Hey Guys,
Thought of another alternative for my custom dash project.
As OBD2 upgrade is going to be waayyy to expensive, I've decided to try and research using the current setup to make the in-car pc display a speedo,tacho and other gauges on a 7" touch screen display in place of the current gauges.

Does anyone know if there's any software available to allow the ALDL data to be used to run custom/skinnable gauges on the pc?


And will the response time be fast enough to be practical for the application?
This is on a 165ECM.

 

Have you looked at Tuner Pro ?

 

tuner pro won't do it, maybe RT, I'll have a look into it, just gotta purchase an ALDL cable.

 

I've used RT for some time, 'till I bought the EBL anyway. If Tuner Pro won't then Scanner Pro certainly will. You'll need the ALDL cable either way, anyway.

 

what's EBL?
What I really need is to run a standalone app, or even a seperate window with the gauges displayed on that. So I can have my main monitor running windows and whatever else i need on it, and the gauges on a separate monitor dedicated just to the gauge display.
And I need to be able to customise the colours, size etc so that it doesn't look like a commodore 64 game.
That why I originally wanted the OBD2 because there's an app out there specifically for making your own gauge display.

 

See http://dynamicefi.com
It has it's own high speed display coded into the software that comes with, but the EBL itself is a replacement ECM for the older C3 TBI stuff.

Scanner Pro by the same folks that bring you Tuner Pro. Works with anything Tuner Pro RT works with, cause it can use the same definition files for the data stream, but the display is customized to whatever you make it.

 

I'm acutally looking into to developing a standalone setup for obd1. This is what I did for my Grand Prix GTP. You can select any OBD2 parameters to show on the screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkVxzM0YXT8

 

oh neat, thats how the zr1's on the corvettes are iirc, very cool. Any chance of instructions of how you set this up? I might consider looking into doing that as well for some fun on the side.

 

Well, it was a senior design project for my ece degree, so it's not quite as easy as ploping a few components down and turning it on

I am looking to build a display that you can stick in the dash or console with the info and possibly selling it, so stay tuned.

 

i'll buy one.
And be more than happy to be a beta tester

 

That is awesome.

 

It will take some hardware but it can be done
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/fusi...s-project.html

 

yeah, i want to do a touch screen with ebl. Should not be to hard to read the datastream, which is CANII i think. Now just need software to make gauges. Would love to be able to connect some relays and start car from touch screen as well.

 

did you make your own. I'm stuck on this atm. I want to buy your tech 10 years later, please answer haha

 

Haha,

I went through a whole bunch of project changes and ended up with a 24x conversion running a Ls1 VY Commodore dash and gauge cluster.

The best thing you can do if you want to make something like this is cut out where your current gauges are, put a tablet, ipad or phone in place of it, and run Plamer Engineering's DashCommand. I think it was like $10 and you can use any ebay dongle to do it.
For OBD1 TunerPro can show a custom gauge screen, so you'd have to run a mini-pc to be able to run the software and explain it.

Unfortunately I went the long way around to OBD2 so I didn't make much headway.

Your best bet in the land of today thouhh would be to go Arduino.
You should be able to pick up a kit or the modules to get the data from ALDL, and someone by now would surely have a OBD1 to gauge module or design to be able to display the readouts on a display.
Shouldn't be too expensive either.

Best of luck

 

Personally, I'd look at TunerPro running under WINE, on a RaspberryPi.

OR, get from Rbob, and run that the same way, which has many other advantages as well.

 

oh wow I actually got replies haha. I'm still awake at 230am in australia. I ended up finding the raspberry pi ,thought that might work with tunerpro if I can supply sufficient power to the raspberry pi and a 7 inch screen to make a custom tacho. It should be easy , maybe old mate should take up the old project and make a buck or two
thanks heaps fellas.

 

If you're in Australia maybe check the commodore forums and see if they've got anything.

VR-VT 5L motors used the 808 ECU which is basically a slower baud rate version of the `165ECU.
Anything that works with them will work with your OBD1.

Any signals you want to capture are either going to be volts, ohms or counts, so you've always got the option of bypassing OBD1 and just use a I/O board to get the data straight from the sensors and send to the display. You'd need a bit of programming knowledge, or you might be able to mash together something from others code.


I always wanted to make an aggressive mode for my car. Flick a switch and have the gauges turn to flames, open electronic exhaust cutoffs and scare the **** out of people, but I think I got old LOL
Now I just want a motor that doesn't leak oil and gets me where I need to go, which is why I've gone to the LS1.

 

You can simply get ALDLDroid on your Android phone, connect it via an ALDL to Bluetooth adapter (or wired if it doesnt bother you) and you have access to any stream available in the ALDL protocol.. It even has an HUD feature that you simply enable.

The application is perfect but there is still the unreliability issue of the ALDL on the 165 ecm ...

 

Another approach may be to contact the developer of the PC logging and gauge creation program, WinLog (DevTechnics.com) ,and see if he can develop a serial driver for OBD1/ALDL. We (the GMC Motorhome community) recently worked with him and BobR to create one for the EBL that picks up much of the EBL serial data for use in gauges and logging, including trip meters (miles, gallons, mpg)

 

billvv How do you like that display so far?

 

Works great! I did a bunch of searching for gauge creation software, and was astonished to find WinLog and that it took a serial stream for input. Take a look at the WinLog documentation to see all of the features; there's too many to list here. You want a brushed nickel background? Just find a jpeg that looks like what you want. Pick a font for the gauge lettering, Want to play a wave file on an alarm? Bigger gauges, smaller, etc. Real time plot.

If I had the patience and could figure out the gauge background mask stuff, I could make them look pretty much like the stock gauges (except only one needle per gauge).

 

Hi billvv is the serial driver for sale. What ebl are you using the p4? I am looking looking to get the sfi-6 if it will work with my setup.

 

I'm using the Flash II... The serial driver is available for download - PM me when you're ready.

The developer of WinLog wrote the driver for us for next to no charge. You can download WinLog and use it for no charge or pay $30.00 to use it without nuisance-ware. The second option helps support his work on the driver.

 

UPDATE:

Winlog-EBL is now available for download:

Winlog (without nuisance-ware), the current driver, and sample dash is available for download at winlog-ebl.org after registration.. It picks up 50 'fields' from the EBL serial stream for use in creating gauges, including three fuel/miles/mpg trip meters and instantaneous MPG. It also comes with 'WinLogView'; an awesome datalog display program. With a little excel manipulation you can combine a .csv version of the WUD datalog with Winlog's datalog and get even more fields to display.

WinLog-ebl works on Windows PCs;I've tested it on Windows 10 so it should work on W11 just fine.