KiwiME
Well-Known Member
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.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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Even though I can't really appreciably contribute yet, I am very interested in this thread.
