We've been working on a version of the ProShift for R56 and later Minis (actually, any car with a CAN based OBD-II port) and I thought I'd share some of what's coming....



Because we're using the OBD port, we can get data from any of the available sensors that are reported via the port! First the ProShift asks for the VIN number (for labelling data logged files), then it asks for the list of PIDs (if it doesn't know it yet)... The CAN interface is fast enough to run shift lights and the like, and we get both speed and RPM for gear dependant shift points...

Anyway, this shows some test data where we're getting RPM, Speed, water temp and mass air flow.

Some other features of the new version:

3 LEDs instead of one, much brighter in full daylight.
Ambient Light Sensor. It will know when it's night and dim the light... No more getting blinded at night by a too bright shift light.
2 meg of onboard ram. Enough for 10-20 HOURS of data logging.

We should have these for sale (from us or our resellers, whatever makes you happy) in a month or so.....

Matt

 

Sweet!

Now, if it data logging worked (fast) on a 1st gen with no CAN.... you'd REALLY be my hero.

 

the only way to do that is to hack the wiring harness and go straight to the sensors. BiM-COM could run fast if you asked the ECU for just one block of data, but that really limited your data choices. The serial protocal of the OBD-II in our gen of MINIs is only good for about 2-4 hz. To get to the 4 hz you have to abuse the timing standard of the protocol, but it seems to work.

When we tested just RPM from the CAN based Minis, we could get data up to 100 hz!

We did hack some of the CAN bus on our year MINIs, and there is some stuff there: like RPM, speed, steering angle and a few other tidbits, but not all the ECU sensors have data that goes over the CAN lines.... I think we did see the signals from the yaw sensor though! But then it's fast... Not every message contains all data (CAN is like a bunch of kids screaming... The loudest carries the arguement till it shuts up, then the next loudest and on and on....) some of the message rates exceeded 1000/sec! It's just most of that stuff we don't care about...

Matt

 

Yep - I knew that - just pulling your chain - this is a VERY cool product, Matt. Good stuff. *Almost* makes me wish I had a 2nd gen car.

And, yeah, ABS/DSC, instrument cluster, and related sensors are on CAN on the 1st gen... but "you can't get there from here" without hacking... alas.

But I'm finding that data logging is a VERY useful tool for understanding what your car is REALLY doing, and for diagnosing oddities... lots of folks will be able to benefit from this!

 

that they all have credit cards and a willingness to use it!

We have done a prototype shift light for the R50/52/53 that hooks to the can buss, because we've found a couple cars without the speed wire! (Arghhhh) but one has to be willing to hack into the wiring harness to get the can signals... I've already done that on my car so it's just hooking up to a connector that is hanging by my footwell....

Matt