Budget Battery Capacity Readout
- Thread starter MrFixit
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Excellent work! Car scanner did all it was supposed to - but the BAFX still doesn't work - buffer overflow...
Just got email from Amazon delivery that the 'proper' ELM is supposed to be delivered in the next 3 hours... not bad for ordering yesterday evening!
Then I'll see if I can get a reading
One step forward.... Car Scanner WORKS! 61,000km
(Torque Pro doesn't - test give -2.75 my settings for pid:
22202a Battery Capacity BattCap 0.0 100.0 x1 ah (be*256+bf)/100 (are those right * and + ??) DA01F1
new Vgate iCar Pro BLE 4.0 arrived an hour ago
lincomatic
Member
Yes, I was surprised that it was pre-loaded with some useful EV Power train PIDs
MrFixit, Lincomatic, All - Thank you for your collective efforts in trying to crack the elusive Clarity Battery Capacity question! My local dealer measured my battery capacity at 48.7ah three months and approx 1,500 miles ago. I also own both the Torgue Pro and Car Scanner Pro app but have been using a cheap BAFX Bluetooth adaptor. Just ordered the Vgate BLE 4 OBD2 Adapter and will test it tomorrow night upon receipt with the provided Car Scanner Pro custom sensor parameters. Assuming I get a measurement close or lower to what my dealer provided I think will validate your work....thanks again!
MrFixit
Well-Known Member
Sounds good. This exactly what we were hoping for... An actual dealer measurement in close proximity to this reading.
lincomatic
Member
I forgot to mention.. not all of Car Scanner's Honda/Acura PIDs work on the Clarity. I'm surprised that Honda uses different PIDs for different cars, but maybe it has to do w/ the parts vendors that they're using on each car.
lincomatic
Member
The board won't let me PM you. Send me a PM if you want me to take a reading from your Clarity
lincomatic
Member
Testing ELM327 Compatibility
Here's a quick way to see if your ELM327 clone can cut it or not. In Car Scanner, tap the settings icon in the top right, then select Terminal.
Enter atshda01f1, followed by 22202a (upper or lower case, doesn't matter).
If you have a good adapter, it should look something like this:
If your adapter is bad, it will just show a few lines, and then BUFFER OVERFLOW
Here's a quick way to see if your ELM327 clone can cut it or not. In Car Scanner, tap the settings icon in the top right, then select Terminal.
Enter atshda01f1, followed by 22202a (upper or lower case, doesn't matter).
If you have a good adapter, it should look something like this:
If your adapter is bad, it will just show a few lines, and then BUFFER OVERFLOW
This is very awesome -- great work! My BAFX device overflows so I can't use the battery capacity, but Car Scanner is interesting with the other Honda Hybrid items it exposes. In particular, the HV battery current can be useful to analyze heat, AC, other accessory, and driving speed impacts on power draw. I ordered a Vgate device because why not for $27.
Car Scanner looks nice and I'm going to try using it, but it does seem to have some differences from Torque Pro that may make one or the other desirable to use so it would be great to keep this thread up to date for both, and to look at how to get battery current etc into Torque Pro. The process of creating dashboard layouts seems a bit clunkier/less flexible, it doesn't have as many of the phone's GPS parameters available to display/log (Elevation is one I like for mountain road trips), and I'm not sure it has the same logging capabilities. On the other hand, it has things I couldn't find in Torque Pro (like odometer reading), so now two toys to play with
Car Scanner looks nice and I'm going to try using it, but it does seem to have some differences from Torque Pro that may make one or the other desirable to use so it would be great to keep this thread up to date for both, and to look at how to get battery current etc into Torque Pro. The process of creating dashboard layouts seems a bit clunkier/less flexible, it doesn't have as many of the phone's GPS parameters available to display/log (Elevation is one I like for mountain road trips), and I'm not sure it has the same logging capabilities. On the other hand, it has things I couldn't find in Torque Pro (like odometer reading), so now two toys to play with
MrFixit
Well-Known Member
If you are comparing Car Scanner to Torque, there is an important technical issue that we must identify.
Torque has a very serious defect. We found references to this defect from more than a year ago, and the developer seems to be largely MIA appearing uninterested in continued development. Torque (and others) use an alphabetic indexing scheme when creating PID 'equations' in order to identify which specific data bytes to extract and utilize for each parameter (a, b, c,...z, aa, ab, ac, ... az, ba, bb, bc...). This is fine in principal, but Torque has a data buffer that is not large enough for the ~250 bytes in a Clarity message response (this is similar to the ELM buffer overflow situation), but instead of overflowing, the Torque buffer seems to overwrite. The buffer is only around 1/3 of the size of the Clarity messages which means that only the last 1/3 of the message is available in the buffer. We were just lucky that the Battery Capacity happens to be in that last 1/3 of the data message, otherwise it would not have been possible to read this important parameter.
Car Scanner does not have this problem, and the entire Clarity messages are available. It does have a bug with the a, b, c... indexing, but there is a valid work-around which uses a different indexing scheme.
Although Torque seems more refined with it's sportier looking interfaces, I do not recommend it because of the inability to reach all the data. If all you want is Battery capacity, then it will do, but you will miss out on a lot of things to come.
If there are specific parameters that you see in Torque, and not in Car Scanner (and you think they have general appeal), let us know, and we may be able to scope out the parameter and provide the proper PID for use with Car Scanner.
Just wanted to share some experience with the ODB adapter and TorquePro and CarSCannerPro app experience.
I've been using Torque Pro since Galaxy Note2 days. The interface is kind of ugly and clunky but it got the job done, and been using LG V35 ThinQ / Moto G7 Power (2019) for these needs. This might be also related to the Android vs iOS platform itself. After getting a Clarity PHEV I started looking for ODB adapter apps for iPhone and found the CarScanner Pro.
Again, TorquePro is very clunky and stutters on Android compared to CarScannerPro on iOS. If you have an iPhone, definitely go with the CarScannerPro for iOS. I still have those Android phones as a backup and emergency use.
For iOS you have to get a BT 4.0 LE supported adapter, VGate is the one mentioned in this thread and that's probably what you should get. I started with Viecar and a little later also bought a Vgate because I was curious of ELM327 2.0 support. They were both $15-$25.
There is an Android app that can test ELM327 protocols and my Viecar adapter shows ELM327 1.4 while VGate adapter shows 2.0. Before this battery capacity check was found, I mainly used Viecar adapter because it works most of the time when trying to connect to the ECU. I say most of the time because I still have to unplug and replug the Viecar adapter maybe once in 2 weeks. The VGate is more like every time I start the car. The Viecar adapter lacks the buffer so it can't read the remaining battery capacity, but it does all the other things I usually check so I think I'll probably keep the Viecar plugged in most of the time.
The following are some notes on the CarScannerPro app. These are the sensors that I find useful after selecting "Setting" -> "Connection" -> Choose connection profile "Honda Honda/Acura Hybryds".
-Engine coolant temperature (53.6F)
-Engine RPM (0)
-Ambient air temperature (55.4F)
-HV Battery Cell Max State of Charge % (64.7%, this might be used by the ECU to calculate the current battery level)
-Hybrid battery pack remaining charge % (61%, this is what's displayed as current battery level in the HondaLink app)
-Hybrid/EV Battery System Voltage (315.88V, battery voltage)
-Hybrid/EV Battery System Current (0A, shows current amp)
-State of Charge % (61%, same as "Hybrid battery pack remaining charge %")
-Fuel level input (7 gallons)
-Engine Fuel Rate
-DC-DC Converter Temperature (51.8F)
-Outside Air Temperature (55.4F, probably the same one as "Ambient air temperature")
-Temperature of Air In Vehicle (53.6F)
-BattCap (54.64, this is the custom PID)
These are sensors that don't work at least on my setup, so I'll disable these:
-Motor Inverter Current (shows blank)
-HV Battery Max Cell Voltage (shows blank)
-Battery Coolant Temperature (shows -40F which isn't true)
-HV Battery Fan 3 Speed (shows blank)
-HV Battery Usable Capacity (showing 0%)
-Battery Module Power (showing 0 hp)
From monitoring the current (A), here are some observations.
-The faster the car speed + pedal regen with 4 chevrons, the more current you will collect (as expected). Slightly touching the brake pedal greatly increases regen to the next level. You can be generating over 120A which might be harsh on the battery especially if you are going down a very long road.
-HV Charge mode generates about 10-20A (I don't have too much experience using HV/HV Charge mode).
-AC uses about 10A, Heater uses 10-20A.
-When stepping on the accelerator pedal, the first tick on the tachometer is about 30A, the second tick is 60A, the third tick (11 O'clock position) is about 120A. I try to do most driving staying between that 2nd tick and 3rd tick as I can imagine that rapidly draining the battery could also wear it further.
Don't take my words for it though as there are so many variables. I wonder whether charging speed (240V @ 6A / 12A / 16A / 24A / 32A) has any effect on battery life. I just keep my JuiceBoxPro charge set at 12A and limited to 10%-20% charge at a time at home. At work, ChargePoint does 30A and I charge somewhere between 30-40% (1 hour will do about 40%, so I start charging about 1 hour before heading home). Mostly keeping the battery level below 80%. I wish our cars had a simple menu where we can limit max battery level.
For the "Advanced settings" I selected "7) ISO 15765-4 CAN (29 bit ID, 500 kbaud)" for ECU protocol so that it doesn't hunt for the correct one all the time (a habit from using TorquePro). I don't think the other settings matter too much.
Does anyone know why I have to always replug the VGate adapter? Do you have to do this as well? It always works fine once it's connected.
I've been using Torque Pro since Galaxy Note2 days. The interface is kind of ugly and clunky but it got the job done, and been using LG V35 ThinQ / Moto G7 Power (2019) for these needs. This might be also related to the Android vs iOS platform itself. After getting a Clarity PHEV I started looking for ODB adapter apps for iPhone and found the CarScanner Pro.
Again, TorquePro is very clunky and stutters on Android compared to CarScannerPro on iOS. If you have an iPhone, definitely go with the CarScannerPro for iOS. I still have those Android phones as a backup and emergency use.
For iOS you have to get a BT 4.0 LE supported adapter, VGate is the one mentioned in this thread and that's probably what you should get. I started with Viecar and a little later also bought a Vgate because I was curious of ELM327 2.0 support. They were both $15-$25.
There is an Android app that can test ELM327 protocols and my Viecar adapter shows ELM327 1.4 while VGate adapter shows 2.0. Before this battery capacity check was found, I mainly used Viecar adapter because it works most of the time when trying to connect to the ECU. I say most of the time because I still have to unplug and replug the Viecar adapter maybe once in 2 weeks. The VGate is more like every time I start the car. The Viecar adapter lacks the buffer so it can't read the remaining battery capacity, but it does all the other things I usually check so I think I'll probably keep the Viecar plugged in most of the time.
The following are some notes on the CarScannerPro app. These are the sensors that I find useful after selecting "Setting" -> "Connection" -> Choose connection profile "Honda Honda/Acura Hybryds".
-Engine coolant temperature (53.6F)
-Engine RPM (0)
-Ambient air temperature (55.4F)
-HV Battery Cell Max State of Charge % (64.7%, this might be used by the ECU to calculate the current battery level)
-Hybrid battery pack remaining charge % (61%, this is what's displayed as current battery level in the HondaLink app)
-Hybrid/EV Battery System Voltage (315.88V, battery voltage)
-Hybrid/EV Battery System Current (0A, shows current amp)
-State of Charge % (61%, same as "Hybrid battery pack remaining charge %")
-Fuel level input (7 gallons)
-Engine Fuel Rate
-DC-DC Converter Temperature (51.8F)
-Outside Air Temperature (55.4F, probably the same one as "Ambient air temperature")
-Temperature of Air In Vehicle (53.6F)
-BattCap (54.64, this is the custom PID)
These are sensors that don't work at least on my setup, so I'll disable these:
-Motor Inverter Current (shows blank)
-HV Battery Max Cell Voltage (shows blank)
-Battery Coolant Temperature (shows -40F which isn't true)
-HV Battery Fan 3 Speed (shows blank)
-HV Battery Usable Capacity (showing 0%)
-Battery Module Power (showing 0 hp)
From monitoring the current (A), here are some observations.
-The faster the car speed + pedal regen with 4 chevrons, the more current you will collect (as expected). Slightly touching the brake pedal greatly increases regen to the next level. You can be generating over 120A which might be harsh on the battery especially if you are going down a very long road.
-HV Charge mode generates about 10-20A (I don't have too much experience using HV/HV Charge mode).
-AC uses about 10A, Heater uses 10-20A.
-When stepping on the accelerator pedal, the first tick on the tachometer is about 30A, the second tick is 60A, the third tick (11 O'clock position) is about 120A. I try to do most driving staying between that 2nd tick and 3rd tick as I can imagine that rapidly draining the battery could also wear it further.
Don't take my words for it though as there are so many variables. I wonder whether charging speed (240V @ 6A / 12A / 16A / 24A / 32A) has any effect on battery life. I just keep my JuiceBoxPro charge set at 12A and limited to 10%-20% charge at a time at home. At work, ChargePoint does 30A and I charge somewhere between 30-40% (1 hour will do about 40%, so I start charging about 1 hour before heading home). Mostly keeping the battery level below 80%. I wish our cars had a simple menu where we can limit max battery level.
For the "Advanced settings" I selected "7) ISO 15765-4 CAN (29 bit ID, 500 kbaud)" for ECU protocol so that it doesn't hunt for the correct one all the time (a habit from using TorquePro). I don't think the other settings matter too much.
Does anyone know why I have to always replug the VGate adapter? Do you have to do this as well? It always works fine once it's connected.
MrFixit
Well-Known Member
Yes... @lincomatic and I have discussed this one at length.
What is happening here is that the adapter (in it's infinite wisdom) powers down after 30 minutes of "inactivity". The theory is that this will allow you to keep the adapter connected without worrying about battery drain. The trouble is that "inactivity" is measured by activity on the CAN bus. The adapter will power itself back up when CAN activity resumes. In most cases this works out well because the next time the vehicle is 'started', the CAN activity resumes.
The Clarity however, does NOT have any activity on the CAN bus during normal operation of the vehicle. It is only when you interact with it with Car Scanner, or similar that the CAN bus is alive.
This sucks, but the only way we have found is to physically unplug, and replug the device after it has shut itself down. Note - It will also shut down after 30 minutes even if the car remains on (as long as there are no CAN interactions). We have not been able to think of a good way around this. The 12V pin on the OBD2 connector is always alive.
You don't really want a device that is always on because that would be a constant drain on the battery.
The only thing I can think of that might improve this would be to cut the 12V wire from the vehicle and re-wire it to a 12V source that turns off when the vehicle is off. This way, at least starting the vehicle will always turn on the device. It does NOT prevent shutdown if the vehicle is on for an extended period while driving (with no CAN traffic). Of course, this alters the OBD2 standard (albeit just a little).
Thanks for the clarification on why VGate requires replugging all the time!
I noticed it was working fine on shorter trips.I keep the ODB adapter plugged in at all times since they are so small. Do you know how much current they draw?
I thought CAN bus is used for most of the electronic signals in a car, is this not true?
Maybe I'll get a $13 ODB Y splitter cable and mod one end of it so it gets power from ACC on, and leave the other one for normal operation.
MrFixit
Well-Known Member
Absolutely.... There are likely multiple CAN buses within the vehicle that are responsible for vehicle operations. The CAN bus that goes to the OBD2 connector seems to be dedicated to just this purpose, and thus, only has activity when you are engaged in diagnostics.
I could measure the current draw when it is active, but it seems to be a moot point with this adapter because there is apparently no way to command it to NOT go to sleep. Perhaps we could find other low-cost adapters that do not go to sleep (and have an adequate buffer size, AND do not have excessive battery drain).... You would think with modern electronics that even if the adapter remains on that it could be insignificant enough to ignore the hit on the battery. Of course it depends on how often you drive, etc.
The BMS will only allow charging to ~90%. Target cell voltage is just under 4.1V, which is considered to be ~90% for a 3.7V cell. 100% would be 4.2V.
When you charge to 80%, you’re charging to 80% of 90%, or 72%. Battery manufacturers run these batteries through thousands of 100-0-100 cycles. In my moderately informed opinion, it is not necessary to baby the battery.