I wrote an old Windows program to use A certain box to talk to GM vehicles for fast scanning.
It worked well, but always had to lug around A large box and laptop.
The hardware box could reprogram the GM computer and such, but for general scanning I always wanted something A bit smaller and stand alone.
There exist products out there, but just really wanted to make my own.
I am now working on making own. Which started with an Arduino, which had not enough ram and flash for everything I wanted.
I moved to the Pi Pico which was much better than the Arduino. But some frustrations with the Arduino IDE and serial monitor usage drove me crazy.
Eventually the button on the board fell off! So was the last straw.
Yesterday, pulled it apart, slapped the Teensy 4.1 I got in the mail and had it up and running in under 30 minutes with needed code changes.
So far it has ran extremely well!
What is nice is I got the x2 8mb chips soldered on and the RJ45 board to expand on this much more.
So this led to obviously, an internet web http server
I use A board from SparkFun for OBD2 communications. Simple serial interface using the STN1110 chip.
98-03 GM PCM I have laying around ( i have about 75 of these from the old days of programming/selling PCMS)
IR Sensor.
20x4 LCD via I2C
SD card for settings. Using JSON for everything.
RJ45 to connect up via DHCP on my network, or can configure IP and Static IP mode if using USB C > RJ45 directly on my phone to talk, which works great!
Even made my own little some-what configurable menu interface based off some old code I wrote in the 90s for BBS software.
Some issues due to my lack of C skills that I need to resolve, but it works well enough.
Here is A little video @
Yes my setup is A mess. My project desk behind me is already 110% covered in crud currently on A stalled project so using what little space I have for this
This isn't finished, as I need to get my butt in gear, and get the actual PCM scanner code programmed in there to scan what the user (me for now) wants.
And to have that data translate over to web viewer for real data viewing. Just showing random values for now.
This will also end up allowing the 20x4 screen to show A few items out of the bunch you want viewable.
Idea is in my drag cars, the 20x4 can show me 1 to 6 items I reaaaaally want to watch.
Via phone ( or laptop or whatever that can connect via RJ45 ) can watch everything selected.
And everything will log to the SD card for simple CSV log files.
Also why RJ45? Having messed with BT and WIFI adapters for say ELM327 chipset based scanners. They are just pains in the butt.
Always pairing issue via BT. Always something goofy with WIFI and weak signals.
RJ45 just works more robust.
Eventually once done, ill have everything on github so people can make fun of my C skills and sloppy code. I am A Pascal/Delphi for A living for years so C isn't my first choice.
Anyways, I am loving the Teensy 4.1 !
It worked well, but always had to lug around A large box and laptop.
The hardware box could reprogram the GM computer and such, but for general scanning I always wanted something A bit smaller and stand alone.
There exist products out there, but just really wanted to make my own.
I am now working on making own. Which started with an Arduino, which had not enough ram and flash for everything I wanted.
I moved to the Pi Pico which was much better than the Arduino. But some frustrations with the Arduino IDE and serial monitor usage drove me crazy.
Eventually the button on the board fell off! So was the last straw.
Yesterday, pulled it apart, slapped the Teensy 4.1 I got in the mail and had it up and running in under 30 minutes with needed code changes.
So far it has ran extremely well!
What is nice is I got the x2 8mb chips soldered on and the RJ45 board to expand on this much more.
So this led to obviously, an internet web http server
I use A board from SparkFun for OBD2 communications. Simple serial interface using the STN1110 chip.
98-03 GM PCM I have laying around ( i have about 75 of these from the old days of programming/selling PCMS)
IR Sensor.
20x4 LCD via I2C
SD card for settings. Using JSON for everything.
RJ45 to connect up via DHCP on my network, or can configure IP and Static IP mode if using USB C > RJ45 directly on my phone to talk, which works great!
Even made my own little some-what configurable menu interface based off some old code I wrote in the 90s for BBS software.
Some issues due to my lack of C skills that I need to resolve, but it works well enough.
Here is A little video @
Yes my setup is A mess. My project desk behind me is already 110% covered in crud currently on A stalled project so using what little space I have for this
This isn't finished, as I need to get my butt in gear, and get the actual PCM scanner code programmed in there to scan what the user (me for now) wants.
And to have that data translate over to web viewer for real data viewing. Just showing random values for now.
This will also end up allowing the 20x4 screen to show A few items out of the bunch you want viewable.
Idea is in my drag cars, the 20x4 can show me 1 to 6 items I reaaaaally want to watch.
Via phone ( or laptop or whatever that can connect via RJ45 ) can watch everything selected.
And everything will log to the SD card for simple CSV log files.
Also why RJ45? Having messed with BT and WIFI adapters for say ELM327 chipset based scanners. They are just pains in the butt.
Always pairing issue via BT. Always something goofy with WIFI and weak signals.
RJ45 just works more robust.
Eventually once done, ill have everything on github so people can make fun of my C skills and sloppy code. I am A Pascal/Delphi for A living for years so C isn't my first choice.
Anyways, I am loving the Teensy 4.1 !