How do you use your OBD-II, Car Scanner?

[Maxx]

I have been periodically changing the custom display on the app and sensors I monitor but life gets in the way and my experience with things like fast charging is limited so instead of waiting another 10 years to figure out the best practices, I thought it would be nice to have a thread dedicated to how people use their car scanner (or other apps) to monitor their sensors.

• what parameters do you watch more often?
• What do you look at during AC and DC charging?
• what does your custom pages look like?
• what are the list of sensors you currently monitor?
• How do you use their app?

feel free to give me any other questions I should be asking. And feel free to share any findings that surprised you when you looked at data.

Sponsored

 

[K6CCC]

If I'm driving and I have the CarScanner display on the truck 15" display, most commonly battery voltage & current, and battery power. I don't do that very often as I consider it to be too distracting. More often I bring it up so my passenger can watch it.
If I'm charging and looking at CarScanner on my Android phone, what I am paying attention to is the same three plus battery temperature, but the "standard" dashboard shows those and a bunch of other stuff.

 

[Maxx]

If I'm driving and I have the CarScanner display on the truck 15" display, most commonly battery voltage & current, and battery power. I don't do that very often as I consider it to be too distracting. More often I bring it up so my passenger can watch it.
If I'm charging and looking at CarScanner on my Android phone, what I am paying attention to is the same three plus battery temperature, but the "standard" dashboard shows those and a bunch of other stuff.

I didn’t know you could display the content on the truck display. Is that an android thing? Would I be able to do that on my smaller Pro Display?

 

[K6CCC]

Yes, you can bring up CarScanner on the truck display. I understand it works better on iOS vs Android, but I have not tried it (and I lose my #$%^& iPhone in 24 days anyway - when I retire). No info on the 12" screen.

 

[Maxx]

Yes, you can bring up CarScanner on the truck display. I understand it works better on iOS vs Android, but I have not tried it (and I lose my #$%^& iPhone in 24 days anyway - when I retire). No info on the 12" screen.

Congrats on retirement.

 

[B177y]

I didn’t know you could display the content on the truck display. Is that an android thing? Would I be able to do that on my smaller Pro Display?

I use Android Auto to see Carscanner on the 12" screen. It only shows text, no gauges or pictures. I heard that is due to Android Auto safety requirements.

The two screens I look at most, which is not very often any more now that I am comfortable with the operation of the truck are below (using "demo" mode on the app, so the gauges are random):

 

[PJnc284]

General driving screen (think I swiped this one from another thread here).

Charging screen. Can see what the truck is requesting v what it's receiving. This was when i got derated on a supercharger. (Had the wrong value for voltage which is why it shows 0 but has since been adjusted)

Driving screen with more details.

 

[Firn]

I use Torque and just finished setting up some scripts to do continious logging. Right now i think I have 40 or so PIDs being logged.

From here I will be using Looker Studio to make some dashboards

 

[Maxx]

I use Torque and just finished setting up some scripts to do continious logging. Right now i think I have 40 or so PIDs being logged.

From here I will be using Looker Studio to make some dashboards

For logging, I assume like car scanner, it uses your smartphone memory?

with car scanner It does the logging behind the scene and I can get charts and graphs for any parameter that I have selected to monitor afterward.

 

[Firn]

For logging, I assume like car scanner, it uses your smartphone memory?

with car scanner It does the logging behind the scene and I can get charts and graphs for any parameter that I have selected to monitor afterward.

My dashboard isnt on the device. I'm less interested in seeing individual parameters live, I want to capture the data across many months, years actually.

Unfortunately the logging in car scanner is quite terrible if you want to use the logs outside of car scanner. The format sucks and you have to export each one, one at a time.

Torque continuously logs to a csv file. I have it set so that this csv is exported to Google drive once I get home. From there a script processes each individual log into one master spreadsheet.

 

[Maxx]

General driving screen (think I swiped this one from another thread here).

Charging screen. Can see what the truck is requesting v what it's receiving. This was when i got derated on a supercharger. (Had the wrong value for voltage which is why it shows 0 but has since been adjusted)

Driving screen with more details.

‘I like your last screen. I have been opting for more text data on one screen but I can see how combining the graph and text could be useful.

I tried the instantaneous mi/KWh but didn’t find it as useful as the truck‘s guesstimate of what the average has been so far. Seeing the instantaneous power coming out of and going back into the battery is a bit addictive for me. I was surprised by how much Regen can pump in. Like being at DCFC charging station especially if you are in sport mode. Or like running 100 toasters by hitting the break.

 

[Maxx]

My dashboard isnt on the device. I'm less interested in seeing individual parameters live, I want to capture the data across many months, years actually.

Unfortunately the logging in car scanner is quite terrible if you want to use the logs outside of car scanner. The format sucks and you have to export each one, one at a time.

Torque continuously logs to a csv file. I have it set so that this csv is exported to Google drive once I get home. From there a script processes each individual log into one master spreadsheet.

I love to see anything you find interesting over time. It would be interesting to see how SOH fluctuations relate to other parameters. Or How displayed SOC changes based on how the battery is used. Based on my recent DOD, I can see my SOC drop by 2% as soon as I leave my driveway. You may be interested in other stuff but whatever it is, please do share.

 

[Bandit216]

I try to avoid displaying data just because I can. There are four key data points I regularly use: Charging Speed, Coolant Heater Load, HVB battery temp, and (the Biggie that I cannot believe Ford doesn't provide anywhere) the Actual HVB kWh Remaining. The kWh remaining has been absolutely essential in my current circumnavigation of North America. In remote Northwest Canada, that allowed me to drive down to 10 miles remaining on three different occasions.
As you can see, I keep the display simple so I can instantly pick out the key info at a glance.

Sponsored