like in LHD vehicles
• The Hansshow wiring loom is wayy too long for RHD models, so you need to "stuff" all the remaining length of cable somewhere behind the panels in the footwell
• The installation in RHD is quicker than LHD because all the work is done on the driver side; the only work on the passenger side is to remove the side panel that holds in the panel below the full-width air-con vent

My question for the TMC community - the Hansshow heads up display device just runs Linux, does anyone know of any hacks to modify the software and do something different with the display? I'd really like the following:

• The indicators interval on the display to match the Tesla interval (adjust the milliseconds to match)
• The font used, particularly speed display, to match the centre console
• General tomfoolery - I'm sure I could think of some handy things to show on a screen in front of my face - e.g. current media playing

 

[mmyers300]

The only update I ever saw was to add "Plaid mode" via manual update from Hansshow...

 

[hmadsen]

Rule number one when dealing with Chinese manufacturers.

What you get out of the box....Is what you get.

If you want some updated features, the only option is to buy their "all new improved" version, that they release regularily.

Do not expect ANY firmware updates, if they fix something or add functionality it is almost certainly going to require you to buy new hardware.

I had a true chinese EV for some months before it was totalled, i still watch the brand specific forum for this car, and now, one year later they have issued ZERO updates for the infotainment, even though they sold the car as "Infotainment can be updated Over The Air".

CAN is not equal to WILL, and especially not when chosing to buy from Chinese manufacturers or sellers.

PS. Yes, there are plenty of bugs and improvements that this car could benefit from, so them not doing anything is kind of shitty.

 

[AmoebaWSN]

Rule number one when dealing with Chinese manufacturers.

What you get out of the box....Is what you get.

If you want some updated features, the only option is to buy their "all new improved" version, that they release regularily.

Do not expect ANY firmware updates, if they fix something or add functionality it is almost certainly going to require you to buy new hardware.

I had a true chinese EV for some months before it was totalled, i still watch the brand specific forum for this car, and now, one year later they have issued ZERO updates for the infotainment, even though they sold the car as "Infotainment can be updated Over The Air".

CAN is not equal to WILL, and especially not when chosing to buy from Chinese manufacturers or sellers.

PS. Yes, there are plenty of bugs and improvements that this car could benefit from, so them not doing anything is kind of shitty.

My experience from Hannshowhas been different. I installed the Hansshow linux device on a TM3 and noticed that there is not an option for a time zone setting that is compatible with Adelaide time. The only options are for +8h, +9h etc GMT, not 9hours 30 minutes. I emailed them about it and received a reply the next day requesting more information. They sent me an updated firmware file 2 days later with the modified change. Couldn't have been happier. Perhaps Hannshow is atypical but I can't fault that response.

 

[ygtgngr]

My experience from Hannshowhas been different. I installed the Hansshow linux device on a TM3 and noticed that there is not an option for a time zone setting that is compatible with Adelaide time. The only options are for +8h, +9h etc GMT, not 9hours 30 minutes. I emailed them about it and received a reply the next day requesting more information. They sent me an updated firmware file 2 days later with the modified change. Couldn't have been happier. Perhaps Hannshow is atypical but I can't fault that response.

Can you share the firmware file you received?

 

[ygtgngr]

Today I installed the Hansshow ulta mini display in my Tesla Model 3 RWD. First off, a couple of points about installation that might be useful for a RHD / Australia / United Kingdom / Greenland / India / Pakinstan vehicle:

• The blue and white connectors that piggy back the Hansshow loom onto the Tesla wiring are located on the driver-side, not the passenger side like in LHD vehicles
• The Hansshow wiring loom is wayy too long for RHD models, so you need to "stuff" all the remaining length of cable somewhere behind the panels in the footwell
• The installation in RHD is quicker than LHD because all the work is done on the driver side; the only work on the passenger side is to remove the side panel that holds in the panel below the full-width air-con vent

My question for the TMC community - the Hansshow heads up display device just runs Linux, does anyone know of any hacks to modify the software and do something different with the display? I'd really like the following:

• The indicators interval on the display to match the Tesla interval (adjust the milliseconds to match)
• The font used, particularly speed display, to match the centre console
• General tomfoolery - I'm sure I could think of some handy things to show on a screen in front of my face - e.g. current media playing

I am looking into this, no reseller shared the firmware files and compiling process yet, but I was able to read some stuff from the UPD file. Reverse engineering will take a lot of time this way. Maybe the USB port might have access to the screen’s internal storage. I will try that too.

 

[Recce93]

Can you share the firmware file you received?

Funny, I just got it today. The file, zipped, is too large for me to upload to the site. It does seem to make the screen dimmer and match the center display more closely but it removed the plaid feature and the tire pressure isn't displaying (tried all the CAN settings).

 

[ygtgngr]

Funny, I just got it today. The file, zipped, is too large for me to upload to the site. It does seem to make the screen dimmer and match the center display more closely but it removed the plaid feature and the tire pressure isn't displaying (tried all the CAN settings).

Can you upload it to a service like Ufile.io - Upload files for free & share them without registration ? If I can compare that to the one I have I can probably find some stuff regarding how configuration works

 

[tom @ eas]

Can you upload it to a service like Ufile.io - Upload files for free & share them without registration ? If I can compare that to the one I have I can probably find some stuff regarding how configuration works

Here's v1213 from Hansshow, didn't see much in changes other than it removing the Plaid mode animation. Still has the 24hr clock bug. I'll leave it up on Dropbox for 30 days. There's probably newer versions out there, but didn't go any further with these as they got replaced with the larger versions.

TSL_仪表FLASH32M升级包_V2.0.2302281.zip

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[ygtgngr]

So far what I have is basically every frame for the boot video as jpeg, a few html pages about “ITE Ctrlboard” and an EBML file which I believe is also video related.

 

[israndy]

It sure would be great to allow them to be updated, there is SO much you can learn from your car via the CAN buss, I have a small computer hooked to mine and I can see all the internal car settings and display them on my phone. Sadly I don't have a permanent display for these features. I would love to know if my car is having issues cooling when charging as my car seems to be the noisiest one at the Supercharger. Currently the only update I see on the steering wheel display are the battery % and the range displays. The entire screen could change when charging but they don't take advantage of the real estate.

 

[hmadsen]

It sure would be great to allow them to be updated, there is SO much you can learn from your car via the CAN buss, I have a small computer hooked to mine and I can see all the internal car settings and display them on my phone. Sadly I don't have a permanent display for these features. I would love to know if my car is having issues cooling when charging as my car seems to be the noisiest one at the Supercharger. Currently the only update I see on the steering wheel display are the battery % and the range displays. The entire screen could change when charging but they don't take advantage of the real estate.

They could change the whole screen to charging but what then if you wanted to watch netflix, youtube, play that silly zombie game they threw developers at instead of fixing some of the more annoying problems and so on.

I would imagine that, if thet cooling system had issues and detected that, it would alert you to go get it fixed.

I agree that as a "tinkerer" it would be nice to have access to various parameters, but in reality only a fraction of people would know what to do with that info, in fact i would argue, that most people would start to worry needlessly if some day one or more parameters showed something that was not "normal" even though it would be fine in reality.

I bet such a screen as a general rule would create more nuisance calls to Tesla about "I think my car might be broken, overheating, not working like it should" and they probably dont want that.

If on the other hand you have an app on your phone that showed a bunch of parameters, firstly you would probably be one of the ones that could actually "read" the numbers and know that a certain temperature rise is not really a problem, and secondly, if you called them with your concern, they could brush you off easier because "We dont see a problem, that app is used on your own accord, not something we condone".

 

[cafz]

They could change the whole screen to charging but what then if you wanted to watch netflix, youtube, play that silly zombie game they threw developers at instead of fixing some of the more annoying problems and so on.

I believe the comment was about a third party add-on display, not the Tesla stock one.

 

[israndy]

And Teslas are really good at NOT letting you know what's going on until you should not drive it anymore.

I took my Frunk bucket out and was looking around under the radiator cover and discovered a solid mat of feathers and cigarette butts and bugs the entire size of the AC radiator pinned between the two radiators in my car. It was 2" thick! I went to clean it out and discovered that the big radiator that the battery pack uses to cool after Supercharging was completely impregnated with sand and dirt. No airflow whatsoever. Fortunately I don't live in Phoenix so it's not usually an issue, but I spoke to the Techs at Tesla Service and they said they would be happy to replace the radiators....???

Seems like an extreme reaction, I'm gonna try just hosing them out, but it would have been nice if I had found out I had no airflow before I needed new radiators.

 

[f_bohmann]

They could change the whole screen to charging but what then if you wanted to watch netflix, youtube, play that silly zombie game they threw developers at instead of fixing some of the more annoying problems and so on.

I would imagine that, if thet cooling system had issues and detected that, it would alert you to go get it fixed.

I agree that as a "tinkerer" it would be nice to have access to various parameters, but in reality only a fraction of people would know what to do with that info, in fact i would argue, that most people would start to worry needlessly if some day one or more parameters showed something that was not "normal" even though it would be fine in reality.

I bet such a screen as a general rule would create more nuisance calls to Tesla about "I think my car might be broken, overheating, not working like it should" and they probably dont want that.

If on the other hand you have an app on your phone that showed a bunch of parameters, firstly you would probably be one of the ones that could actually "read" the numbers and know that a certain temperature rise is not really a problem, and secondly, if you called them with your concern, they could brush you off easier because "We dont see a problem, that app is used on your own accord, not something we condone".

did you get anywhere since these posts? i installed the hansshow ultra mini display into my model 3, and sensing a project here, i bought a second screen to tinker. i opened it up, and there is a gd32 arm cpu handling the 2 can busses, and what i think is some undocumented version of dwin-technology t5l a asic with a MX25L25645G 256mbit eprom. from what i can read on their website, this is from a a custom asic family with an 8051 core for control and a graphics core for font/jpg rendering and outputting to lcd. i dont see how this would be a "linux system". there is some information on other versions of this asic, but they also claim that their rom features some proprietary encryption, so i dont know yet if it possible to even extract code to play with. there are tools available, i have ordered some 6-pin 0.5mm flat cable (there is such connector on the t5l a side) and breakout to see if the chip is actually a dgus-II system and has a serial connection. maybe the route is to create some software to decode the serial (possibly already decoded) can-stream that goes from the gd32 arm cpu into the t5l asic and then go implement a new gui using the dwin tools. if you want, i can take hire pictures of the pcb.

(my aim would be to recreate something that is MOSTLY like the original firmware, but using the correct font, make the brightness curve adjustable (it does not corrrectly follow the tesla brightness and is way too bright at night for my liking), and also make the tire pressure only show up if it is not ok, and have energy meters instead (current kw, average kw), and maybe also fix the discrepancies in time and battery percentage displayed.

cheers,
felix

 

[Zoltrix77]

did you get anywhere since these posts? i installed the hansshow ultra mini display into my model 3, and sensing a project here, i bought a second screen to tinker. i opened it up, and there is a gd32 arm cpu handling the 2 can busses, and what i think is some undocumented version of dwin-technology t5l a asic with a MX25L25645G 256mbit eprom. from what i can read on their website, this is from a a custom asic family with an 8051 core for control and a graphics core for font/jpg rendering and outputting to lcd. i dont see how this would be a "linux system". there is some information on other versions of this asic, but they also claim that their rom features some proprietary encryption, so i dont know yet if it possible to even extract code to play with. there are tools available, i have ordered some 6-pin 0.5mm flat cable (there is such connector on the t5l a side) and breakout to see if the chip is actually a dgus-II system and has a serial connection. maybe the route is to create some software to decode the serial (possibly already decoded) can-stream that goes from the gd32 arm cpu into the t5l asic and then go implement a new gui using the dwin tools. if you want, i can take hire pictures of the pcb.

(my aim would be to recreate something that is MOSTLY like the original firmware, but using the correct font, make the brightness curve adjustable (it does not corrrectly follow the tesla brightness and is way too bright at night for my liking), and also make the tire pressure only show up if it is not ok, and have energy meters instead (current kw, average kw), and maybe also fix the discrepancies in time and battery percentage displayed.

cheers,
felix

Your way beyond my levels of understanding, but I have tried this screen and agree with you on the brightness, significantly brighter than the main screen, and skips some of the brightness levels of the main screen.

Yes, the fonts don't match the centre screen, the boot screen is annoying, and it needs to provide some more useful information. TBH, after installing this screen, I wouldn't recommend an after market screen to anyone else. My reasoning is that the main screen speed location is just as good as behind the wheel so you often find yourself deciding where to look. For only $160, it was worth checking out.

However I would still prefer Telsa had a screen like this stock, if this worked like an instrument cluster in the traditional way, the main screen could be used for much more than it currently does, EG, have the navigation information more towards the driver, having more information that doesn't require you to use menus.

 

[hmadsen]

Your way beyond my levels of understanding, but I have tried this screen and agree with you on the brightness, significantly brighter than the main screen, and skips some of the brightness levels of the main screen.

Yes, the fonts don't match the centre screen, the boot screen is annoying, and it needs to provide some more useful information. TBH, after installing this screen, I wouldn't recommend an after market screen to anyone else. My reasoning is that the main screen speed location is just as good as behind the wheel so you often find yourself deciding where to look. For only $160, it was worth checking out.

However I would still prefer Telsa had a screen like this stock, if this worked like an instrument cluster in the traditional way, the main screen could be used for much more than it currently does, EG, have the navigation information more towards the driver, having more information that doesn't require you to use menus.

If i were to buy one of these it would probably mainly be to get Andoid Auto onto it.

I have an app that shows me warnings slow moving or stopped traffic, dangers on the road (The other day a construction site roadsign flipped over in the wind and landed, bolts op just on the edge of the roadway, 25 cars ended up puncturing their tyres), other stuff to be aware of and mobile speed traps and cameravans / police with radar.

Right now i have this app running on my phone but my tesla SCREAMS at me if i dare look at it for just a second to see what an upcoming alert is about, would be nice to get that onto a display where i do not need to take my eyes very much off of the road.