Torque Pro on the Kona - overview and setup for interested owners

Discussion in 'Hyundai Kona Electric' started by KiwiME, Sep 26, 2019.

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  1. This thread is for those handful of Kona owners who are interested in exploring the data that Torque Pro can provide. If you're not interested please resist the urge to tell us why so we can keep the thread relevant and uncluttered. Posts should be for questions regarding the applicability to your interest, installation, setup and data analysis.
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    The Torque Pro app (Android only) lets you read some of the more fundamental measurements that the BMS (battery management system) needs to function. It's quite technical and not relevant to the vast majority of owners, but a few of us are interested, or are professionals in data analysis, science and engineering, software, etc. As such, this can provide some interesting insights as to how your EV works if you're willing to spend a bit of time collecting the data and analysing the results.

    It's fairly essential to have a basic knowledge of spreadsheet formulas and graphing, which is not that hard to learn. Some electrical/physics background is always helpful as well, at minimum knowing the difference between energy and power and the very basics of calculus, meaning understanding simple integration and rate of change.

    The configuration for this app was developed originally for the Kia Soul EV by JejuSoul, just to give credit where it's due. My knowledge of the app itself is fairly minimal but even with that I've managed to obtain very interesting results.

    The most useful pararmeters you can read are:
    1. The current and energy 'odometers' which are separate for energy entering the battery vs energy leaving, CCC, CDC, CEC and CED. Current and voltage are measured directly at the battery interface and are used by the car to determine an SoC reading that is not sensitive to battery voltage sag and moves smoothly as energy is added or depleted. You can measure energy going in vs out (therefore battery efficiency) and regen 'effectiveness'.

    2. A "Power" display which seems to be based on a different current shunt located inbetween the motor/drive/OBC/DC charge port and the battery/battery-heater/BMS, used by the car for the power meter at the left of the dash and the power display on the media console. With this you can measure charging power after the OBC (or DC in) but before the battery and other management and parasistic loads. This can be used most constructively for graphing charging profiles or your energy use over short drives. I used this to determine that going to the pub by driving over the hill was less efficient than driving around the hill over a longer distance.

    3. Battery temperature and battery heater temperature. These make good additions to charging profiles because you can see how temperature affects the charge rate. If you don't have the battery heater, it's still good info.

    4. Misc: Operating time in hours, battery health (SoH), motor speed and battery health parameters, most of these I have not looked at yet.

    What hardware do you need?
    An Android phone or tablet and a Bluetooth dongle. The Android version must be recent so check the app's page if unsure. I think any ELM Bluetooth dongle will work but note that OBD-II port power is on all the time, so one with a power switch may be useful but not essential. Many seem to be able to go to sleep automatically if not communicating. There is no Torque Pro app for the iPhone.

    Software?
    Aside from Torque Pro (which costs a few dollars) you need a file manager app. A cloud sharing app like Google Drive is useful for getting data to and from the phone (and from your PC or Mac).
    Excel would be ideal but it's entirely possible Numbers (Mac) will work as well, I'm just more familar with Excel.

    To be continued ... give me a 'like' if you are on board so I know how much interest there is .... next will be installing the "PID" file for the app.
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2019
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  3. I have the app, appropriate PIDs already downloaded, dongle, just need the car :) Even though I can't really appreciably contribute yet, I am very interested in this thread.
     
  4. Bugblndr

    Bugblndr Member

    Cool, I've had Torque Pro and a Bluetooth ODBII ELM plug. Will have to try it on the Kona sometime.
     
  5. victor_2019

    victor_2019 Active Member

    I'm definitely interested in getting this app. I'm an electrical engineer
     
    MagicSmoke likes this.
  6. hobbit

    hobbit Well-Known Member

    I'm presently in a dialogue with the folks at scantool.net / obdlink.com over
    how their "included" scantool app is packaged. My suspicion is that it's
    a link to the google-store and that's the only choice, which is disingenuous
    because not everybody necessarily has or wants a google account. So
    I'm hoping that there's also a non-google way to obtain Torque Pro and
    pay what its originator clearly deserves; I'm perfectly willing to sideload
    an app I get from a verifiable source.

    So yeah, with a car so software and network oriented I'm interested
    in getting more into that end of things. As opposed to, say, hanging
    a voltmeter off the main battery leads. But I tend to draw a line at
    kowtowing to evil empires.

    Aside -- I have a DSO that can do rudimentary CAN packet decoding
    from a captured waveform. The network that appears at the DLC is
    a tiny stub, with nothing on it other than a small under-hood connector
    and the main gateway module. All the "good stuff" is flying around
    on the *other* four or five CANbuses internal to the harnesses and
    modules on them. Nonetheless, I've observed that about ten
    seconds after full startup, a packet starts getting sent on the DLC net
    over and over. It is to ID 7EA, and contains 10 13 5A 90 4B 4D 38 4B,
    and never changes. Any idea what that's trying to say?

    _H*
     
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  8. Well, let's get started from the beginning. Ignore this if you're already running TP with the correct configuration for the Kona. Some of you may know these steps far better than myself so feel free to correct me if I've made a mistake.

    A) Installing the PID files for the Kona
    After installing the app on your Android device, go to the Github site below and download the two .csv (comma separated variables) files 003 and 004. These contain lists of sensor instructions called "PIDs". I actually joined them together first in Excel but that's unnecessary.

    https://github.com/JejuSoul/OBD-PIDs-for-HKMC-EVs/tree/master/Hyundai%20Kona%20EV%20%26%20Kia%20Niro%20EV/extendedpids

    Use Samsung's My Files app or similar to move the PIDs into the relevant folder, see image. You will need to enable 'show hidden files' in the file manager's settings. Ignore that the file names 003... and 004... are different than mine.

    AOkW9YvpSCOE1Gjy512p6w_thumb_adc.jpg

    There are more detailed but slightly outdated instructions here if needed: https://jejusoul.github.io/OBD-PIDs-for-HKMC-EVs/

    B) Connecting the Android device to the Bluetooth OBD2 dongle
    This is done in Android settings rather than TP. Plug the dongle in, switch on the car and pair the device to your Android device. Normally there is a code, typically 1234.
    As a note, I've found that if the same Android device is also paired to the car for Bluetooth audio and/or Android Auto, TP will confuse the two Bluetooth devices and won't connect until the incorrect one is deleted. There may be workarounds, post if you know what to do.

    C) Configuring TP

    In TP, tap the 'gear' at the lower left main menu to enter the configuration. Open Settings, tap OBD2 Adapter Settings, select the OBD2 dongle.
    Back up to "Settings" again:
    a) Select "Manage extra PIDs/Sensors"
    b) tap the three dots at the upper right, select "Add predefined set", select the file names of the PID lists to add both, 003... and 004...

    D) Building your dashboard

    Note the Realtime data button in the main TP menu. Use this to build dashboards even if the dongle is not active or within range. My phone is a bit slow and while TP is 'searching for a Bluetooth device', it's not very responsive to menu selections. If you find the button unresponsive, keep trying, it will eventually work.

    Dashboard gauges are added one at a time to the current dashboard. Noting the row of tiny dots near the home button, you can have numerous dashboards but only the current one's gauges are actively polled (as best as I understand). Sweep the display to view each dashboard. At most, you might want to have one for driving, one for AC charging, another for DC.

    Long-tap any blank dashboard to add a gauge. I prefer the 'digital' display and 'small' size, but it's your choice. Select the relevant sensor to monitor. In some cases there are more decimal places available than the PID is set to display by default. You can adjust those specifically for any gauge by long-tapping, display configuration, number of decimal places, uncheck 'use default' and enter a number.

    UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_a99.jpg

    Primarily for the applications of charging and waypoint-only data collection while driving, I would suggest adding:
    000_Battery Heater 1 Temperature
    000_Battery Max Temperature
    000_Battery Min Temperature
    000_Battery Power (misleadingly named Energy Draw on the gauge) (change to 1, 2 or 3 decimal places)
    000_Cumulative Energy Charged (change to 1 decimal place)
    000_Cumulative Energy Discharged (change to 1 decimal place)
    000_State of Charge BMS
    000_State of Charge Display
    000_State of Health

    E) First uses of TP in the car
    I don't think there is any issue plugging and unplugging the dongle at any time, however TP seems to only connect for me when the Kona is 'on' even though continues to work after it's switched 'off'.
    TP should find the dongle within a few seconds and stop flashing. If it doesn't, you might find there is more than one Bluetooth device in the Android settings list. I've had to delete the unwanted device to convince TP to find the OBD2 dongle.

    The best initial uses during trips are to collect SoC (both), CEC and CED numbers at waypoints, combined with the odometer and geographic location (as a reference). Write the six items down or take a photo of the values. Note CEC and CED must have the one decimal place to be useful, I'll explain why later.

    For charging you can initally monitor 'Energy Draw' (actually DC discharge power) until we can cover charging profiles.
    Just hit 'like'' when you're ready to continue...or comment as needed.
     
  9. Francois

    Francois Active Member

    Very detailed information. Thank you kiwime
     
    KiwiME likes this.
  10. hobbit

    hobbit Well-Known Member

    I found that I had to visit each of the Github links individually, and
    use the "raw" link as what to download. Otherwise I got a mess of
    html/javascript junk.

    What is ABRP?

    _H*
     
  11. Yes, I rememer that, good to note. I'm not particularly acustomed to the use of Github and I actually just copied-and-pasted the CSV text out of the window into Excel now that I recall, that's why I have only one PID list.
    I don't know what ABRP is and don't where you're seeing that, sorry.
    I'm generally aware of the CAN layout and have a CAN/USB tranceiver but have not experimented with it at all. There is a lot of potential there but I'd like to keep this thread focused on Torque Pro since it's far easier to use and provides interesting data without a lot of experimentation or risk.
     
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  13. hobbit

    hobbit Well-Known Member

    I touch on direct access to internal CANbuses because as the Scangauge
    community found back in the day, there is benefit to passive listening
    for packets that are frequently sent -- it's a *fast* way to get data, you
    don't have to query some ECU and wait till it gets around to answering.
    This had high value in the 2nd-gen Prius, where everything was on a
    single bus which also appeared at the DLC. Much harder nowadays;
    you'd have to find and tap the P-CAN [at a minimum] to see the good
    stuff go by without having to ask for it.

    All of the buses appear at the back of the cabin fuseblock, so this
    is certainly feasible with a little under-dash work.

    _H*
     
  14. One of the US owners on FB has tapped into the P-CAN where it goes into the drive mode selector to avoid the firewall. He's figured out the vehicle speed and other relevant coms with the VESS unit so he can make his own unit to make the car sound like a train.
    I was planning on similar direct experimenting with CAN until I tried Torque Pro. So far I've found that with minimal time and effort (a phone and a dongle rather than a laptop and having to remove interior trim) it provides enough info to answer most of the questions I've had and I've only scratched the surface.
     
  15. TheLight75

    TheLight75 Active Member

    ...those of us with iPhones are very jealous...
     
  16. I use an iPhone so bought a cheap Android phone for this only purpose, a Samsung A10. I don't bother with cellular service, its just a tablet. For logging charge profiles there is a small advantage that you can leave it running in the car, out of sight, and still use your phone while you are away.
     
  17. Bugblndr

    Bugblndr Member

    Thanks, I loaded the PIDS today and gave it a quick test. Will try to play around with it some more in the coming weeks, though I'll probably stop once the newness wears off!
     
  18. ericy

    ericy Well-Known Member

    I think I need more details on this one.
     
  19. Francois

    Francois Active Member

    Any insights on whether any ODB2 with bluetooth will do?
    Do some ODB2 scanner offer fewer bits of information than others?

    I am asking because I'd rather pay:

    $23.99 for Veepeak Bluetooth OBD2 Diagnostic Scanner for Android [URL='https://www.amazon.ca/Veepeak-Bluetooth-Diagnostic-Scanner-Android/dp/B011NSX27A/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3QZ1YOBPL6E85&keywords=odb2+bluetooth&qid=1570039520&s=gateway&sprefix=odb%2Caps%2C217&sr=8-6']https://www.amazon.ca/Veepeak-Bluetooth-Diagnostic-Scanner-Android/dp/B011NSX27A/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3QZ1YOBPL6E85&keywords=odb2+bluetooth&qid=1570039520&s=gateway&sprefix=odb%2Caps%2C217&sr=8-6[/URL]

    than $99.95 for BlueDriver Bluetooth Pro OBDII Scan Tool for iPhone & Android [URL]https://www.amazon.ca/BlueDriver-Bluetooth-Professional-iPhone-Android/dp/B00652G4TS/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3QZ1YOBPL6E85&keywords=odb2+bluetooth&qid=1570039520&s=gateway&sprefix=odb%2Caps%2C217&sr=8-5[/url]

    but not if saving $76 dollars on the purchase means that I'd be missing on most of the important data points.

    Are they all mostly the same when it comes to exposing their data to Torque Pro?
     
  20. There's no difference as far as TP is concerned.
     
  21. EnerG

    EnerG Active Member

    You can find one on Aliexpress for less than 5$.

    Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
     
  22. If the purpose is use just torque pro get the cheaper unit, at the moment bluedriver does read anything beyond routine MIL codes on the Kona electric , so you would not get real additional benefit if its just for your kona electric.
     
  23. Francois

    Francois Active Member

    Thank you guys. I'll go with the cheaper unit then. :)
     

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