Raspberry Pi based vehicle monitor

[JonB]

There are several articles online about building a device to monitor and display vehicle functions using a Raspberry Pi. These "computers" are attached to the OBDII port and can display a number of parameters, including boost, engine temperature, charge, etc. I'm interested in building one and would like to know if anyone has any experience doing this. Before I spend the money buying the components I'd like to hear from others on the subject.

Thanks.

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[micl9]

I love hacking and tinkering and Raspberry Pi is a very popular means to that end. However, I never had time to play with it , so take my opinion as a non user.
Most of what you are talking about can be done with you cell phone and Android Auto. So unless you need a permanent presence in the truck I would go that route as the interface to the display is already worked out. Check out OBD2AA
But who knows maybe someone already had a SYNC lync to R Pi!

 

[RangerCoby]

I just used a Raspberry Pi to build a retro gaming system. They are very versatile and easy to work with.

As stated above there could already be a build like this on GitHub that you could use. I hadn't thought about this use for a RPi but I don't see why you couldn't do it.

 

[txquailguy]

Sounds like a cool project. I tried to set up a remote vhf monitor with a Raspberry Pi setup in grad school. My problem was lack of a cell signal to transmit data. So you will not be able to monitor anything that you can not already monitor in Torque Pro for $4.95. With a $21 OBDII wireless dongle. All you need is a cheap android tablet and you have instant monitoring. I have not found the PID files to get extended functionality yet but I just have not played with the other Ford PID files. There is not one specifically for the Ranger as far as I know.
PID files are the custom programming to read the sensor data from our Rangers thru the OBDII port. There is default programming built in too Torque Pro that gives basic monitoring of boost, coolant temp, exhaust temp, fuel rail pressure...etc....That is what I am tied into at this point. If anyone knows where to get this data please let me know. I have scoured the Focus RS forum and F150 forum for this information.

 

[SteamiestOyster]

I am using a custom 64 bit Linux-based ARM SBC with an open xc (https://developer.ford.com/pages/openxc) interface to build a second center console display. My end goal is to replace the dash tray with this display. I am working on getting it to network into the car's local network and hopefully share it's internet connection. My primary intent is to be able to have Sync controls and Android auto up at the same time (which one on which display is dependent on how much I am able to control over a foreign CAN master and what the openxc APIs are capable of). There is not great documentation on openXC so there is a lot of experimentation involved. And there are no public documentation on the CAN interface for the vehicle, obviously, so I am sniffing out the network manually and pretty much guessing and checking. Still learning about CAN bus so it's going to be a long term project. If you look on the openxc website you will see links to projects where people make auxillary instrument displays using openxc. It's probably the most basic and practical use for open xc

 

[RedlandRanger]

I am using a custom 64 bit Linux-based ARM SBC with an open xc (https://developer.ford.com/pages/openxc) interface to build a second center console display. My end goal is to replace the dash tray with this display. I am working on getting it to network into the car's local network and hopefully share it's internet connection. My primary intent is to be able to have Sync controls and Android auto up at the same time (which one on which display is dependent on how much I am able to control over a foreign CAN master and what the openxc APIs are capable of). There is not great documentation on openXC so there is a lot of experimentation involved. And there are no public documentation on the CAN interface for the vehicle, obviously, so I am sniffing out the network manually and pretty much guessing and checking. Still learning about CAN bus so it's going to be a long term project. If you look on the openxc website you will see links to projects where people make auxillary instrument displays using openxc. It's probably the most basic and practical use for open xc

Another very interesting project. I took at look at the developer page and there was this comment:

Unless you are implementing custom CAN messages, you will need a pre-built OpenXC binary from the manufacturer of your vehicle. The pre-compiled OpenXC vehicle interface firmware for Ford vehicles (required to get proprietary data streams) is available on this Developer Program page to developers that create an account and agree to the terms and conditions.

Did you get that binary? This might be a side project I could get into honestly.....

 

[SteamiestOyster]

Did you get that binary? This might be a side project I could get into honestly.....

Yup, but they are largely if not entirely read-only (ie, you can't send commands). Which is why pretty much all the projects you will see are for things like gauges and other instrument displays. If that's all you want to do than it should be simple.

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