Epic! One day I hope to be doing stuff like this on the regular. Great video! Please keep them coming.

Since I got tired of spending $9 - $28 on ELM327 knockoff/ripoff clones which didn't work with my vehicles ('00 GMC and '01 Oldsmobile) and having to send them all back, I bought a real ELM327 IC from ELM Electronics and built my own. Altogether, it cost me around $35, but now I can read everything on my car's OBD system including the display of graphs or gauges on my Linux netbook or Android tablet. I can even save the recorded data as a CSV spreadsheet.

@cmd2tuts: yeah, there are plenty of programs out there. It's comes with CD for Windows, and there are at least 2 or 3 I've seen for Linux that have nice simple GUIs. I plan on continuing to manually access it, because for me it all about learning as much as I can.

Very useful, Kris. This, or the UK equivalent would suit a project I'm thinking of trying.

This is great dude, my uncle was about to spend 500+ dollars on a machine that does this exactly. I'll tell him about this and see if I can't get his laptop set up with that app you talked about.

I use to work as a vehicle emissions tester and would do OBD II tests all the time, but I had no idea the Linux kernel could interface with the car's computer. Great information.

Thanks ten times over man for taking the time! This is awesome! Even damn good mechanics need diagnostic tools now days and I can't afford a 12K dollar Mac diagnostic set. This may or not be all Mac is but its a start for me. So all I need is the interface, a laptop and the Linux program? Will it still read when there is no engine light on? Advance Auto's cheap Actron Auto Scanner OBD 11 won't read unless there is a check engine light on which is some what disappointing because the light doesn't come on in every situation. I guess it will diagnose misfiring cylinders caused by bad coil packs as well? That's where I'm at this second with my work truck. I'm sure I have one bad coil pack and need to find which cylinder the bad one is on. A few years back you only had one coil pack for all cylinders and when it quit it meant you were walking. Now you have one per cylinder and you just lose one cylinder if one goes bad. Also you lose a good bit of power and a bad skip develops. A friend tried the back yard method of unplugging wires until he found the one that doesn't make the engine skip worse to pin point it but he got it wrong unless miraculously another coil pack failed just as he fixed that one. I'm subscribing man, thanks again

Nice! And now the computer guy will know how important it is to have a good air cleaner element installed in his car. I'll have to subscribe!

Thank you sir

I've got my head around the ELM327 a bit more in regards to how it works and the instructions say that the 01 01 command merely tells you that there are trouble codes stored in a particular module and the amount of codes which are stored in any given module. As of late , I've had a little trouble connecting the ELM327 in 03 mode which is the command the device sends to the cars computer to retrieve the stored fault codes (in my case a 2002 model Holden Commodore ,mine of which is fitted with the Chevy LS1 engine & OBDII computer in Australia),I'm thinking it has something to do with the cars battery being a bit flat at the time of testing? I turned the cars engine on and got a connection as the charging system was charging the battery and got a NO DATA code in mode 03 which means no codes are stored in the ECU,I'm finding the ELM327 may be a bit fickle and need resetting to get a proper connection to both computers. I'm going to look at the settings and see if there is any calibration for the ELM327,there is a command which resets the chipset back to its original state so I may try that. There is another mode which someone mentioned on this site :- forums.justcommodores.com.au/vt-vx-holden-commodore-1997-2002/185745-ls1-reading-codes.html , I ended up getting a NO DATA result as well after entering code 19 D2 ff 00 and I was told this was supposed to work on the Australian LS1 cars , I think the 03 code would yield the same result to be honest as they are also fully OBDII compliant up until 2006 I think when they went over to ISO 14230 or KWP2000 then whereas mine is SAE J1850 VPW (GM) protocol.

Anyone watching this in 2024? 😅 This is so great 😃

now this i like mate...nice

dude, you are savior :D

awesome!

Hello I have not found my car in the list of vehicles for the ELM237 (Volkswagen passat 1.6 1999) but I would like to know if with linux it would be possible to read the frames, and can to send orders even if the vehicle is not in the list of vehicles recognized. I do programming and I have thought about making a program that runs in linux to display the parameters of the car.

Neat. Thanks

this is way way awesome

For older engines, I am damn good myself, but despite being an electronics engineer, I don't do enough with ECUs to be competent. I hear about silly little controls, like window "regulators" which when replaced, need to be registered with the computer. I also notice a lot of cars where when turn signals are switched on, also switch on fog/day-lights. Is this mis-registered electronic switches, or faulty switches ? I am aware that many vehicles use CANbus switches and sensors which are addressable by the computer.

I always buy the chilton's vehicle manual for any vehicle I buy, and in such I found a wire can jump certain pins in the OBDII interface ports; that will cause a specific set of flashes on the dashboard, which will alert of any codes. Oh yea rough idle + manifold trouble code equals clean of dust, b4 going to the store to replace your air filter($15-20); or it could be an O2 sensor($120 in parts + ? some labor if u don't do it yourself)

Thanks for the upload. Liked, FAV'd. SUB'd

keep us posted about software you are working on for this.

great

Hey, this video is kind of old, I know, but did you ever get around to creating that OBD software you were talking about here? :)

Can you do make tutorial wih bluetooh version too

funny this, but according to ELM327DSF page 26 of the elm327 manual, 01 01 requests the number of the trouble codes, not the codes themselves. 03 requests trouble codes

It's funny there's no datasheet for my ODBII-USB ELM327 adapter. It says V1.5a on the adapter, and in the terminal it says its "ELM327 v1.5" (you get this by entering command ATI). There is no version 1.5 in the datasheets, so I'm confused. Perhaps the version changes are insignificant, but anyway, I noticed the confusion with the various datasheets in Kris' video, so I thought I'd share my confusion as well :)

This is what I name a f*ing tutorial. Thanks a lot!

Awesome! Hacking car is instant like!!!

I have been trying to figure out why my check engine thing has been coming up in my Holden Commodore which has Chevys LS1 engine fitted so it's a GM car. The ELM327 interfaces which are made in China are all clones which all have the PIC type of chip in them,there is this argument in Australia that the LS1 engines fitted into the Aussie GM cars which was the Commodore (they are now fitted with LS3 engines with CAN OBDII programmed ECU's) are different to the U.S. cars - this is the method one person reckons is needed to retrieve trouble codes from the Aussie built car :- First you need to change the addressing mode to physical addressing (6c) and dest address to the PCM (10), stick with the default source address (f1) ATSH 6c 10 f1 Then send the request DTC by status (19) real and pending (D2) all groups (ff) >19 D2 ff 00 In the past I got back : 59 01 02 5B 59 01 55 7B 01 02 => P0102 = Maf problem ( it is sitting on a shelf in the garage after all) 01 55 => P0155 = From memory is slow to warm up O2 sensor The Holden PCM firmware does not usual the standard method to reply to requests to DTC codes. (The person is saying that modes 03 don't work to retrieve stored codes, I wonder if that person has tried using mode 07 to list pending codes?) Someone was using this method in the U.S. to retrieve codes from a Saturn so there is nothing special about the Aussie built car over the ones built in the U.S. !!!! Someone was saying online that the PIC chip doesn't have the capability to read trouble codes for SAE J1850 VPW (GM) & SAE J1850 PWM (Ford) which is the very first of the OBDII protocol cars , that is only has the ability to read the ISO OBDII procotol vehicles (European & Japanese) & ISO CAN-BUS vehicles which has been the universal language spoken by every make of car built from 2006 onwards in Australia at least,I have not been able to list trouble codes with mine because the interface to my Linux computer has the PIC chip in it rather than the genuine ELM327 IC which apparently does read codes from the older GM & Ford OBDII systems,all I've been able to do is to display battery voltage ,coolant temperature & engine RPM & that's it. I have a couple of hand held scanners which haven't worked with my Commodore except for live data display,the CR-PRO which I bought 4 years ago to retrieve an emission code & the Autel OBDII scanners which I bought haven't worked on my car - both are copies with no serial numbers & the CR-PRO hasn't since after 2012,so if it worked again I think I may have to invest in another one of their scanners (Vgate),both the scanners that I currently have only work on my dads 2014 Holden Colorado which is obviously CAN-BUS OBDII protocol,unplugging the MAF meter caused it to throw a P0111 & P0113 code on both scan tools. I have to find out if that was a scam to get me to buy a later model car with money I don't have,the next car I buy will likely be a CAN OBDII one but I would like to have a scan tool to read trouble codes,the CR-PRO one was alright & the Autel ones never worked on the Commodore,Holden says if the engine symbol with the lightning bolt through it comes up on the LCD screen inside the car - then a CEL code had been set so the ECU must be o.k. - it has to be a problem with the scanner.

@grandmasterhack Yes, enter the enigma that is Kriss.

any updates on this ????

Is it possible to use this cable to change idle RPM of a car?

Hi, Need your help if you know software.I know cars, tell you more if you get back with me. I need to know if this will read the cpu on a car or i need something else.

Thanks! Funny: you're a total computer geek, plug this thing in, get your trouble code, look 'em up, and then say you don't understand its meaning because you don't know anything about cars. Had me ROTFLMA! :) But thanks thanks for showing us how the interface works!

@grandmasterhack Using CLI while driving is the ultimate hack, anyways!

How about u use a Android phone and you won't waste time messing around with a laptops .plz use torque app Google market

DO NOT just buy any OBD-II plug-in. Even though the Chinese ELM327 knock-offs claim to work with MOST vehicles, they don't! I bought 3 which all claimed the same thing and NONE OF THEM worked with my late 90s/early 00s GM vehicles which all use the SAE J1850 protocol. When you open up the knock-offs, you will discover that pin 2, which is the ONLY pin GM used, is NOT internally CONNECTED so they will not connect to the car's computers. Nearly all of the knock-offs ONLY work with CAN BUS! (I have heard of a few OLD exceptions.) This also means they won't work with any Chrysler product which uses the SAE J1850 protocol, either. They use pins 2 & 10. I bought a REAL ELM327 chip from elmelectronics(.)com and built my own scanner for less than $15. It works like a charm! Schematics and instructions are available and free on their website.

Or buy windows for get paid software which learn you how to buy newer windows and enhanced interface of the same software.

this all to long not wort spend time ...is more easy ways ..