I spent WAY too much time this weekend setting this up! My wife was saying something about "obsession?"
LOL

Anyway.....
I spent quite a bit of time learning and understanding Torque and finally came up with this configuration for my phone....

Screen #1, Pretty much the stock "Performance Testing" screen from the default setup.

Screen #2, First part of the "Trip Computer".

Screen #3, Second part of the "Trip Computer".

Screen #4 Monitoring the EV systems, especially traction motor activity.

Screen #5 Monitoring the REX/Generator.

Screen #6 Temperature sensors.

 

Anything that would shed light on the position of the "active grill shutters"?

 

If you were willing to share your setup file, that would be great! Nice job!

 

Okay, see if this works
Volt3 Config

You'll also need the extended Volt "PID" file that can be found in this thread.

 

Wow! That's great, Dutch. I'll order the dongle right now. I note that the 2016 video you referenced says that one SHOULD NOT INSTALL THE SOFTWARE THAT COMES WITH THE DONGLE, because it is known to contain viruses.

However, I have a question: the Volt has two OBD2 receptacles, and I thought the one on the passenger side had the data on the traction battery, etc. Did you plug in the dongle on the driver side? Or does one need two dongles?

 

I don't think the software that comes with the ODBII adapters contains malware. It is, however, 100% useless.

 

Dutch, would you be interested in seeing what happens if you plug the dongle in on the passenger side?

 

passenger side ODBII contains some overlapped and some different information. Specifically, the data about the charge rates on the individual cell modules and their various states. NotAHoser was looking at that stuff. But unless you're gonna be sitting there in the car while it's charging, it's less important than the stuff on the driver side.

 

Question for all you Torque users out there... I thought that a "always connected" OBD2 dongle sometimes causes issues severe enough to need a dealership trip to reset things. Are you all just risking this or are some dongles known to be "good" and some "bad"?

 

My hypothesis has been that it is solely related to the rate of data polling, not the device.
If you use the slowest mode, you should not have any issue.
My older dongle (2008?) only runs in slow mode and has never caused an issue.

Also don't pull a ton of PIDs. Only the bare minimum that you need. Want to avoid flooding the system.

 

The ELM 327 (mini) bluetooth dongle that I ordered on Monday from Amazon following the link that Dutch provided has just arrived, and it doesn't work. I think I made the mistake of ordering the "enhanced" version for $10.99 instead of the plain vanilla $8.99 version.

When I plug the dongle into the OBD2 port on the driver side, it momentarily shows red and green lights, but then the green light disappears, and I don't see it on my Samsung tablet's bluetooth control screen. It doesn't seem to matter if the Volt is off or running when I do the plug-in. Same result either way.

Question: What lights are supposed to show on the dongle when things are working properly? Is the green one supposed to be on?

 

When I plug mine in it briefly shows a red and a green LED. Then the green one goes out and just the red one stays on.

The process I followed for the initial connection is this;
1) Plug in the OBD II module
2) Turn on the Volt
3) Set my phone (Samsung S7) to scan for bluetooth items.
4) Acknowledge the OBD II Module and then enter the passkey (Mine was 1234, I think they all are)
At that point my phone beeped and I was ready to tell Torque to use the bluetooth.

One the module and my phone had been set up I moved the setup to my 03 mazda and my 97 Jeep without issue.

I also paired the module to a friend's tablet (Samsung) while plugged into his 2016 Jeep. That time the bluetooth timed out, but when we turned bluetooth off (on the tablet) and turned it back on, it paired and everything worked fine.

I accidentally ordered two of them (or two showed up regardless) and they both work fine for me.
I wonder if you just got a dud.

 

This is the one I purchased and it has worked flawlessly since I got it about a month ago. It stays plugged in all the time and no issues as of yet.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PJPHEBO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Bluetooth sometimes disconnects when the car has been off so "mygreenvolt" doesn't always update charging status report, but other than that no problems to speak of so far.

 

Did either of you buy the "Enhanced" version for $10.99? That's the one I bought, and I suspect it was "enhanced" right out of functionality.

 

no mine was not the "enhanced" one.

 

Update: Today I got the dongle to work, which involved massaging the BlueTooth handler of my Samsung tablet more than I had done yesterday and being patient while it's scanning. Torque Pro now works great.

I uploaded Dutch's dashboard layout, and that works too. However, it is intended for the small-ish screen of a phone, and on my tablet there are small number boxes with huge amounts of white space in between. I'm learning to use the Torque editor to lay out the display space better.

Therefore, there is no apparent problem with the "enhanced" version of the ELM 327 dongle. It seems to work fine.

 

Update: Today I got the dongle to work, which involved massaging the BlueTooth handler of my Samsung tablet more than I had done yesterday and being patient while it's scanning. Torque Pro now works great.

Glad you got it working.

I uploaded Dutch's dashboard layout, and that works too. However, it is intended for the small-ish screen of a phone, and on my tablet there are small number boxes with huge amounts of white space in between. I'm learning to use the Torque editor to lay out the display space better.

Yeah I set it up for a Samsung Galaxy 7 phone.

 

UPDATE: one "gauge" is totally wrong

UPDATE: one "gauge" is totally wrong

The Screen 6 gauge for Electronics Temperature is just plain wrong (at least on my car).
It starts at 86 degrees and just stays there like a rock.

I simply do not know enough, nor do I have the time to correct the PID but I thought I'd let others know that one is in error.

 

I did the experiment of plugging the ELM 327 dongle into the OBD2 CAN-bus socket on the passenger (right) side of my 2015 Volt to see if some of the unresponsive PID codes that Torque registers as "No data received" would become available. The ELM dongle powers up as before with a green LED flash and a red LED that stays on. My Samsung tablet's bluetooth pairs with it OK, too, after that. Then I turn the Volt drive on and start Torque Plus. When Torque Plus is initializing, all the startup icons along the top edge come on OK and stop flashing except the one that looks like a little car. That one continued to flash for ten minutes. I presume that this means that there is some some needed handshaking that the CAN-bus socket on the right does not supply.

 

ELM 327 Pirate Versions?

On the Wikipedia page that discusses ELM 327 OBD2 Adapters like the ones needed to use Torque Pro, it mentions that there are pirate versions of the OBD2 adapter device out there, Here's the relevant section:

Pirate clones

The ELM327 is a PIC microcontroller that has been customized with ELM Electronics' proprietary code that implements the testing protocols. When ELM Electronics sold version 1.0 of its ELM327, it did not enable the copy protection feature of the PIC microcontroller. Consequently, anyone could buy a genuine ELM327, and read ELM's proprietary binary microcontroller code using a device programmer. With this microcode, pirates could trivially produce ELM327 clones by purchasing the same microcontroller chips directly from MicroChip and programming them with the copied microcode.[4][5] ELM327 clones were widely sold in devices claiming to contain an ELM327 device, and problems have been reported with the clones.[6] The problems reflect bugs that were present in ELM's version 1.0 microcode; those making the clones may continue to sell the old version.

Although these pirate clones may contain the ELM327 v1.0 code, they may falsely report the version number as the current version provided by the genuine ELM327, and in some cases report an as-yet non-existent version.[7] Released software versions for the ELM327 are 1.0, 1.3a, 1.4b, 2.1 and 2.2 only.[8] The actual function of these pirate clones is nonetheless limited to the function of the original ELM327 v1.0, with inherent deficiencies.

Most of the clones are reporting ELM327 v1.5, despite the fact that Elm Electronics does not have a version 1.5.​

I bought my Bluetooth ELM 327 dongle (enhanced version) on Amazon for $10.99 from MEStart, using the link provided by Dutch. When I ask Torque Pro for "Adapter Version", it lists the firmware as "Version 1.5", probably indicating that it uses old pirated firmware. Ironically, under "Adapter Notes" it also mentions the piracy and says that one should beware of pirated adapters.

I think I would like to send this adapter back to Amazon and get a legitimate unit, but a quick look failed to reveal which offerings are legitimate and which ones are pirated.

Any ideas?

 

Well that's interesting... and annoying.
I have absolutely no idea about what constitutes a legitimate dongle so if you find out please let me know.

 

Elm has links on their website, this should be helpful in locating a legitimate ELM327

https://www.elmelectronics.com/help/obd/links/

 

The ELM327 Clone Wars

​

I spent some time looking at those links with limited success. The only unambiguous genuine adapter I found is an ELM-327.eu link that will sell you an "ELM327 Bluetooth. Original ELM Electronics Genuine ELM 327 Chip 2.2 SM" dongle for 49 Euros ($57.82 US). They will ship to the USA, but it may take a while for delivery. The company seems to be in Romania and the shipping charges to Seattle would be another 19 Euros. Their site explicitly says that it uses the genuine ELM Electronics' newest ELM 327 V.2.2 chip. They show a picture of the authentic Elm Electronics chip in their circuit board.

I gather that when interrogated by Torque Pro, the pirate units mostly say either Version 1.5 or Version 2.1, and it's better to have a "1.5" than a "2.1". Here's an interesting dissection of one of the pirated clones, along with a discussion of what's going on:
https://timyouard.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/disection-of-a-counterfeit-elm327-obdii-adapter-from-china/

I found an ELM 327 Identifier app available for free at the Google Android app store that checks ELM 327 Adapters to see which version and what codes they actually support. The link is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.applagapp.elm327identifier . Running it on the ELM 327 Adapter that I bought on Amazon from the link provided by Dutch (see above), it says that although Torque Pro gives Version 1.5, it actually supports all codes for Versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.3b, and 1.4, but not 1.4b, 2.0, 2.1, or 2.2. Clearly, I have a pirated clone, but at least it's one of the better ones.

 

Are there any versions of these or related softs for iphones/ipads? Or should I dig up my old android tablet (wherever it is)?

 

The best app for getting OBD2 info from a Volt seems to be Torque Pro, which has no iphone version, only Andriod. There are other apps that do similar things, but for maximum effectiveness they would have to be able to download the Volt PIDs from a .csv file, as Torque does.

If it were me, I'd find your Android tablet or buy a used Android phone with a good screen that could be dedicated to this use.

 

I just discovered that BAFX has a great video on how to use Torque Pro. It's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_A7u1SqddI

 

Update: QUIRK WARNING

So I used this setup to monitor OHM-RIDE for a while and suddenly I started getting "battery charge door open" warnings at random times even though the door was closed.

After a while I decided to pull the ODBII reader and no more warnings.

Re-installed the ODBII and within a couple of days the random warnings started again.

Removed it again and no more warnings since (it's been a while now)

So apparently keeping an ODBII dongle in the port -can- in fact send spurious signals around the system. Just wanted to make folks aware.

 

So I used this setup to monitor OHM-RIDE for a while and suddenly I started getting "battery charge door open" warnings at random times even though the door was closed.

After a while I decided to pull the ODBII reader and no more warnings.

Re-installed the ODBII and within a couple of days the random warnings started again.

Removed it again and no more warnings since (it's been a while now)

So apparently keeping an ODBII dongle in the port -can- in fact send spurious signals around the system. Just wanted to make folks aware.

Reduce the rate and number of PIDs you're pulling (only do the absolute minimum you need) - you're overloading the system. You should be fine after that.

 

I'm not buying into any OBDII tools until there is one that lets you tune the max motor current and change it from 120 kW to 150 kW.

Mike

 

That won't happen over OBDII, ever. It'd require a drive module reprogramming, but you'd risk demagnetizing your motors.

 

I've been using MyGreenVolt for the last week. Rather fun to use. I've only had the car since sept 28th

I'm using about 14KWh/week over 40 miles. considering the lower temps not so bad as The HVAC and Batheat seem to use the most energy. I'm not sure what Other use is.

 

Hi!
Can anybody please upload somewhere the most up to date volt dashboard and pid description file for a 2014 volt because the original dash link seems dead?
Thanks in advance.

 

+1 the old thread with the PID file seems corrupt and the link in this thread for the dashboard layout doesn't work anymore..

 

Hello,
I'am just testing Torque Pro today and when checking for PID, I found your post. Unfortunatly the config file isn't available anymore. Is it possible to get it?
Regards