you should be able to downgrade, have you tried the manual update method? i dont know why but even mikeinquincy couldn't get the console to update but the manual update worked fine.

 

Yea. I can't get the console to update either.

Latest nightly -

No display. Steering wheel light blinks.

 

Going to give (RxDuino_7_4_2012_05_32_pm) a shot. I don't think I'll make it to Best Buy at this rate... lol

 

Yep, fixing that now. I tried a method to tell the radio to stfu but that doesnt seem like it works well. Sorry it worked fine on my end only because i dont have oem radio

 

Give firmware 7.35pm a shot for those of you with non working displays with the previous firmware

 

Trying it now.
Man, seriously, do you get any breaks? Or do you realllly enjoy this?

 

735 - no display from rxduino, radio briefly displayed then off and blinking steering wheel.

 

are you a 2009 as well?

 

2009 owners. I put a new firmware up just for you guys. Please give this one a shot. It is a proof of concept though. Basically i put a 10 second wait after plugging in before it turns on and shows the welcome message. Once you see the welcome message, you should then be able to press cancel and see ECU Monitor on.

 

Alright folks. I just uploaded (8.39pm) an updated console that fixes the flashing issue. I was accidentally forcing COM7 for updates. Please uninstall your current version and install the latest version, thanks.

 

Yep, 2009. I wish I had a PC laptop so I could flash while in the car.
I'll have to give this a go tomorrow. Can't wait to try.

paimon, seriously thanks for all of your effort. I think I may have found a HU for my car, so maybe I'll be one of the lucky few that doesn't have to deal with the stupid stock radio anymore. (Still has a gap in the Metra kit tho...lol)

 

Hehe so my master plan of getting everyone off of the oem radio is slowly working ...

jk. No worries guys, I promised a product and I am not giving up until it is working to your needs. As sad as it sounds, this debugging is fun for me lol.

Btw, one thing I failed to mention is that the device you have in your hand (or car) is in effect your own personal arduino based development board. What does that mean? Well, heck we could attach a ton of LEDs to the expansion ports on the chip itself and turn your car into a discoball of lights lol.

 

Alright guys got some very VERY promising news. I was speaking with a CANBUS guru that I know and we came to an understanding that what is happening is that my device is trumping over the radio by sending a message at the exact same time. This should be easy to fix. Basically I will be modifying the code to transmit messages as it is doing now, EXCEPT when it sees a message on the bus from the radio. Should it see a message from the radio, it will wait until the radio posts, and then immediately send a message to overwrite that. If we do this fast enough we should see the RxDuino display being prominant with no "flicker", and the radio would still communicate on it's merry way.

What this will do for us too is that allow us to see when the user is interacting with the radio, for example, when turning up the volume we can make the rxduino wait a bit so the user can see teh volume he/she selected, before going back and displaying again.

I am at work rightn ow, but I will be spending all day after work to implement this. I am super excited as I think this will be the fix for everyone with OEM radio issues.

 

Had a good long drive with it today. Some feedback - further to the PMs.

Despite a few foibles - this still absolutely ROCKS; and I thank Paimon for his very hard work. Do you want any bug reports filing for these?

Using the 1.02 (07/05 9.32PM firmware and console 1.1 - console not connected (yet) in-car.)

• It still flicks randomly into different modes or displays - I'm not sure if this is related to changing gear?? - but it doesn't seem to occur when cruising; only when I least exepect - eyes elsewhere, usually negotiating hazards - so gear changes often involved... I will experiment.
  
• Had an episode where it switched to Miles/Gallon mode (and I switched it to Average).
• MPG seem wildly out - nearly always in low single digits (at least when throttle is any way open - even the lightest touch). It varies really quickly even in average mode. Maybe it IS Accurate and why there's no built-in display, because it's so scary
• I mentioned the calculation would need to be Imperial Gallons for UK - but I still feel there is something wrong with what is displayed. e.g. cruising at 60-70 in 6th - downhill - should return a highest MPG (300 mile per tank territory here!), but it still fluctuates into low digits. Perhaps it's not a linear calculation? Highest reading is only ever high 20s - should it not approach into "infinite" when car rolling and fuel cut?
• MPG will do fine as the title, BTW :D
• For EURO (and probably Australia) the conversion may need to be Litres/100KM!
  
• Eventually I noticed that I could not choose any other modes etc., despite the MPG being updated. I pulled over and stopped, re-started the car.
• I got the wildly flickering radio display I think others have experienced... Another couple of stops and re-starts and it all started behaving again.
  
• Wheel Speeds take a while to be displayed - I thought they were broken at first, but do eventually show.
  
• "Wheel Pressure" (though no TMPS as standard in UK - could you "detect" it's presence and not display if no there?). Being a Pedant - this should read "Tyre Pressure" (or Tire Pressure in USA).
  
• At one point - not sure what happened, but the "Speed" display seemed to 7400 at 30 MPH - and showed just "m" at the end. No ideas what units were displayed! When I flicked display up / down it reverted to MPH!
• Thinking about this - Meters per Second would be cool (just for the nerdy)...
• k/PH option for "Euro" market, and probably our friends in Australia?
  
• Worked out a way to route the cable a bit better so it doesn't keep getting hit by my fat feet. A different cable design (e.g. right-angle exit) may work better here?
• In UK Cars, the OBD is drivers side, near the door - so closest to the accelerator. Need to be aware it is plugged in - otherwise could be kicked - or worse feet tangled in cables (safety!)!
• Still not idea where / how to mount it out of the way. I may also have to work out away to "stack" OBD plugs, if possible -- I have other OBD needs too!
  
• My car is actually a 2009 (October) - should I use the 2009 firmware update?

 

Paimon, great job thus far and can't wait for you to implement the CANBUS timing update. Having access to view the radio display is very helpful even for a few secs when ever the radio controls (volume, tune, track changes, etc) are touched. On a completely separte topic, can this be implement on other vehicles like Honda/Acura where you can display this information on the NAV screen?

 

Something else I forgot to mention... The %Fuel left also fluctuates wildly - and varies by up to 20% depending on the incline of the car - was 85% whilst going down a hill, 75% otherwise and 65% going up a hill - all within a few miles.

Some of these values (like MPG and fuel left) could do with some kind of damping - or average "until reset".

 

Wow, this is amazing, thanks so much for all of this information. I will incorporate some of the international units as soon as I can get the canbus updating to work without issue. Keep em coming though. I will update the bug report (this way I can add a new field for international vs domestic.

Thanks for being patient with the display issues. I really appreciate how all of you have been during the first few weeks of usage. As far as implementation on other vehicles, the great thing is that the majority of the information is universal so as long as the data rate is correct, we should be able to detect the information. As far as displaying on the nav goes, that is doubtful. The only reason I am able to post info on the RX8 screen is because it resides on the canbus. It is possible that the Honda NAV sits on one of the CANBUS's, but without one at my disposal, I wouldn't be able to venture a guess.

Very true, we can definitely implement some sort of hysteresis for some of the monitors. Thanks for this.

 

Ah yes - also forgot. BT worked at first - but after the episode above where it stopped responding and I had to restart the car few times, the BT stopped working as well.

 

Yea this is a side affect of the colliding messages.

Just to elaborate, the Radio sends messages on the Mid-Speed CANBUS. This is a separate BUS from the car's vitals which are on a High-Speed CANBUS. Generally the MSCAN is used for non critical peripherals since it runs at a lower speed and most messages are sent at a low priority.

On a base model RX8, the only thing that is flowing through the MSCAN is messages from the Radio, and those messages are just screen updates. The radio however, also allows peripherals like the bluetooth module, and the satellite radio module. These modules communicate with the radio through the MSCAN.

The CANBUS has some error handling, but it is a "fail and give up" type of error handling. Basically, when it detects that two messages are going to a location at the same time, it retries. After a certain amount of errors, the MSCAN protocol says "hey, something weird is going on, chill out, and shut down till further notice". Now on a stock RX8 this isn't a big deal as all it does is disables the radio messaging. The radio still operates and such, you just wont see anything on the screen. On a radio with peripherals however, the CANBUS puts them in a BUS-OFF mode as well. So not only are messages not going to the LCD, but messages are not passed between radio and peripherals..

Hope that makes sense, just to clear it up for those of you who care exactly what is going on.

 

Paimon, the IAT and Eng Temp displays.. Are they in F or C? Today, with ambient temps ~100F It was reading 74 for IAT and 124 for EngTemp.

 

I was surprised to see similar results as have a few others. This is on the bug list and is next to be fixed after the display issue is put to bed. Thanks!

 

For those of you with clearance issues with the wiring in the way of your legs, you might be interested in this:

Right Angle 2' extension cable.

I'll let you know how it works whenever I get mine.

 

or you can just unhook the OBD-II plug from the metal bracket and problem solved. I was able to bundled the long cable that came with the kit and tugged the entire unit neatly away in the upper left corner underneath the dash.

 

If you wanna get barbaric...

 

Look forward to seeing this working on Sean's car