Googling for OBDII info for Dave (Quick) I found an interesting VID (vehicle information display). This is one UNREAL cool looking device. Not an DashHawk but a DashDaq. It supports LX platform Chryslers Damn....Where were these guys when we got our DashHawks. "DashDAQ Series II is a product designed for car enthusiasts by car enthusiasts. It offers Customizable Gauges, Data Recording, Diagnostics, Navigation, Performance Calculation, and more all from a high resolution color touch-screen." http://www.dashdaq.com/index.html http://www.dashdaq.com/features/gauges.htm You MUST see this. It even supports add on sensors.... WIDEBAND SENSORS O2, acceleromter and a thermocouple. Maunal.. http://www.dashdaq.com/downloads/DashDAQ_Web.pdf
BJB (Brian) has one on his supercharged Jeep. I've seen it and it's awesome. I thought the same thing as you...he also has his wideband hooked up to it. Great unit.
Ummm, I have one. :grin: Still getting ramped up on it but it looks ready for prime time now. I had checked up on this a number of months ago and they didn't have the DCx specific pids. They do now. A couple of them don't work but with the generic pids and the DCx ones everything important is covered. They also didn't have offboard logging (could only replay on the device). Now you have the option to save logs as .dif or in LogWorks format to the SD card so you can directly load them into LogWorks3 (or excel if you want to work with the data that way). Wideband integration, DCx stuff, offboard logging, a super duper color display with a touch screen. You can also integrate a USB GPS receiver into it if you break your Nav... Not sure if they have the navigation part done on the device yet since I wasn't interested in that. They do have the performance tests but you have to start with a tree on the screen. I'm trying to talk them into having the option to start whenever the car starts rolling. I think they're working on getting everything polished up and adding some major improvements in time for SEMA.
Depends. It's certainly not bargain priced. How much was the DashHawk? (wait a minute, I think I have that written down) 275-350? So about 2 to 2.5 times as much? The hardware is is pretty impressive. 3.5"x2" hi-res, color, touch screen. OBD II input port. 2-channel accessory input port (that would be for the wideband and another analog/serial input, 3 mini-USB ports (one of which is only for updating the firmware) 2 of which are for inputs. The various gauge layouts have all kinds of graphical bling. Different themes, each with a handful of gauge layouts. They're talking about a theme editor so you can roll your own. I think the product is worth the price. I guess the risk would be if they make it to the big time or not. They're a part of Drew Technologies? which I think is a private company. Don't know anything about them. I should look it up... Looks like they have some products out there and that they've been around since at least 2005. Here is a FASCINATING read. Looks like 3 of Drew Tech engineers actually wrote some of the SAE standards... Then SAE wanted to copywrite it and charge Drew Technologies for using it, hahaha. Drew Technologies won the case to keep it open source and got a 75K settlement which they donated half of it back to SAE! How wild is that? http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050225223848129
Looks pretty cool. As for the price, I like it. Hell I got over 7 bills in my PLX DM100 unit. And all I monitor is AF, EGT and two oil temps.
It has a Linux OS, and they let you download the code. That could open it up for all kinds of uses an capabilities. It is expensive, but I think worth it when you total up all it can replace.
They don't have a driver written yet for the PLX serial interface (I got the DM-100 too) so you'd have to run the analog output into it. You'd have to pick 2 of the analog outputs now, and then wait for the serial interface driver to handle all 4. Looks like they have Innovate fully covered with a driver for their MTS? output. I considered going the full boat with PLX but their OBD II scanner only does the standard PIDs currently. I think PLX said vehicle specific parameters weren't in plan currently.
This device is sweet. I hope it stays around, tons of pootential. It is a small computer at its core. Hell...it already has the programming to play a video in "Demo" mode with good resolution. Just wait till a member that is proficent in Linux programming gets hold of one of these. Dave, How long have you been using it? How do the gauges look and hows the refresh rate? Have you looked at any logs on screen yet? How about some pics!
This is only going on the 2nd week... so I haven't done much other than basic setup and fooled with this and that. The gauges look just like the screen shots they have on the site It's a super high quality screen. Ummm, refresh rate? Don't know, It's lcd or tft or ... I'm pretty sure it's not OLED... let me check. TFT. http://www.dashdaq.com/downloads/DashDAQ_Web.pdf 4" color tft touchpad. (that's diagonal, it's 3.5"x2" square) 480x272 (QWVGA) <-whatever that means. 24-bit color. It's vivid. refresh rate... it's rock solid--doesn't flicker. Things like my AFR gauge needle moves faster than you can see it so the sample rate on the analog signal must be pretty fast and is reflected in the gauge. In closed loop mode (jumping around between 14.5 and 15.5 or so) it's a bit too fast. I suppose you want that for logging but I don't know if there is a way to "smooth" it for the gauge display only? Have to check into that. Of course my PLX DM-100 gauge display does the same thing. I haven't tried log playback on the screen. I should. That would be useful for test'n'tune adjustments with the predator without having to get to a PC to look at the logs. You can select the log format for the logs written to the SD card (SD card not included ). Their internal format, .dif for import to excel and just recently LogWorks format so you can directly open it with LogWorks. I'm not familiar with LogWorks (150 page manual but I think a lot of it is dedicated to their live logging with Innovate devices). I went straight to the "save in LogWorks" format. The default LogWorks graph doesn't look as pretty compared to DashHawk's logs but I started to fiddle with it and it looks like there's some neat stuff. You can smooth a graph line, hide/show lines, change color, lay down markers that have a little box with numeric values for all visible lines at that point, etc. It's fully functional for graphing and working with the graph, it's just not all that pretty. I have to look in the manual. Nice thing about logging on the DashDAQ is that you can log the gauges on the screen that you're looking at. There's a button for "start log" at the bottom of each screen. You tap that button to start the log and tap it again to stop the log. Values for each gauge on the screen get logged. One screen has 9 gauges which covers everything I usually log. They have one screen with 24 gauges on it... lord knows how they handle the polling rate with that one. Note, the screens with gauges are just the display. You assign the parameter/signal for each gauge on a screen. Gauge types are analog needle type, bar graph gauge, digital value, a sort of combo gauge with digital and bar. Couple of screens have a graph with digital gauges down the side. Whatever you configure the digital gauges for shows up in the graph which you can add ticks or marker lines to and duration for the visible graph window (10s, 30s, ... etc.). I *think* a log playback on the device would show a moving graph. Haven't tried it. I tried the performance tests. Well, at least the 0-60 and the 1/4 mile. They have 1/8 and 1-100kph. They run, and at the end you get R/T, ET, MPH, and distance. No splits. I'd like to see them put splits in there and parameters to log during a test like the DashHawk. The other annoying thing is that all tests use the "tree" to start. You stop the car, tap the start button, and watch the tree to go. (I haven't tried red lighting yet but I'd hope you still get results anyway). I'd really like the option to have it "auto-start" as soon as the car moves for an automatic 0 R/T. It's inconvenient to be sitting on the shoulder waiting for the appropriate sized break in traffic and then have to wait on a tree.... There seems to be some sort of accomodation for "user tests" in the performance test setup but I have no idea what that does or if it works. There's config for start value, stop value, and units. I thought maybe that would work for splits so I set up the 4 of them for start=0ft and stop=(the usual splits)ft. Didn't see anything from that. Maybe it's not implemented and they are supposed to show up as part of the selection list when you select the performance test you want to run. Setup is a bit different. You install "devices". Each device supplies one or more signals. For example Generic OBD II is a "device", Chrysler Specific OBD II is a "device", AnalogIn 1 is a device, etc. A device corresponds to a driver so you're actually installing the driver for a device. Then you can configure parameters for devices. Parameters are specific to the device/driver. Some like Generid OBD II have no parameters. The Chrysler specific OBD II has a flag. If you set the flag to 0 you get a list of 92 parameters (I guess they selected the subset they thought would be most used). Set the flag to 1 and you get 500 parameters! Don't know if they all work or not (I do know a couple that don't work and a couple that are missing so far). One time setup in the car is to "scan for signals". I think they poll for each parameter from those installed (see above) and see if they get a response. They do find all 500 on the extended list. That just means they got a response. It doesn't mean the parameter value is populated by the PCM or if it is that they interpret it correctly. For example I think the Chrysler Specific AAT is displayed on the gauges as some value around -50*. It changes value so they're polling and getting something back but they are not intepreting the value correctly. Generic OBD II AAT works correctly. (Oddly, Chrysler specific IAT works as expected). It was something like that. So for my PLX gauge, since they don't have a driver for the PLX serial output, I wired the 0v-5v output from the PLX SM-AFR to channel 1 on the DashDAQ accessory cable (accessory cable not included ). Then configured the parameters for the AnalogIn Corrected device to Correction factor: 2 Correction offset: 10 Correction Reading Short Name: AFR <- this is the label that shows up on the gauge and maybe in logs? . . Corrected Reading Min: 10 <- Corrected Reading Max: 20 <- These show up as the default min/max for the display gauge when you assign this signal to a gauge. So you tap on a gauge on a gauge screen and you get a configuration dialog where you select the input signal for the gauge, gauge display min/max and low and high warning value. You can set the color for the gauge display value. So if you config to green the numbers will show up in green in a digital gauge. You can config individual colors for low/high warn values. On a "analog" style display gauge for AFR I have Min: 10 Max: 20 <- those are the default values from the device parameters I configured before. I could set the display range from 11 to 18 and the scale on the gauge would read from 11 to 18. Low Warn: 12 (blue) High Warn: 16 (red) <- colors are selected from a color plot The display scale is marked for the low and high areas. What's cool is when the needle enters the low or high area the "pie section" of that gauge face changes to the selected color. Oh yea. Each gauge screen has some number of gauges. The gauges are active only when you're displaying that screen. So they are not polling for the signals you've configured for the gauges on non-selected screens. I just got the thing... give me some time
Sounds better and better. Nice write up Dave. opcorn: Dave, Did you pay the extra $95 to get the "expanded' Chrysler LX license? Comparisons to other OBDII devices including DashHawk: http://www.dashdaq.com/features/competitors.htm
Oh yea, there is no auto off. There is a physical button on the lower left front corner of the device. Press it once and it turns the screen off. Press and hold and it powers the device down. Press it again and it either switches the screen back on or boots the device (takes about 10 seconds to boot). I think their're working on an auto-off.
IMHO a cooler option would be to use the factory REC as a video display for that and then just hook up a laptop to it when you want to configure and work on it. I don't want an LCD in my dash besides the factory NAV. Besides how often would you play with it, most of the time it would just be there for gauges, the times I would need it to do logging I would connect my laptop to it. This would save a couple hundred off the touch screen LCD and possibly increase response time as there would be no need for a video driver.
I suppose what you could do is put a car-pc between the nav unit and it's display (MyGig would be better since it has a touch screen display doesn't it?). Then you could run something like AutoEnginuity on the car-pc. That would be a LOT of work and programming though.
Quick, Can you give us your take on this system as well. $229. It too accepts additional 0-5V inputs. It doesn't have a touch screen and fancy selectable gauge faces, but it costs $500 less than a DashDaq. http://www.aeroforcetech.com/
I really can't comment on these 'cause I'm not familiar with them at all. Here's some points to check just from watching their video clip and looking at the side bar. - They say it can scan up to 30 parameters. They also say it can read just about anything on supported vehicles. The clip is with it in a SRT4? First is your car supported? Second, I'm assuming that the 30 number is the max number that can be selected for the gauge to rotate through when in scan mode and that the 30 is selected from a much larger list? There are many hundred Chrysler Specific OBD II parameters. - You can only display 2 parameters (per gauge) at a time. I'm assuming you can daisy-chain the displays. How many? Is the price of additional displays less than the first entire unit? A single display can rotate through values but you may want to see more than 2 at a single time. 4 values (2 displays) would probably be good for most of the time but if you're tuning probably not. Depends on the logging (below). -2 analog inputs is good. If you need more (like Cam) then you need something that will accept the serial input of systems like Innovate where they daisy-chain sensors on a serial network. DashDAQ will take the serial input from a couple of systems like Innovate, Zeitronix, etc. (Not PLX at the moment). It's a matter of them writing drivers for more. and I think the license for those add-ons is additional? -It says they can clear codes so I assume it will display them and that it handles the mfg specific codes for the supported cars. -I didn't check how they do their performance tests but that may not be a big deal for most people. -Logging is critical for me. The video clip says they can log 60s and replay it. How many parameters? Is it only the 2 being displayed? or can you log more and display each one individually later? Does it save logs. If it's only looking at the digital replay of 2 parameters then I think it's almost useless or would be very hard to work with. Can you step through the log 1 sample at a time or does it just replay it in real time. I didn't check to see if there is any way to download the logs. It appears that logging would be, at the least, very limited. -I assume the sample rate is sufficient? If I was looking into getting this/these those are some of the check points I would want to get a clear understanding of. Don't know about their quality. (I got to run out and wash the car before the sun hits it... I'll be back)
If those are of good quality I'd say they'd make fine multi-gauges for in the car to monitor whatever handful of parameters you wanted. I think the lack of logging would make them minimally useful for diagnosing, adjusting tunes, or dialing something in. The shift/warning lights are a neat feature. For the warning lights I wasn't clear as to whether they only trigger for the signal that's being displayed. If it triggers for any signal in the list you're rotating the display through, is there a way to quickly identify the signal that triggered it? Then again, if it does that, how are they polling for up to thirty signals? If they follow the spec and only have 1 outstanding poll at a time then they would be serially going through the signals and polling for each in turn. That would make the update rate for each parameter maybe too long if you were monitoring more than 10 or so signals. I'd want to check how they do that too. I think he said "up to" 8 in the video clip. So maybe you can only configure 8 to cycle through (that'd make sense for the polling issue), and you can configure from a total list of 30.
