Budget Battery Capacity Readout

bpratt said:
I just posted this in the Autel AP200 Thread. Got tired of waiting for the beta code:

"I finally decided, not being a patient person, to purchase the Vgate iCar Pro BLE4.0 from Amazon for $29. I installed the free Carscanner app on my phone and just got a reading of 51.94. Not bad for a Clarity that was manufactured on 10/'17 and purchased on 12/30/2017. I only have 13,500 miles on it with 11,000 EV and 2,500 HV."
Click to expand...

Regarding impatience - me too. I have an Autel AP200 ordered, but I just ordered the same Vgate adapter that you are using with success. I was startled today, though, to read in the Choosing OBDII adapter section of the Car Scanner app documentation, the statement: "Bluetooth 4.0 adapters are not supported by Car Scanner on Android.", which seems to preclude the use of a BLE 4.0 adapter, but I also found another entry, in the Google Play description of the app: "The app requires a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or Bluetooth 4.0 (Bluetooth LE) OBD2 ELM327 compatible adapter (device) to work.", which seems to directly contradict the first statement.

I sent the developer a note asking them to clarify if it truly supports BLE 4.0 adapters, or not, but I just found your post, which seems to offer a solid confirmation that it does actually work. I'm hoping you can tell me that you are using an Android phone, which would give me confidence it will work for me.
 
vicw said:
Regarding impatience - me too. I have an Autel AP200 ordered, but I just ordered the same Vgate adapter that you are using with success. I was startled today, though, to read in the Choosing OBDII adapter section of the Car Scanner app documentation, the statement: "Bluetooth 4.0 adapters are not supported by Car Scanner on Android.", which seems to preclude the use of a BLE 4.0 adapter, but I also found another entry, in the Google Play description of the app: "The app requires a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or Bluetooth 4.0 (Bluetooth LE) OBD2 ELM327 compatible adapter (device) to work.", which seems to directly contradict the first statement.

I sent the developer a note asking them to clarify if it truly supports BLE 4.0 adapters, or not, but I just found your post, which seems to offer a solid confirmation that it does actually work. I'm hoping you can tell me that you are using an Android phone, which would give me confidence it will work for me.
Click to expand...

BLE support is patchy in Android. To get around this, the iCar Pro is dual BLE and Classic BT. For Android, you should pair it to Android-Vlink, which is for Classic BT. It works reliably this way. There is a BLE setting in Car Scanner, but it didn't work w/ the iCar Pro when I tried it.

iOS, on the other hand, only works w/ BLE, so they provide the separate BLE interface, called "iOS-Vlink"
 
lincomatic said:
BLE support is patchy in Android. To get around this, the iCar Pro is dual BLE and Classic BT. For Android, you should pair it to Android-Vlink, which is for Classic BT. It works reliably this way. There is a BLE setting in Car Scanner, but it didn't work w/ the iCar Pro when I tried it.

iOS, on the other hand, only works w/ BLE, so they provide the separate BLE interface, called "iOS-Vlink"
Click to expand...

Thanks for that explanation. That gives me better confidence the app will work with my Android, and it's great to know the proper pairing choice in advance. There are so many variables at play in this adventure - which app/which smartphone variety/which level of Bluetooth to select/which adapter to use, etc.. It really shows the value of this community, with help from experienced users, and the experts, especially @MrFixit.

I think I'm looking good so far. Looks like the adapter I ordered is the right choice, and enough info to get me started when it arrives tomorrow.
 
vicw said:
Regarding impatience - me too. I have an Autel AP200 ordered, but I just ordered the same Vgate adapter that you are using with success. I was startled today, though, to read in the Choosing OBDII adapter section of the Car Scanner app documentation, the statement: "Bluetooth 4.0 adapters are not supported by Car Scanner on Android.", which seems to preclude the use of a BLE 4.0 adapter, but I also found another entry, in the Google Play description of the app: "The app requires a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or Bluetooth 4.0 (Bluetooth LE) OBD2 ELM327 compatible adapter (device) to work.", which seems to directly contradict the first statement.

I sent the developer a note asking them to clarify if it truly supports BLE 4.0 adapters, or not, but I just found your post, which seems to offer a solid confirmation that it does actually work. I'm hoping you can tell me that you are using an Android phone, which would give me confidence it will work for me.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am using an Android 64 bit phone. After using the Autel Ap200 and the Vgate BLE 4.0, I think I like the Vgate best. Both give me the same reading, but the Vgate has much faster response time and is much easier use. I'm using Car Scanner and had no problems using it with the Vgate.
 
I got the Vgate today. Apparently, my car is sitting at a 50.2 with 23k miles.
Thank you to @MrFixit for finally coaxing out a way to track this number.
 
lincomatic said:
This version of the Vgate WILL NOT work to fetch your Battery Capacity. It has an extremely small buffer, which will overflow before it can read the large data messages from the Clarity. I have one of these, and it was the first device I tested. You have to buy the iCar Pro.
Click to expand...
I saw multiple screens of output when I ran the overflow test yesterday, but I must have screwed up (again). I ran the test again just now and saw only this:

upload_2021-3-16_17-26-32.webp
I will send this $12 dongle back and get the iCar Pro as you suggest. Do I need the BLE4.0 or will the $10 cheaper BT3.0 work?

Before I went out to run the buffer test, I tried importing the 2021-03-09 09-01-20.cbz file into Car Scanner again. Should I have seen the [Clarity] sensor entries in the Sensors list after importing the cbz file and restarting my phone? Does not seeing the [Clarity] sensor entries mean my phone can't even handle Car Scanner?

I sure appreciate all the support I'm getting on this forum, but regret being such an incompetent--apparently the only incompetent. If only I wasn't a cheapskate and had a 64-bit phone, I could have faked being competent because the Autel dongle would have worked in the first place.
 
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lincomatic said:
BLE support is patchy in Android. To get around this, the iCar Pro is dual BLE and Classic BT. For Android, you should pair it to Android-Vlink, which is for Classic BT. It works reliably this way. There is a BLE setting in Car Scanner, but it didn't work w/ the iCar Pro when I tried it.

iOS, on the other hand, only works w/ BLE, so they provide the separate BLE interface, called "iOS-Vlink"
Click to expand...
The iCar Pro on Amazon comes in a BT3.0 version for $19.99 and BLE4.0 version for $29.99. @lincomatic, perhaps the BLE setting in Car Scanner didn't work because you have the BT3.0 version? Or does the BLE4.0 version handle both BT3.0 and BLE4.0?

I was happy to read Android-Vlink works reliably with Classic BT, so I ordered the BT3.0 version. The third dongle's a charm, as I always say. :)
 
insightman said:
perhaps the BLE setting in Car Scanner didn't work because you have the BT3.0 version? Or does the BLE4.0 version handle both BT3.0 and BLE4.0?
Click to expand...

No, I have the BLE4.0 version, because I wanted to use it w/ iOS, as well.Tthere are 2 possible reasons that BLE mode doesn't work well w/ Car Scanner: 1) the BLE interface to ELM327s isn't standardized, so apps have to support each device separately. I used a BLE sniffer on my iOS phone to sniff the LELink^2 and iCar Pro, and send commands to them... the interfaces were slightly different. 2) AFAIK, BLE support for devices such as these w/ non-standard profiles is wonky in Android.. a lot of the apps want you to pair the device instead of using BLE, and all of the BLE ELM327s I've seen that purport to work with both iOS and Android support both BLE and BT Classic.

So, if you only want to use Android, you don't need the BLE model (assuming that the underlying ELM327 side of the circuit is identical).
 
lincomatic said:
Car Scanner is a cross platform iOS/Android alternative that works better than Torque Pro. I just discovered it today. Torque Pro has a bug, in the way it handles the large messages that the Clarity outputs, and wraps the data. So it can't extract all of the the other info out of the PID that we're using to get the battery capacity.

https://www.carscanner.info/

Another thing that's nice is that even the free version works to get the battery capacity.

Here is a screen shot of it displaying the battery capacity:

View attachment 10904

Here's how to input the PID into Car Scanner:

View attachment 10905
Click to expand...


There are several lines below "Minimum":
I have these values but I get an overflow error using VEEPEAK BLE+

Minimum: 0
Maximum: 100
Offset: 0
Units: Ah
Priority: 1/1
Role override: None
Start diagnostics commands (separated by "\"): no value
Stop diagnostics commands (separated by "\"): no value

Are these values OK? If so my adapter is not working for this PID (overflow error).

Thanks in advance,
 
Agzand said:
Are these values OK? If so my adapter is not working for this PID (overflow error).
Click to expand...

Not sure what you are asking here...
The values you provided above do not show the most important values when defining a PID.
The important ones are the Byte Set values...

If you are getting an overflow, you are hosed. When you run the test identified in Post #32, what do you get?

If you open the "gear icon", and then "Sensors" you should see all the Clarity definitions. Touch the Battery Capacity to enter it. You can then scroll down and use the "Test" button while connected as a further troubleshooting aid.
 
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insightman said:
I saw multiple screens of output when I ran the overflow test yesterday, but I must have screwed up (again). I ran the test again just now and saw only this:

View attachment 11102
Click to expand...

@insightman, sorry, I didn't look closely at your capture yesterday. Your ELM clone was behaving badly. It was borking the data w/o displaying any errors. The first line of output is truncated (it should end the line with <DATA ERROR), and it lost all the data in the beginning, but somehow, got all the data at the end (the line ending with 555555 is the last line of the response). It should have flagged BUFFER OVERFLOW, but instead, silently failed. Here is what proper output from the 22202a looks like:

>22202a
18DAF10110F662202AFFFF3F
18DAF10121FFFFFFFFFFFFE7
18DAF10122FFFC03FFF2B33F
18DAF10123FF33333333FFE1
18DAF1012400000000000000
18DAF101250061002D000041
18DAF101264C000000000000
18DAF101278100C100034320
18DAF1012854002318F2003A
18DAF10129141418F0FF8814
18DAF1012AD2FA202F54E30C
18DAF1012B1ADF1A7A4A4F4A
18DAF1012C1E00004A610000
18DAF1012D4A0D01200305AA
18DAF1012E00E6006EFF1C03
18DAF1012F02000014163782
18DAF1012039083101F30030
18DAF10121003A1919038300
18DAF1012200000000000000
18DAF1012319341100271037
18DAF10124FA7F007F007F00
18DAF1012500000100010027
18DAF1012610000001F40000
18DAF10127F640F00C630007
18DAF10128CC0015149E00D0
18DAF10129000000C8000018
18DAF1012AF10000002F0000
18DAF1012B4A5000004A1200
18DAF1012C001AD800001A6B
18DAF1012D000000D000C801
18DAF1012E90008200000000
18DAF1012F01042E042E0000
18DAF1012000000000000000
18DAF1012100000000000000
18DAF1012200000000000000
18DAF1012300005555555555


Not incompetence on your part.. you couldn't have known
 
MrFixit said:
Not sure what you are asking here...
The values you provided above do not show the most important values when defining a PID.
The important ones are the Byte Set values...

If you are getting an overflow, you are hosed. When you run the test identified in Post #32, what do you get?

If you open the "gear icon", and then "Sensors" you should see all the Clarity definitions. Touch the Battery Capacity to enter it. You can then scroll down and use the "Test" button while connected as a further troubleshooting aid.
Click to expand...

I tried the terminal commands in Post #32 and got buffer full error. I guess we can add VEEPEAK BLE+ to the list of bad adapters. Thanks for your help!
 
I'm very happy to have been able to get good results with the Vgate iCar Pro BLE 4.0 adapter on my Pixel 4a 5g (and on a Pixel 2XL), using the Car Scanner app. I was able to get on the Car Scanner beta, and updated to the app beta Version/Build 1.76.5/400765, in order to utilize the configuration files that @MrFixit provided in Post #44.

The only glitch I had was that I messed up with the Backup/Restore Backup UI in Car Scanner, and managed to get 4 or 5 copies of the Clarity Sensor PIDs loaded into the app. I finally uninstalled and reinstalled the app and properly went through the routine of selecting <Backup>, then <Import from File>, then highlighted the file name and selected <Restore Backup>, and got a clean configuration install.

I also disabled the Auto Sleep feature in the Vgate adapter, using the procedure by @lincomatic, in Post #42, to avoid the need to frequently unplug and reinstall the Vgate. I expect it will cause the 12v battery to exhaust more quickly, but I'm tracking the voltage on it very closely, and hope to avoid any battery failures. I have seen a 0.11v drop on the battery level in the first 11 idle hours since the disable, which is higher than I had been getting, but I'll keep watching it, and report back if it seems excessive over a longer period. The good news with all of this testing is that the battery gets a nice 14.x V boost while the car is turned on in EV mode.

All in all, it's been a very good experience, and I appreciate all of the work that @MrFixit and @lincomatic have done and the contributions of other users to make this a possibility. I am awaiting delivery of an Autel AP200, and I hope I won't be too late to be able to get registered to use the beta firmware. I will probably end up on the Super Stragglers list.
 
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vicw said:
The only glitch I had was that I messed up with the Backup/Restore Backup UI in Car Scanner, and managed to get 4 or 5 copies of the Clarity Sensor PIDs loaded into the app
Click to expand...

I believe if you do a full restore from a .csz file, you would not get duplicate sensors, BUT you would lose any of your own setups like personalized dashboards, etc.

If you just want to load a new set of sensors (perhaps because we have released some new ones), and you want to preserve your other dashboards, etc, then clear out ALL the custom sensors before you load the new .csp file. There is a trash can on the top of the custom sensor screen that will get rid of all of them. I think this would prevent duplication.
 
MrFixit said:
I believe if you do a full restore from a .csz file, you would not get duplicate sensors, BUT you would lose any of your own setups like personalized dashboards, etc.
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe that is true. In retrospect, I think my problem with duplicate sensors was that I was in <Sensors> and selected "Import from File", rather than in <Backup>, and not seeing any response to my selection to Import from File, hit it multiple times in frustration, causing the duplications.

MrFixit said:
If you just want to load a new set of sensors (perhaps because we have released some new ones), and you want to preserve your other dashboards, etc, then clear out ALL the custom sensors before you load the new .csp file. There is a trash can on the top of the custom sensor screen that will get rid of all of them. I think this would prevent duplication.
Click to expand...

That's helpful to learn what the trash can button does (although I just noticed that your explained that in your Post #44 and I missed it). I considered hitting it, but backed off, fearing that it would give me more confusion, and opted to just uninstall and reinstall the app. Fortunately, after the reinstall, I used the Backup section properly, and ended up with a good, single set of the Clarity sensors.

Your comment about the release of new Sensor Sets is interesting. I used the files extracted from the link on your Post #44, and the app shows all of the functionalities you listed in that post, but have you released any updates since then?
 
vicw said:
but have you released any updates since then?
Click to expand...

We released sensors on 3/2 (Post #44), and on 3/9 (Post #100).
We have a few more identified, but have not yet sent them out.
If anyone has a request(s) for specific sensors, let us know, and we may be able to hunt them down.


This thread is a little cluttered and hard to find things.
I have started a dialog with @Domenick regarding a possible alternative like a sticky post, or similar.
 
MrFixit said:
We released sensors on 3/2 (Post #44), and on 3/9 (Post #100).
We have a few more identified, but have not yet sent them out.
If anyone has a request(s) for specific sensors, let us know, and we may be able to hunt them down.


This thread is a little cluttered and hard to find things.
I have started a dialog with @Domenick regarding a possible alternative like a sticky post, or similar.
Click to expand...

I noticed the .cbz file from post 44 is larger (97K) than the .cbz from post 100 (93K). Did you remove something?
 
bpratt said:
I noticed the .cbz file from post 44 is larger (97K) than the .cbz from post 100 (93K). Did you remove something?
Click to expand...

No. There are more sensors in the Post #100 edition.
I'm not sure how to explain the slightly smaller size. These formats are fundamentally JSON and are a little awkward.

One thing we have contemplated is the 168 individual cell voltages. These tend to clutter up the list in Car Scanner making it harder to find what you want. They have more utility for a report-oriented output like the AP200, or @lincomatic 's upcoming ClarityElm tool.

We could take them our of the .csp, & .cbz files, or
We could have two sets of these files (one set with, and one set without), or
We could have a .csp with JUST the cell voltages (it would remain static, and you would only load it if desired).

I don't want to over-complicate things. Any thoughts?
 
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