Vendor Scan My Tesla, a CANBUS reader for Android

[FalconFour]

Well. Figure I'd pop my head in here and call up an observation I've had.

In my 3 LR/RWD, I'm playing a lot with power export from the 12v DC-DC to a beefy inverter. So far it seems impossible to break the car, just mildly annoy it (requiring a 12v pull/reset back to normal with no toys hanging off the DC-DC 'til it reboots). Also playing with alternative 12v batteries.

I found that the display of "12v battery Amp Hours" is wildly inaccurate - almost by a factor of 2. Just gauging amps-over-time, you can see it's off - if it's charging at a 10A rate, come back in an hour, it says it's pumped 20Ah into the battery, for example.

I'm also curious about logging, as I can't make any sense of how logging is supposed to work. "View logs" is the only app item I can find related to logging. It just opens a generic system file browser intent, focused on my recent images. I found a ScanMyTesla folder in the storage root, open it, tapped on a log file, and I'm prompted with activities to share with (like "copy to clipboard", "share to Facebook", "Messages", etc, for small blurbs of text). Don't understand what that's all about, but I also can't find any options for configuring logging, or how any of it is supposed to work. If there's docs, great, well... maybe it could be a little more intuitive or discoverable?

Mostly just care about the 12v measurement issue

 

[scottf200]

Well. Figure I'd pop my head in here and call up an observation I've had.

In my 3 LR/RWD, I'm playing a lot with power export from the 12v DC-DC to a beefy inverter. So far it seems impossible to break the car, just mildly annoy it (requiring a 12v pull/reset back to normal with no toys hanging off the DC-DC 'til it reboots). Also playing with alternative 12v batteries.

I found that the display of "12v battery Amp Hours" is wildly inaccurate - almost by a factor of 2. Just gauging amps-over-time, you can see it's off - if it's charging at a 10A rate, come back in an hour, it says it's pumped 20Ah into the battery, for example.

I'm also curious about logging, as I can't make any sense of how logging is supposed to work. "View logs" is the only app item I can find related to logging. It just opens a generic system file browser intent, focused on my recent images. I found a ScanMyTesla folder in the storage root, open it, tapped on a log file, and I'm prompted with activities to share with (like "copy to clipboard", "share to Facebook", "Messages", etc, for small blurbs of text). Don't understand what that's all about, but I also can't find any options for configuring logging, or how any of it is supposed to work. If there's docs, great, well... maybe it could be a little more intuitive or discoverable?

Mostly just care about the 12v measurement issue

I had pretty good luck monitoring the 12v for my fridge usage: Vendor - Scan My Tesla, a CANBUS reader for Android
If you have an Android phone then use DriveSync mentioned here to move the log: scan my tesla - Reccommended software
It has been great for me.

 

[amiral_sub]

Hi all, which obd dongle for android do ou recommand? I whsh to buy a very stable one, because I have a central console and my obd conector will be unreachable after the installation

 

[aerodyne]

Hi all, which obd dongle for android do ou recommand? I whsh to buy a very stable one, because I have a central console and my obd conector will be unreachable after the installation

Not necessarily. I found a good way to mount it so it is accessible. See pic below. You can mount it on the side if the center console is in the way.

Several dongles and cables are mentioned in this thread. I have the MX.

 

[cypho]

Hi all, which obd dongle for android do ou recommand? I whsh to buy a very stable one, because I have a central console and my obd conector will be unreachable after the installation

I have the obdlink mx+.

I've never had it crash while I am using it. But it is often (perhaps 50% of the time) unresponsive when I try to connect and must be unplugged to bring it back to life. Installing it in an inaccessible location wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[aerodyne]

I have the obdlink mx+.

I've never had it crash while I am using it. But it is often (perhaps 50% of the time) unresponsive when I try to connect and must be unplugged to bring it back to life. Installing it in an inaccessible location wouldn't be a good idea.

I have the same experience. Waking up the car and getting close seems to help.

 

[Msjulie]

Oddly mine is fine though I do have to forcibly reconnect to it (in my iPhone bluetooth settings) most of the time.

 

[Atari2600]

Is this good for monitoring 12v battery health? I purchased a bluetooth monitor that connects at the battery terminals and sits in the battery. It has enough memory to log for 30 days without connecting. Was planning to install it today.
I have purchased this software, have the cable and the mx+ but never installed it.

 

[aerodyne]

Oddly mine is fine though I do have to forcibly reconnect to it (in my iPhone bluetooth settings) most of the time.

After waking the car, I often have to select car and select device..

Like the other poster said, almost never crashes when in the car.

 

[TheOtherPete]

They sell OBD extension cables with an on-off switch, makes it much easier when you need to disconnect/reconnect, just flip the switch

I bought mine a long time ago so I am just linking to one as a reference, not recommending this in particular : https://www.amazon.com/Tonsiki-Female-Diagnostic-Extension-battery/dp/B00UR5XBMW

 

[FalconFour]

So anything about the 12v amp hour reporting issue?

Where does this data interpretation even come from? I don't really see a lot of discussion about what CAN messages translate to what measurements, and I'd really love to know more about the on-the-wire details of what's going on. Surely Tesla didn't give all the details about what bytes mean what messages, so where did that decoding come from?

 

[gaswalla]

Interesting issue I have... I have a 2017 X... just had the MCU1 to MCU2 upgrade and the HW2 to 3 upgrade...
I cannot find the cable behind the cubby anymore..accessing the area via removal of the hockey-stick cover from the passenger footwell.
Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Geek190]

I have a pretty good idea

 

[amund7]

Well. Figure I'd pop my head in here and call up an observation I've had.

In my 3 LR/RWD, I'm playing a lot with power export from the 12v DC-DC to a beefy inverter. So far it seems impossible to break the car, just mildly annoy it (requiring a 12v pull/reset back to normal with no toys hanging off the DC-DC 'til it reboots). Also playing with alternative 12v batteries.

I found that the display of "12v battery Amp Hours" is wildly inaccurate - almost by a factor of 2. Just gauging amps-over-time, you can see it's off - if it's charging at a 10A rate, come back in an hour, it says it's pumped 20Ah into the battery, for example.

I'm also curious about logging, as I can't make any sense of how logging is supposed to work. "View logs" is the only app item I can find related to logging. It just opens a generic system file browser intent, focused on my recent images. I found a ScanMyTesla folder in the storage root, open it, tapped on a log file, and I'm prompted with activities to share with (like "copy to clipboard", "share to Facebook", "Messages", etc, for small blurbs of text). Don't understand what that's all about, but I also can't find any options for configuring logging, or how any of it is supposed to work. If there's docs, great, well... maybe it could be a little more intuitive or discoverable?

Mostly just care about the 12v measurement issue

Good input. I will checked if the definition has changed since my implementation. The source of this signal is here joshwardell/model3dbc

But how do you test it? In my cars, it only bounces around 0 and -0, I have never seen it count much, if anything.


The log files are written to internal storage:/ScanMyTesla folder. Stupidly, I could never figure out a way to make that dialog start in the correct folder. Once you find it, it stays there - on some phones you have to go into a menu and check 'show internal storage'. The whole thing should be removed and replaced with something that works, but as it turns out, the whole app will be replaced at some point, with the new 2.0 branch, then I can get a new stab at the problem, cross-platform this time.

 

[amund7]

I have the obdlink mx+.

I've never had it crash while I am using it. But it is often (perhaps 50% of the time) unresponsive when I try to connect and must be unplugged to bring it back to life. Installing it in an inaccessible location wouldn't be a good idea.

Assuming you are talking about IOS, you can fix it without unplugging, by going to Iphone settings -> bluetooth -> OBDLINK MX+ -> click the little blue (i) -> disconnect.
Go back, usually it reconnects right away, if not click the MX+ and wait for it to say 'connected', then the app works.
After doing this a few times, mine seem to work every time. But I can see others still having this problem.
This is on an OS level, some kind of limbo state where the adapter is connected, but not letting Scan My Tesla (or other apps) know. To me it seems I can trigger it by being connected, walking slightly out of bluetooth range from the adapter then back. But in a 'normal' use case (entering the car, driving, then leaving the car for a longer period) everything seems to work as expected, for me at least.

I talked to the TPT developer about this a while back, he also didn't have a solution for it. Very much open for suggestions if someone has developer experience on this, I use the EEAccessory API, which I believe is used by all Apple compatible accessories (such as USB gadgets and any other bluetooth device)

 

[cypho]

Assuming you are talking about IOS,

Android

 

[Geek190]

I have the same issue with the Bluetooth adapter, also android.
I drilled out the top corner of my cubby so that the adapter sits inside it and is accessible to unplug and plug back in.
I tried a lot of things and the only thing that seemed to work was to unplug it.

 

[amund7]

The OBDLINK devices has a tendency to 'hang'. When they do, they are allowing bluetooth connections, but not responding to any commands. The only way out is power cycling it.

In my real-world use I rarely see this. Maybe because my cars have always cut the power to the OBDLINKs when it sleeps, so the OBDLINK is always freshly booted in the morning. Check if yours do, and if it doesn't, at least for Model S it should be possible to swap a wire in the wiring harness to power it from a +12v that shuts off when the car sleeps.

You can also try the latest firmwares from OBDLINK, their changelogs mention a lot of fixes regarding canbus lately. I reported this problem several years ago, they tried to catch the problem but could never trigger it in their lab. I also can't rule out that this is a bug in my app, but we have tried to catch it for several years without luck. Some phones seem to be more prone, and some Android versions, very hard problem to get to the bottom of.

 

[aerodyne]

Another possibility is ageing MCU1. I find I have to get much closer to the car to connect, even when the car is awake.

Maybe once a month or two do I unplug. Usually just cycle "connect to car" and "select bluetooth device" do the job.

 

[T.R.T.e.s.l.a.]

It's been weeks since the last time i was able to use SMT....
I already took off and disengaged the ODB and put it on again, but i still can't connect...
Took a screenshot of the message i get.
Any idea?
TIA