Feeler: Open Source OBC Firmware

[fuggle]

I'm in also.

[shazlee]

HI,

It looks best place to ask my stupid question.

I want to bench test of E31 OBC (MID).

Can someone PLEASE guide me the pins or and Emulator or a circuit to use for testing.

So far I am getting only light on the buttons if I have following pins


pin 10,12 16 +12v
pin 11GND.

Or is there any point in OBC to power it up.

Thank you

[benemorius]

The website you linked to has no registration page though, the title says Registration Agreement but no content in the page.

It works ok for me, and it seems to be working ok for others who are registering successfully. Maybe it was a temporary problem?

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HI,

It looks best place to ask my stupid question.

I want to bench test of E31 OBC (MID).

Can someone PLEASE guide me the pins or and Emulator or a circuit to use for testing.

So far I am getting only light on the buttons if I have following pins


pin 10,12 16 +12v
pin 11GND.

Or is there any point in OBC to power it up.

Thank you

You may have gone as far as you can go without hooking up a microcontroller or equivalent to feed the E31 OBC/MID with data to display. I've found another account of someone trying to do what you're trying to do and you appear to have had similar results - the lights come on but it doesn't display anything. I can't know for sure, but I wouldn't doubt that it is functioning as intended.

[shazlee]

OK, will play with and try to feed the E31 OBC/MID with data.
Do you have E31 IBUS commands.

[daandaman]

1. Daandaman
2. Chikinhed
3. Bry195 (how much)
4. stefanom3
5. spyke???
6. silverbullet21???
7. jdantuono???
8. NikosBMW
9. FastFreddie
10. hakhawk
11. masCh
12. driiven
13. fuggle

[rikobananas]

Just wondering if you will do a basic, price point version. All I would like is to display oil temp
Seems like its going to be complicated with SD cards and Bluetooth and programming. Would be cheaper for me to wire up a guage.
I just hope trying to control a multitude of functions wont be like trying to control my ipod through my BMW OE radio with Denison gateway. Yeah it's a novelty and it works but if I don't drive my car for a while I forget what buttons do what and don't use it.

[bry195]

Just wondering if you will do a basic, price point version. All I would like is to display oil temp
Seems like its going to be complicated with SD cards and Bluetooth and programming. Would be cheaper for me to wire up a guage.
I just hope trying to control a multitude of functions wont be like trying to control my ipod through my BMW OE radio with Denison gateway. Yeah it's a novelty and it works but if I don't drive my car for a while I forget what buttons do what and don't use it.

i doubt a massive gauge system is under development. when I started that it was a wish list. afterall, manpower is pretty thin compared to apple.

[Joylove]

Just wondering if you will do a basic, price point version. All I would like is to display oil temp
Seems like its going to be complicated with SD cards and Bluetooth and programming. Would be cheaper for me to wire up a guage.
I just hope trying to control a multitude of functions wont be like trying to control my ipod through my BMW OE radio with Denison gateway. Yeah it's a novelty and it works but if I don't drive my car for a while I forget what buttons do what and don't use it.

What you ask for appears to be the geometric opposite of every single thing that has happened so far in this thread. I recommend wiring up a gauge.

[Trickle]

Hi everybody,
I have just discovered this awesome thread when I was searching info for adding oil temp
sensor to my OBC.
Please add me to the list, I´m just so impressed by this OBC.
I have programmed in C many years ago, and I´m not sure if I´m able to contribute to the
project, but I will try to.
1. Daandaman
2. Chikinhed
3. Bry195 (how much)
4. stefanom3
5. spyke???
6. silverbullet21???
7. jdantuono???
8. NikosBMW
9. FastFreddie
10. hakhawk
11. masCh
12. driiven
13. fuggle
14. Trickle

[daandaman]

time for an update boys!

[brunp]

I don't think that I am able to look through 50 pages of posts to find out relevant information I need to determine what I can do with the OBC. Is there a catch-all thread, or perhaps a sticky with the latest information. Just curious, the open-source OBC is intriguing as I am a developer.

Paul

[FastFreddie]

I don't think that I am able to look through 50 pages of posts to find out relevant information I need to determine what I can do with the OBC. Is there a catch-all thread, or perhaps a sticky with the latest information. Just curious, the open-source OBC is intriguing as I am a developer.

Paul

Nothing yet, but once its finalized/released I'll start a wiki on it.

[brunp]

Nothing yet, but once its finalized/released I'll start a wiki on it.

Excellent.....looking forward to that. :-)

Paul

[daandaman]

guys i've thought of a function on the board we NEED!!!! to integrate whilst we still can!!!

Direct tire pressure monitoring! http://www.networkworld.com/communit...nitors-remotel

[vollosso]

Disagree.

[daandaman]

Disagree.

why is that? do you know how nice it is to not have to spend precious track time stopping in the pit lane, then running around the car with a pressure tester in the pit lane, and afterwards waiting for the officials to let you get back on the track when ready?

AND not needing to screw an ugly ebay display on your dashboard to read the values?

[vollosso]

Well in that case agree. Haha

[daandaman]

Well in that case agree. Haha

Is it a feasable option to incorporate the receiving technology of generic transponders in the openobc board?

[vollosso]

Well iirc obc has some digital in or analog. You'll need a separate circuit that receives and converts. Not really worth it in that circumstance.

[daandaman]

The question was aimed at Benemorius actually! But hence why I asked if it is possible to incorporate the receiver of those 4 transponders into the board. The IO on the board is already reserved for things like widebands etc.

[stefanom3]

Tire pressure monitoring will be nice. I like.

[benemorius]

Just wondering if you will do a basic, price point version. All I would like is to display oil temp
Seems like its going to be complicated with SD cards and Bluetooth and programming. Would be cheaper for me to wire up a guage.
I just hope trying to control a multitude of functions wont be like trying to control my ipod through my BMW OE radio with Denison gateway. Yeah it's a novelty and it works but if I don't drive my car for a while I forget what buttons do what and don't use it.

That's basically what I'm doing already. It turns out that most of the useful stuff that people want is quite cheap and/or mostly done in software. The SD card is cheap and doesn't complicate anything since the code libraries mostly already exist. Bluetooth and all the other expensive things that were discussed like GPS and 3G and wifi are being left off. Either they'll be added later, or they'll be added as optional USB devices, or they'll not be added at all.

The only expensive things that remain are the PCB and the assembly. Everything else is just little parts here and there. The PCB is obviously implausible to avoid, but DIY assembly is definitely supported and encouraged, and will reduce the price by a large factor. I don't intend to sell the parts as kits, but I certainly will publish a project list on mouser.com with all the parts on it which is 99% the same thing as a kit, not to mention cheaper.

I don't know how the UI is going to take shape but I share your concern about usability and intuitiveness. I am many things but I am NOT a UI developer. I will welcome ideas and code contribution in all areas, but particularly in this area.

i doubt a massive gauge system is under development. when I started that it was a wish list. afterall, manpower is pretty thin compared to apple.

Honestly the only reason it isn't under development yet is because I simply don't own any gauges or extra sensors to develop with. I do fully expect this to be a very popular use for the openOBC and I intend to support it.

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I don't think that I am able to look through 50 pages of posts to find out relevant information I need to determine what I can do with the OBC. Is there a catch-all thread, or perhaps a sticky with the latest information. Just curious, the open-source OBC is intriguing as I am a developer.

Paul

Sorry for that. You're right - the thread is too big and most of the information in it doesn't exist elsewhere. There are two websites here and here although neither of them has much information yet. The first was created by m2pc and doesn't get much attention anymore. The second is mine. I started it just recently and I intend to keep it up to date. I should be adding a page for the openobc rev2 design soon and I want to start posting updates in the forum there where they're more accessible than they would be if I kept burying them in the depths of this thread.

- - - Updated - - -

guys i've thought of a function on the board we NEED!!!! to integrate whilst we still can!!!

Direct tire pressure monitoring! http://www.networkworld.com/communit...nitors-remotel

I agree. I had originally intended to use wheelspeed information from the ABS module via the diagnostic bus to detect flat tires. That's not as useful as actual pressure sensing and it turned out to be unlikely to work out anyway since the ABS module appears to cease normal operation (maybe... all I know for sure is that the ABS light in the cluster comes on) for the duration of any diagnostic bus communication with it.

Is it a feasable option to incorporate the receiving technology of generic transponders in the openobc board?

It's too late to add it to the next board revision directly but there shouldn't be any problem with making it an add on module since I've left plenty of extra i/o pins available. This is definitely something I want to do one way or the other. I don't yet know what kind of hardware we'll need exactly as I've never looked in to it in sufficient detail. It shouldn't take anything more than a basic radio module, perhaps even one like the one like the rfm-22 that I almost put on the rev1 board. We might need to locate a source of pressure sensors that don't use any kind of encryption or anything like that, although honestly I'd be a little surprised if any of them did that. Hopefully all or most of them use a similar enough radio that we just need to do a bit of reverse engineering for each pressure sensor module we want to support.

If anyone has some sensors and/or a receiver module it could be very useful to get some high resolution photos of the circuit boards. At the very least it should tell us what kind of radios they use. This is pretty high on my list of things I'd like to add but I'm starting out with practically zero knowledge about these things so I don't know when I'll have the time to give myself a crash course. If someone has a spare kit they want to send to me for reverse engineering, that would probably give me a good head start but I obviously need to start producing rev2 boards first.

- - - Updated - - -

time for an update boys!

Indeed it is. I really thought I would have some boards to show off in the next update, but you beat me to it.

One of the reasons I kept putting off the rev2 layout was because I was really, REALLY not looking forward to trying to squeeze everything on to a 2 layer board without breaking every good practice design rule in the book. I was barely happy with the rev1 layout and this one was going to be even worse with the additional parts and i/o.

Well, I'm very pleased to announce that it looks like the price of getting 4 layer boards made in small quantities has finally fallen to a price that's really not too much higher than 2 layer boards. I have therefore begun the rev2 layout using 4 layers. This may affect the price by a small amount, but I consider it money well spent since I really don't think I'd have started the layout at all yet if I was still limited to 2 layers.

Screen Shot 2013-06-27 at 11.42.37 PM.png

It doesn't look like much yet because I stopped very soon when I remembered that I had wanted to make some mechanical changes for better fitment in the factory OBC, but once I take some measurements and make some adjustments it shouldn't take more than a day's work before I'm ready to send the design to the board fab. About 1.5 weeks after that I expect to be posting some long-awaited pictures of finished boards.

At that point I'll have about 10 boards I can assemble and ship out immediately to those who have been patiently waiting on the list, assuming of course that everything works ok. I'll then get to work immediately and simultaneously on meeting the remaining demand and polishing up a release-quality factory-equivalent (well, it will actually be considerably more capable already) firmware to ship with the boards. As I've mentioned before, flashing the firmware will require nothing more than a usb cable and pc and will carry a 0% risk of bricking, so the recipients of the early rev2 boards (which will probably ship with beta-quality firmware with missing factory features) will have no trouble keeping the firmware up to date.

[vollosso]

^your doing a fantastic job, I wish I had had the time to help you develop.

[daandaman]

If anyone has some sensors and/or a receiver module it could be very useful to get some high resolution photos of the circuit boards. At the very least it should tell us what kind of radios they use. This is pretty high on my list of things I'd like to add but I'm starting out with practically zero knowledge about these things so I don't know when I'll have the time to give myself a crash course. If someone has a spare kit they want to send to me for reverse engineering, that would probably give me a good head start but I obviously need to start producing rev2 boards first.

Im willing to purchase and ship you a set of transponders, or a complete third party set including receiver. We should talk about this by mail?

[benemorius]

Im willing to purchase and ship you a set of transponders, or a complete third party set including receiver. We should talk about this by mail?

Ok I'd be game for that, but lets hold off for just a bit. I need to focus on getting the rev2 boards produced, and also since you don't actually possess them yet we would probably be wise to take some time to see if there's anything we can do to increase the odds of selecting something we can make the most use of as far as hackability goes. It's often a good bet to just get the cheapest chinese import you can find, and I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being the best choice, but it's probably best to attempt to confirm that if money is going to be spent.