Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Vendor Scan My Tesla, a CANBUS reader for Android

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
By Ready-To-Go you mean has software currently on the App Store that supports the device? If so, yeah, you need to use the beta, so no App Store for you. Personally I was OK with downloading the beta app, it's not 100%, but the app in general is a work in progress. And the CanServer support IS out of the box. Just plug it in and fire up SMT beta.
 
Tesla has filed a document with the US EPA that shows the arrangement of the CAN bus cables for the new MS Plaid and LR.

Cables are under the lower trim on theleft side of the center console.

Opportunity knocks!

Never mind, I see the usual folks on another thread.

By the time I make up my mind to get a LR, I'm sure you all will have it figured out...
 
Last edited:
I found some useful information on the tes.lax website, it indicates that the OBDLink CX has faster data rate than the MX+? This does seem to contradict the impression that I had initially. I’ve ordered the Maxwell cable and it will take me probably at least a week to work through my Viofo dashcam installation so I can take a little more time to figure out if I should order a CX or MX+… Or something else…
 
CX, AFAIK, is BLE only. Scan My Tesla does not support it, might in the future, just to give the IOS crowd some more options. And hopefully, the Android crowd too.

Me & user's benchmarks are here: Adapters, phones, performance vs price chart

Canserver is not in there yet, but it's even faster than OBDLINK LX/MX/MX+. It depends on what the car is doing, it gets all the data, up to and over 2000 packets per second.
 
I absolutely agree, this app is growing maybe too fast and I see these things in hindsight. For example I hear a lot of users never find the 'signal lists', and keep complaining they 'want what Bjørn has' - even if it's already in there. But I can't think of a more obvious way to add it in - maybe a better title than 'signal lists' - but if you have a new app that you are unfamiliar with, wouldn't you try to press the two upper main menu items before writing an email to the developer to complain? I would. But I am absolutely open for suggestions, but they have to be something concrete, what better to call these 2 modes than 'dashboards' and 'signal lists', I am seriously open for ideas. Maybe 'classic UI' ? Any better suggestions?

As for the signal list's pulldown, I'd like to follow some logical UI design, to me it would be logical with a small down arrow. But that might be my Windows user brain thinking. How are pulldowns usually outlined, in modern Android and IOS systems?
I appear to have lost the option to copy and paste values to different screens. I'm also not able to move gages up or down. I've reinstalled but still don't have the option to press and hold gages to move or copy. Maybe it's just me. I'll have to try another phone to see if that's the issue.
 
I appear to have lost the option to copy and paste values to different screens. I'm also not able to move gages up or down. I've reinstalled but still don't have the option to press and hold gages to move or copy. Maybe it's just me. I'll have to try another phone to see if that's the issue.

It is not yet implemented in the new apps (Android beta + all IOS versions). Coming soon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hiroshiy and Darmie
I brought up SMT up today while running errands during a sunny day. That light grey on a black background is pretty hard to see during the day. I'm used to seeing it in my darker garage. I may have missed how to change all the colors. I would probably start my personal settings changes by just making the grey into white.

f3MqMik.jpg
 
I unfortunately thought that documentation would be easy to find and ordered the self crimp cable from Maxwell. Now that I have the OBDLink MX+ and this cable on hand, figuring out the pinout turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. The pdf's Maxwell has are laughably bad. But all the information is on there it seems.

My understanding is that the MX+ can only read one CAN bus at a time? Do I need to physically connect the CAN bus I'm interested in to the pins 6 and 14 to get it to read?

I guess I should have gotten the pre-crimped cable just to be able to know what's supposed to be connected where (at least according to Maxwell).
 
Update, well I connected what I’m pretty sure is CAN3 to OBDLink MX+ On Pins 6 and 14 and I’m getting garbage values in tes-LAX. more experimentation needed :( I’ll use my android tablet instead to try scan-my-Tesla, since it sounds like the iOS app may be buggier.
 
I unfortunately thought that documentation would be easy to find and ordered the self crimp cable from Maxwell. Now that I have the OBDLink MX+ and this cable on hand, figuring out the pinout turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. The pdf's Maxwell has are laughably bad. But all the information is on there it seems.

My understanding is that the MX+ can only read one CAN bus at a time? Do I need to physically connect the CAN bus I'm interested in to the pins 6 and 14 to get it to read?

I guess I should have gotten the pre-crimped cable just to be able to know what's supposed to be connected where (at least according to Maxwell).

Update, well I connected what I’m pretty sure is CAN3 to OBDLink MX+ On Pins 6 and 14 and I’m getting garbage values in tes-LAX. more experimentation needed :( I’ll use my android tablet instead to try scan-my-Tesla, since it sounds like the iOS app may be buggier.

Sounds like you are on the right track with the cable. Only tesLAX is not buggy :)

If you mix up CAN + and CAN -, I think you won't be getting any data at all. But I might be wrong, on some bus types you'll get garbage data

If you are on the wrong bus, you might see a few values that give garbage numbers, or most probably you'll see nothing

If you select the wrong car in the apps, you might also get some garbage / weird values.

Check all of them and let me know how it goes. A screenshot from SMT or a closer explanation of what you mean by 'garbage' might point us towards what's wrong and what's right.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JWardell
I brought up SMT up today while running errands during a sunny day. That light grey on a black background is pretty hard to see during the day. I'm used to seeing it in my darker garage. I may have missed how to change all the colors. I would probably start my personal settings changes by just making the grey into white.

f3MqMik.jpg

Agreed. Also 'day mode' has been heavily requested throughout the years. Now that both OS's have night/day mode built in, we should probably follow that - but as you suggest I'd love to get to a fully customizable color scheme. Pondering how to solve it technically. Would be cool if you can change all the colors, share your scheme as an xml file, submit to me, and have awesome defaults to choose between :) We'll get there one day, and maybe sooner than later, at least a 'bright night' / 'standard night' (today's gray vs white) / 'day' is desperately needed for starters.
 
Great news. So I got my android tablet running and bought SMT for it and it took a slight bit of fiddling but after that it's quite easy to get it to connect to the car.

Actually, all the stats are coming up just fine in SMT, so maybe tesLAX is the one that doesn't know my old Model S protocols. But SMT definitely does. So awesome. I gotta get a mount so that I can monitor the huge amount of data safely.

Maybe I will just get a refund for the tesLAX in-app-purchase. If that's even possible.
 
Great news. So I got my android tablet running and bought SMT for it and it took a slight bit of fiddling but after that it's quite easy to get it to connect to the car.

Actually, all the stats are coming up just fine in SMT, so maybe tesLAX is the one that doesn't know my old Model S protocols. But SMT definitely does. So awesome. I gotta get a mount so that I can monitor the huge amount of data safely.

Maybe I will just get a refund for the tesLAX in-app-purchase. If that's even possible.
Good to hear, thanks for sharing! What cable did you end up ordering and how did you set it up? (any photos you have would be appreciated)
 
Good to hear, thanks for sharing! What cable did you end up ordering and how did you set it up? (any photos you have would be appreciated)
I've got a post-facelift 2016 model S (AP1), the cable is the post-2015 one from maxwell auto tech. I got the self-crimp cable and it was a bit confusing which pins to hook up, but all I needed to do was put the CAN3+ on pin 6 and CAN3- on pin 14 (and the power and ground of course), the OBD connector it came with has the pins labeled. Unfortunately i did not take photos at the time. I guess you ought to splurge for the $40 pre assembled cable to avoid the headache. I just have the crimping hardware on hand so I didn't go that route.

Note this only applies to model S and X for the diagnostic cable found under the MCU behind/above the cubby that you yank down.
 
  • Like
Reactions: amund7 and aerodyne
iOS user here, about to get delivery of a 21 Model 3, and planning to use this app. Looking at the hardware to buy, if I get the JWardell CANServer unit in order to help future proof my setup, does that mean I’ll get a spot in the iOS beta for sure? Using TestFlight doesn’t bother me at all, I always run beta iOS builds as soon as possible also.
 
  • Like
Reactions: scottf200
iOS user here, about to get delivery of a 21 Model 3, and planning to use this app. Looking at the hardware to buy, if I get the JWardell CANServer unit in order to help future proof my setup, does that mean I’ll get a spot in the iOS beta for sure? Using TestFlight doesn’t bother me at all, I always run beta iOS builds as soon as possible also.

Yes, and it will move to IOS production soon.
 
Awesome, thanks for that. Follow up question, what does the dual bus model 3/Y version give me extra? Don’t have the car yet, so can’t confirm it has any extra connection, but it’s a North American car, so it should according to the site?

Right now, Scan My Tesla does not recognize any other buses than the Powertrain bus / CAN 3. Also, my car (EU) does not have that plug under the seat, so it will be hard for me to develop and test any of that. Have a look at TeslaX, it already has some support for the chassis bus.
 
  • Like
Reactions: edconline
Awesome, thanks for that. Follow up question, what does the dual bus model 3/Y version give me extra? Don’t have the car yet, so can’t confirm it has any extra connection, but it’s a North American car, so it should according to the site?

At this point all CANservers are made with dual can bus support whether you need it or not, simply because I can't hand built every server custom to order any more. Normally they come with an OBD adapter with the two most common can bus pin sets connected.

The 3/Y version has a single bus OBD connector for plugging into a rear console adapter plus a long extension, as the server is instead located under the seat; then it also includes the plug and socket to tap into the under seat connection for the chassis bus.
Those extra signals are for less common things like autpopilot, accelerometers, TPMS sensors, etc. Scan My Tesla does not currently access that data, but other apps or your own data sleuthing may want it. If you don't care, save some money (and get a much easier install) with the standard dual bus OBD version.
 
Anyone ever have any weird issues with their car with the OBD connector and dongle installed? On my 18 Model 3 I'd noticed some weird stuff happening with the car when powering on where the car seemed to be glitchy and "power on" in weird ways that went away after I removed the OBD connector. Have not tried reinstalling it yet. Got my connector from GPS Tracking America. Things were fine initially, only recently started having some issues.