So I bought one of these gadgets a while back, but never really got the time to play with it until I went on my holiday vacation from work. Pretty neat little interface. Basically from the PC side, its a virtual com port thru the USB. Pretty easy to send stuff thru it using hyperterminal. Works just like a serial port. Just select the mode, and send the OBD message frame. Not too hard to request basic things like coolant temp, TPS, etc. The on-board controller then does all the rest of the hard stuff like arbitration and sending/recieving the message frames.

Of course, what I really want to start off doing with it is making a datalogging interface using C# and openGL for the "dashboard". Now that part will be a bit more difficult. I have an LS1 PCM hooked up to it right now, and that thing sends out HUGE amounts of data. Starts off with a massive preamble that sends commands to all the nodes it expects to see, then when it doesn't find anything, proceeds to clog up the screen with diagnostics requests. Should be interesting coming up with good logic that can sort through all the junk thats sent over the port. So far, it looks like the AVT works as an Rx sniffer and just grabs everything it sees.

 

Dim,

So I can optionally introduce 3 channels of analog data into the ALDL datastream ie WB? what's the data rate for this? I saw the avt wih the optional 3adc connector. Correct?

 

Since its OBD-II (96+ model year PCMs), the data rate for basic scan tool data is about 3 frames per second from what Im seeing. The OBD-II is more like an ethernet network in that it has to send a formatted request for EACH parameter that you want to log, so there is a lot of data. The data rate is essentially independant of the AVT on an older VPW network due to the 10.4 kbps VPW data rate. The AVT has a rather sophisticated processor, so it runs much faster than needed in our applications. It can also do higher 4x VPW, so it can also do PCM reflashes once an interface for that is written.

It also transmits ADC channels as you say with the ADC expansion board. These are sent as serial data that TunerPro can retrieve like the rest of the OBD-II data.