Nissan Diagnostics on Windows and Android

mreguest

mreguest

Member
Hello,

So I have been using these diagnosis things for years:

PLMS = $95+shipping+import tax+VAT from Australia. (I guess £65ish)

http://www.plmsdevelopments.com/consult_if.shtml

great bit of kit, super stable, and lots of great software (free and paid for) for windows through USB and/or bluetooth. And electronics is a bit of a hobby of mine so i get how to make stuff like this...

I found this product on a 300ZX forum which is basically the same circuit but with a bluetooth transmitter embedded rather than a usb interface.

$90+shipping+import tax+VAT from Australia. (£60ish)

http://www.trackelectronics.com.au/consultbt

I did a lot of research and tinkering and have been making and selling a few of these 'box of tricks'...










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I have simply taken the principles from the PLMS and Track boxes and combined them in a simple to use windows/android USB and Bluetooth compatible box for £50+post, I made 10 and have a couple left...

If you see any other products claiming to do Nissan OBD2 and OBD1 this is not possible. OBD1 is for GTIR and other 90's nissans with grey socket in the fuse box. OBD2 is for modern cars and is a completely different language and socket shape.

OBD1 for Nissan source code was released to the public a long time ago. It was during a period of time when there was no standardisation, and so OBD1 for others cars is not the same. Other manufacturer's charged daft money to hook up a laptop and kept their code secret.

OBD2 was standardised protocol to comply with type approval in USA, all petrol was from year 2001 and diesel 2004. Europe a little later to follow but this is why you can get OBD2 scanners on ebay for £5. They are very good and I have used them on various cars, but defo not work on OBD1 cars.

Some later 90's Nissans had a OBD2 ECU with OBD1 grey socket. Don't be mistaken for the scanners that work on these cars.

This is a half an hour video explaining a bunch of stuff about my box. Windows chat for first 20 minutes followed by Android. Sorry the video is shite quality, quite boring etc, took me half an hour to film this and uploaded it to find it is sideways :(


This video is from a lad using one of my boxes testing a GTIR with Nistune ECU, bluetooth android:

My car is off the road for probably another 2 months. Gearbox rebuild etc. When it is back on the road I will do a bunch of videos doing diagnosis, error codes, car set up, timing, TPS etc. All live unpluging stuff so you can see what happens.

I can make bluetooth only, or USB only, or both USB bluetooth combined.

I can advise/provide various different software, some for free and some paid for. I must at this point say I have NO money link with any software developers and will not take money from people for software, just send you a link. I will write about the software choices another day.

If your windows laptop has bluetooth it will work.
or
If your Android phone/tablet has OTG USB it will work.
or
If your Android phone/tablet has Bluetooth it will work.
(any or all of the above will work)

If your GTIR has standard ECU this will work.
If your GTIR has Nistune this will work.

If your GTIR has any other piggy back ECU, and it can do diagnosis through the grey socket in your fuse box then it 'SHOULD' work but I have not tested any others. (would be happy to take back any boxes that don't work because of strange piggy ECU)

If your GTIR has standalone ECUs like Apexi Powerfc etc, and the data transfer is not through the grey socket in fuse box, then I don't think it will work as they have trailing usb cables and handcommanders etc.

It took me a very long time to make these 10 boxes and i'm not sure if I will make any more. I made them for fun and at £50 make chuff all money.

As said I can make bluetooth only, or USB only, or both USB bluetooth combined. Price wise i'm going to have to review this. I'm confident they are as good as the PMS and track ones put together but for the same money as one.

Gut feeling is it would be worth my effort to doing the following if there is much interest, approximately:

USB only at £40+post.
Bluetooth only at £45+post.
USB & Bluetooth at £60+post.

I'm writing this wondering how much interest there would be in me making some more?

Feel free to ask questions and make suggestions!

Cheers
Adam
 
PobodY

PobodY

Moderators
Staff member
I'd be interested. - I periodically look at things like this rather than consult because the Laptop is my wife's so I've got a desktop and an android tablet... neither of which I can just connect to the car to see what it's doing.
 
mreguest

mreguest

Member
Hi George.

This will Bluetooth dead easy to android tablets and phones.

I have a few mk1 boxes left so you can have that at £50+2.50 signed for insured post =£52.50.

If interested now, PM me your email address and I'll send you more info, software, drivers etc and PayPal invoice.

Or if you'd rather wait for Android only version this is fine....?

Cheers
Adam

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk
 
mreguest

mreguest

Member
Hi guys and thank you for your comments!

Sorry George and others above, sold the last ones this afternoon, I did only have a few left when I wrote this and had already sent out a few invoices prior to writing this.

I will definitely make some more of these as people genuinely seem interested. I will need to figure out where the real economies of scale are, i.e. 10, 20+ units, vs price & effort, vs bluetooth/USB/both etc.

I actually started building this about two years ago. Made/broke/fixed a few variants of the same with different switches, plugs, cables, usb, bluetooth etc. Only finished one properly and tested it extensively for about 6 months, using various phones, tablets and verisions of windows. Driving to and from work everyday.

Thought i'd cracked it and so bought enough pieces to build 10 units, and then me and girlfriend bought our first house, so everything got put on hold. This was literally March last year, crazy how time flies!

Someone on facebook in January was asking is nissan diagnostics on android possible? To which many replied no it is not. Well I had a light bulb moment - "oh yes I was going to make some of those boxes..."
Got all my bits out the loft a month ago and made 10. Sold them on Facebook to those I was speaking to at the time.

The box is 80x50x25mm and it cannot really be much smaller due to the size of parts sealed inside. The cable comes out one end where the red light is for bluetooth indicator and the selector switch, and the usb socket is in the other end.

Someone who bought one has wisely suggested the switch, usb and indicator light should all be in one end and the cable out of the other. Thus making it easier to mount under/over the steering column or elsewhere in the dash, and so could be perminant feature allowing usb and switch to be visable always. I will defo do this in the next batch.

The fuse box cover will not shut with this connected unless you dislodge the grey socket in the fuse box using a flat head screw driver. You can then tuck it away. So it would be possible to have it as a perminant fixture. It is possible to have android car stereos with flip out double din screens, and windows based 'carputers' etc, so the dash could look cool...

Feel free to make suggestions about the design, and if/how people think they would use usb/bluetooth, dash mount etc...?

Can make a list if you don't mind, will help get a feel for interest which should help keep price down and ideas up:
1) Pobody
2) keastygtir
3) realutionist

cheers!
Adam
 
J

Jon Olds

Well-Known Member
Nice to see a bit of free enterprise on this. £50 is stuff all, if it enables you to diagnose and repair a problem quicker. I bought the plms stuff when I started on GTIR's and have relocated the connector ready on my rally car, ready
Jon
 
Nick K

Nick K

Member
Played with mine last night using Ndsi on my Android phone via Bluetooth. Works very well. Worth every penny

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
 
mreguest

mreguest

Member
Thanks for the interest everyone!

I've been figuring some stuff out and with a few tweaks in mind, and considering the interest so far I'm going to make 20 more units as a batch. This will allow me to sell them for:

USB & Bluetooth at £55 - delivered UK, £65 - delivered USA, AUS, NZ, CAN.

This will be 1st class signed for mainland UK, and international tracked/signed, paypal fees and packaging etc included... Other countries and UK non-mainland I'll have to look up as and when requested, I guess somewhere between £55 - £65 delivered.

Making another batch of 10 does not help much with price. A batch of 20 has some discount in parts to help keep my total costs down, and so selling at around £50ish is where I think the price can be and should be. A batch of 100 would only reduce another ~£2.50 per device so considering the huge outlay of money, slow sales etc it's not worth it...

I think once i'm in the swing of things the difference in time and material cost of doing only a USB or Bluetooth version will be minimal, I would suggest a reduction of about £7 to the prices described above to not include either usb or bluetooth option.

Note - once built that is it, the other interfaces cannot be added later in time. I seal all my circuits with resin and glue etc so that they can take reasonable drops, knocks, bangs, car vibrations etc 'for ever' I hope...

I have ordered 20 of everything. Some bits will take 2-3 weeks to arrive, I will start prepping some pieces but I won't be soldering for at least 3 weeks anyway as I have a broken thumb. I have a plastic tube/splint holding it together for 6 weeks, this is my third week...

I will provide by email instructions, software, drivers etc. They are programmed consecutively with a unique name and as such I will test every box before sale. I will stand by my design and agree a 12 month warranty, and provided no signs of unreasonable abuse to the returned, I will provide a replacement.

Where possible/reasonable I will try and assist with operation, installation, etc. but please bare in mind I cannot take responsibility for unknown conflicts and corruptions caused by other FTDI usb devices previously installed on your computers... Unlikely to be a problem but possible. FTDI produce high quality geeky programming chips and stuff. See here: http://www.ftdichip.com/FTProducts.htm

If suspicious tell me what usb stuff you have connected to your computer in the past and I might be able to advise. Normal keyboard, mouse, cameras, phones, printers etc should be fine. If you have an OBD2 usb scanner this could be a problem so make sure you have the installation CD it came with. We can talk separately about that.

Android/Bluetooth will just work easily.

Note, I have a completely unrelated day job 9am-6pm mon-fri. So whilst i'll try and respond in a timely manner it may take a few days. Luckily as more and more people use these boxes and share their experiences i'm sure we'll be able to help each other too.

A few people have struggled with windows drivers installation. Mainly because they've not turned their internet off before install. Windows online will wrongly pick this box up as a modern FTDI device and automatically install the latest drivers. They should work and be backwards compatible but they don't and I can't figure out why. The drivers I provide were originally made >10+ years ago. They seem to work fine from win98 right through to Windows 10.

I'll do another set of better videos in a few weeks time showing installation problems etc, I can probably do that with a broken thumb :)

Cheers!
 
mreguest

mreguest

Member
little update...

got all the parts i need as of today to start building more (apart from plastic boxes but they will be here soon).

been tinkering some more:

built an oscilloscope so i can test signals better rather than just trial and error, DIY kit off ebay £15:







So good news my thumb is much better, still hurts to try and pick up some quite lightweight things but soldering is fine.

Got my box working on Windows 8 then upgraded to 10, on a 64bit Acer tablet through USB and Bluetooth. The GTR style dials are possible on the windows software, I believe they are coming one day for the android software. i'll give the developers a shout to see if they have any news...



Looks smart :)
 
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