Home Made OBD2 Software Project
 

Need a project, thought making something for my car could be fun. Gonna run it by here and see if anyone has done it before or has experience with the hardware.

Goal: Custom OBD2 reader that can interface with my laptop. Not much, I just want to mess around and see if I can get Putty to work with my car.

Hardware: Linux Mint Laptop (Terminal) or Windows 8.1 Laptop (Putty).
................ELM327 Reader
Language: C# final product, I'll be happy just being able to ssh into it with Putty or terminal.

My understanding of OBD2 readers is that they convert ASCII to voltages through the port and vice versa. Is there any API or documentation of some sort for these commands? Also the only reader I have found so far with any documentation is the ELM327, are there any better out there?

What have your "google" searches found? When I was researching OBDII readers I found pages detailing attempts to do what you are doing. I ended up with getting an Ultragauge OBDII reader as my principle interest was being able to measure the transmission temperature.

You can start here, and then move on to something more in depth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs

It's way above my pay grade.

So far I've found this article about how to interface with the OBD2 port and planned on ordering the ELM327 reader used.

There are a few scattered Stack Overflow post on the topic as well, but they seem more focused on the connection rather than the communicating.

Trying to find an ELM327 that is wired however seems to be more difficult then I expected. Almost all of them are Bluetooth instead.

^^^ I'm with Les on this,,,Stuff makes my head hurt...Wish I didn't start reading that link... lol..

One semester short of getting a BS in Computer Science so this is right up my alley. Getting the right hardware and communicating with it seems to be the most difficult part.

Generally speaking , if there's no MAC , WWN or IP to SSH to , not sure how I'd SSH to it..But it definitely peaks my interest a little now that you brought it up....

The wired one in the article I found used a serial connection, which I've done before with putty, however I'm not sure how this would work with Bluetooth.

Ahh , that makes sense...I know Amazon had some ELM327 based OBD2 to USB adaptors a little ways back....Unless you are looking for the 9-pin serial connection..

I'll have to see if I can dig them up..

USB would be ideal as neither of my laptops have a serial connection. I can certainly see the advantage of Bluetooth being that I could use my phone as an interface, but I have very little experience with android development and would like to use my laptop instead.