Request for data from OBDII using Android App "Car Scanner" from 0vZ (Only)

[Texas22Step]

Thanks for the info. I have emailed the BCT request to my service advisor and requested a follow-on appointment asap to get the right report run. Sorry for the mistake and further delay.

OK, returned to local dealer this morning with print-outs of docs provided by Cash (above) and came away with the "correct" report. To (partially) repeat, my car is a 2018 Clarity PHEV Touring, DOM 4/18, date of purchase 6/18, no PDI battery data available. ODO mileage now 14503. Battery Pack Capacity 50.2 Ah at 338.4V with SOC 94%. Typically charge on L2 every other day or two days, usually from SOC <10% to "full" (charger stops).

I hope this data is useful for your project, and thanks very much for posting the info needed to get a dealer tech to produce the correct report. I will now have the dealer do this test routinely when the car is serviced in order to keep tabs on the traction battery capacity as the car ages.

 

[Danks]

Attached

What did you use to get the screen captures?

 

[Cash Traylor]

Sorry for being an OP MIA, I still don't have enough data (attached with a valid/recent BCT) to report something statistically significant. I have been concentrating on a "direct" method for now. However, it appears that the Clarity BMS is scaling the voltage to percent (real SOC, not Hondalink) versus the total pack wear level, but only on the top end and by very little (may be completely dependent on current cell balance). This means that, at least until I get more and greater variation in data, I do not believe the pack charge/discharge parameters are changing with age to make the user experience in "performance" (ie Range) remain the same like in one theory from BEV systems. This makes sense for Honda as how they define warranty and are not really looking at a car that has nonfunctional range due to loss. It makes more sense for them to protect the warranty life of the pack as far as capacity by maintaining the grace SOC (the 5% and 20% buffers on the top and bottom of the charge) and let the ICE deal with the lifetime reduction in EV range. This makes the HV packs last the longest. Where if they did expand the "usable capacity" appreciably then the pack would reach 100% at some point and the life begin to fall off dramatically. They do have to maintain that bottom "reserve" power as that is the ONLY "low gear" for the Clarity. Without that minimal battery power the Clarity will accelerate from a stop very poorly and "could" become a usability issue (the ICE-Gen would only help a little without a battery). I has to reschedule my planned maintenance and BCT event due to work changes and child care. Hope to get it done before the end of this month and have a hard data point to test against. All the data reported here is still very useful for comparison over time - just need more time.

I should have my hands on a Clarity BMS soon, and hope to determine whether the HV pack is using "passive" or "active" balancing. I honestly would be very surprised if it is passive.

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/bu_1003a_battery_aging_in_an_electric_vehicle_ev

I've been looking for more SAE articles on this from Honda. So far nothing but if someone finds something please share with the class!

@Danks As to the screen captures, he used that function on his phone (varies by manufacturer and use settings).

Cash

 

[Danks]

Thanks for the help with the screen capture. I got it to work.

I finally got the OBDII sensor and have some data. I'm working on a Google spreadsheet. Trying to see if it helps at all. Here's the data and a couple of charts.

 

[Danks]

I have a 2019 PHEV base trim. Built 1-2019. Bought 6-20-2019

 

[Danks]

OK. I played with the Google spreadsheet a little. I have it set so it is straightforward and easy to add the data we are looking for. I've created 3 charts, SOC % vs Voltage, Max % vs Voltage, and Max % vs SOC %. Each chart shows the trendline for all the data and the individual data points for each person so each person can see where their data fits relative to the rest. Hopefully this will be useful. It would be interesting to see data from people who suspect they have a battery issue. I think @jdonalds mentioned a battery concern a while back.

When a new person adds in, I'll have to add them to the charts. For some reason, Google sheets is not adding them automatically even though they are in the data range for the chart.

When you first click the link it will send me a request to allow access. I'll grant that as soon as I see it in my email and you will get an email confirming you have access.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LHtqVuPzHUDXmX1jiHOQIpT_YiGp9N-vnBOiSz96C2I/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Danks]

FWIW - here are the charts showing the data contributed by each person so far.

 

[Bbeardb]

I don't have any of the requested data, but in a previous thread you were looking for battery capacity. I'm not sure if that is still helpful to you, but I was able to obtain mine.

2018 Base
30,292 mi.
55 Ah

It was a bit difficult to get as no one at Honda could figure out how to get what I was asking (don't ask for the PDI, just the last step of it). I came with a photo of the last page to TSB 17-093 (the PDI) and walked the tech through it. I could see how it would be difficult to know exactly what I wanted as there were hundreds of readings in multiple tabs of data. Once he realized I wasn't being an annoying idiot, he chatted with me quite a bit about the car and showed me some of the stuff he found and did a battery diagnostic test, which is what he previously assumed I wanted.

 

[MrFixit]

Nice bit of information...

It is encouraging that your HV battery seems to be 'as good as new' after 30K miles.
It would have been interesting to have your original capacity for comparison.
Sadly, this was supposed to be provided per the PDI, but rarely was.

 

[Ray B]

Nice bit of information...

It is encouraging that your HV battery seems to be 'as good as new' after 30K miles.
It would have been interesting to have your original capacity for comparison.
Sadly, this was supposed to be provided per the PDI, but rarely was.

Agreed - they didn't evaluate it on my PDI, and when I went in for the 1 year service I asked for it and they just scribbled "55 Ah" on the invoice sheet. At the 2 year service the service rep kept going back and forth between me and the tech and finally they said they'd have to charge me $65 for 30 minutes of service if I wanted the capacity measured. I really wanted the capacity (and the full printouts), but I'm not spending that much money on it. I think you have to get lucky with the right service rep, service manager, and service tech to get a free and hassle-free battery health report. Next time I will call ahead of time and get them to agree to it before trying to argue on site.

 

[Bbeardb]

Agreed - they didn't evaluate it on my PDI, and when I went in for the 1 year service I asked for it and they just scribbled "55 Ah" on the invoice sheet. At the 2 year service the service rep kept going back and forth between me and the tech and finally they said they'd have to charge me $65 for 30 minutes of service if I wanted the capacity measured. I really wanted the capacity (and the full printouts), but I'm not spending that much money on it. I think you have to get lucky with the right service rep, service manager, and service tech to get a free and hassle-free battery health report. Next time I will call ahead of time and get them to agree to it before trying to argue on site.

They have no idea how to do it. I don't say this to disparage the Honda service peeps, but let people know that they might have to step Honda through it. They all were trying to blow me off (3x service advisors and the mechanic) until I showed them the last page of TSB 17-093. Instantly, they were all, "Oh, uh, ok. I didn't know that. Let's pull that up for you." So your car may actually had 55 Ah capacity at the one year mark. You could probably get them to do it for free in the parking lot if you can show them the the instructions.

 

[gedwin]

I have a 2019 base with 12,000 miles. I am inferring from above posts that my data will not be very useful for you at this point? (Since you have many data points already for similar mileage vehicles?) Otherwise, I'd be happy to collect and post.

I do have my own question since this is my first OBD experience: I am using a WiFi module and the Overzealous iPhone app recommended above. I am connecting to the WiFi and the app is connecting to the module OK. However, loading of sensor data seems to be either extremely slow or is hit-or-miss. So far, I have not been able to get readings for all of the battery parameters ... just a few seem to populate. Is it normal that it is very slow to load all those sensor data points? (Many, many minutes?) Thanks for any help.

Edit: I am concluding that I get only "Hybrid battery pack remaining charge" and "Hybrid/EV battery system voltage" values. For instance, values for "Current" or "Usable Capacity" are never reported. I would have guess the OBD interface would be all-or-none, so I surprised I get some values and not others (when seems clear in this thread that others are able to access all values). For instance, I notice the throttle pedal parameter provides instantaneous data, and I can watch the real time graph as I push the pedal to the stop and beyond, and clearly the data transfer is fast and continuous. So, does anyone have suggestions why I am not getting the usable capacity??

 

[insightman]

So, does anyone have suggestions why I am not getting the usable capacity??

The answer is that you didn't spend enough money. @MrFixit writes in this post, "I am nearly certain that the Autel MX808 tool is currently the 'minimum' Autel product than can get the data that we want. You can get one for around $380."

 

[gedwin]

The answer is that you didn't spend enough money. @MrFixit writes in this post, "I am nearly certain that the Autel MX808 tool is currently the 'minimum' Autel product than can get the data that we want. You can get one for around $380."

Thank you. I'm admittedly dabbling in completely unknown territory. However, OP provided a link to a low-end OBD reader from Amazon that apparently works, as did @Alex800st ($26 when I followed that link today). So, that seems to conflict with your reference and explanation. I suppose my main question is my failure so far due to my reader, since I am accessing certain parameters but not others, or might it be an app setting? (I would have thought getting some parameters should get them all if it is just reading output from the car, but perhaps this is not how it works.) If the issue is just my OBD reader, I'm willing to drop $30 to try the one @Alex800st gave the link for above.

 

[insightman]

Thank you. I'm admittedly dabbling in completely unknown territory. However, OP provided a link to a low-end OBD reader from Amazon that apparently works, as did @Alex800st ($26 when I followed that link today). So, that seems to conflict with your reference and explanation. I suppose my main question is my failure so far due to my reader, since I am accessing certain parameters but not others, or might it be an app setting? (I would have thought getting some parameters should get them all if it is just reading output from the car, but perhaps this is not how it works.) If the issue is just my OBD reader, I'm willing to drop $30 to try the one @Alex800st gave the link for above.

All I can see in the OP is, "Honda has a BUNCH of proprietary PIDs... HV Pack capacity is currently one of them." Where is the link to the cheap OBDII scanner that can retrieve this proprietary PID?

 

[gedwin]

... Where is the link to the cheap OBDII scanner that can retrieve this proprietary PID?

Did you read posts #1, #3 and #19 in this thread? I do not know what what a "proprietary PID" is, but I understood from this thread that half a dozen or so contributors are grabbing this battery data, and they are posting this information throughout this thread. In particular, the first post is very clear about 3 parameters that he is requesting, it seems clear that people are actually finding this data and posting it. What am I missing?

 

[MrFixit]

@gedwin - It depends what you want.

You can get a few simple things related to the HV battery (battery voltage and a couple varieties of State of Charge (SOC)). The expensive ones have a whole lot of battery information with voltages down to individual cells, etc. The big thing that we have sought (unsuccessfully so far) is the official Honda measurement of total battery capacity.

For the few simple things, the simple ELM OBD2 adapter can be used in conjunction with an App called Car Scanner (Android):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ovz.carscanner

I don't know if there is an iOS version of this App.

As speculated elsewhere, I believe that a simple OBD2 adapter is capable of retrieving the detailed parameters that we want. Its just that nobody has cracked the magic codes needed to retrieve that information (short of purchasing the more 'professional' and expensive Autel units). I have an Autel AP200 which is low cost, and Autel promises software 'updates' which may eventually include the detailed information. Unfortunately these 'updates' have not been forthcoming.

 

[gedwin]

@gedwin - It depends what you want.
.

Thanks for the responses on this, and sorry if I have derailed the thread. I think I confused things by saying "Usable Capacity" in my first post above, intending to mean the "Max State of Charge" parameter that was requested. Really, all I am simply trying to do is reproduce the method the OP discusses and it seems many others have replicated, which is to extract these 3 values (as pasted from original post):

1. Hybrid/EV Battery System Voltage (V)
2. Hybrid Battery Pack Remaining Life (%)
   
3. Battery Cell Max State of Charge (%)

I am using the same app as OP recommended but in iOS; a later post states iOS works.

I get values #1 and #2, but #3 is left blank. (The 'HV Battery Current' is also blank for me, which OP apparently sees as well.) The line item for these missing parameters is there in the All Sensors report, but display no value no matter what settings I tweak or how long I wait. So, may main question I was trying to get to is whether anyone can advise why only some of the parameters are coming through, but others are not. Clearly, my app is talking to the car and receiving ~some~ of the data.

A second question, more germane to the overall thread, is whether anyone even wants my data (12,000 mileage car) if I can get it working? Or have you moved past this by now?

 

[MrFixit]

Not sure why some would be blank.
Do you have access to an Android phone just to test whether it may be an iOS issue?
I think the original purpose for collecting data has been satisfied at this point.

 

[gedwin]

Just to put some closure on this for any future readers, my issue was definitely with the older OBDII dongle I was using. I ordered a new one off of Amazon for $20 (Foxwell FW601) and I can now confirm it works great on iOS with the "Car Scanner" app described above. The reader is labeled as ELM327 v1.5. Again, just FYI for anyone else interested in playing with this. It can be fun to watch how real-time sensor readings change while driving a round. Playing more than anything now, but I can see it could be useful for diagnosing problems in the future.