CEL Light On. OBDII Scanner or Laptop

[DIY_Apprentice]

First off, Thanks to anyone and everyone out there with more knowledge in this stuff than myself.

Second. Two Days ago I Filled up my gas tank and recently the CEL has come on , I am guessing it has something to do with the fill up, but that really is not the point of this thread.

Third, I have a 2000 Camry LE 5sfe automatic Cruise Control. This CEL just brings to light the fact that I would like to read my error codes myself. I have another car that would benefitr from this ability also . My question is

What OBDII scanner should I buy?
I have a laptop running Ubuntu Linux, Should I get Software and a Cable Intead?
What is the general Consensus?

I have looked through the threads and found people seem to like the Actron Devices. I was thinking the CP9180 would be everything I could ever need in a scanner. Haven't looked into Laptop options.

[hill8570]

Depends on what you want to do. I like the PC units (I use a unit from http://www.obddiagnostics.com/ ), but the software is Windows-only. Price was sweet, 'tho. If you want to do more than pull codes, etc, do some analysis, look at long-term behavior, or see how multiple sensors are behaving at the same instant in time, then a PC unit is the way to go.

OTOH, if you just want to pull codes, reset codes, look at the monitors in realtime, and maybe do some simple data logging, that Actron 9180 would do fine.

Kicker is the need for something to work with Linux -- there may be something out there, but I've never seen it.

[chronoti]

there only one program for os x as well and it's not all that great,

thats why i can dual boot and run vmware

[DIY_Apprentice]

I suppose I could Split the harddrive partition and/or find a windows emulator, but the laptop is low-end i.e. 512mb RAM 1GHz Processor, 40GB HDD, etc. Main reason Linux is on it in the first place. I will look into the link posted by hill, and see if that is more what I am looking for. Thanks for the replies to both of you

[intravino]

Check out this OBD2 Scanner.

It run on Linux with the source code of the generic software or with Perl

[hill8570]

Another option for PC-based is http://www.obdpros.com . If I were in the market right now, I'd be taking a real hard look at their stuff. Looks like they're doing a great job with innovative hardware, and they have links to a lot of free software that will work with their hardware (including at least one Linux offering). The prices on their hardware look really good, too...

[fenixus]

hmmm, i'm successfully using an ELM327 clone made in China (bought off ebay for $22 s/h included) with public/free FTDI chipset drivers (USB cable, windows XP), connected to Lenovo netbook.
software depends on what you want to achieve, not all s/w like PCMScan fully supports ELM327 (limited PIDs).

IMHO DigiMoto V works very good for me even with things like monitoring live (or graphs) output of many sensors (fuel trims and o2 included).

[DIY_Apprentice]

Taking a look at all of the computer options it seems that in my case the software option for PC may be more trouble than it is worth. While I can see the benefit of being able to view all the sensors at the same time, graph performance characteristics, and monitor a properly working car PRIOR to a break down, with the laptop I plan to use, i.e. Linux and No Serial Port, it seems that my best bet in regards to compatibility as well as support is the Actron CP9180. Now if I had a laptop running windows, that may not be the case, but for the functionality I want out of my setup, it seems the Actron is less of a Hassel. Not to mention, I had No Idea that there were so many different PC packages to choose from, without more in depth research I don't know if I could make the proper choice, especially when trying to figure out Linux Compatibility. FYI, I am no Linux Guru by any means.

On a side note, if someone is reading this forum for information regarding the CEL that was lit up, it turns out it was a loose gas cap, I unscrewed it and put it back on and the light disappeared.

I still haven't purchased anything yet, so if people still have other ideas I will keep researching until I do.

[fenixus]

yeah, there is still so little professional tools running on linux (except computer programming, etc.) ... most if not all commercial obd2 packages run only on Windows and better is older XP as new ones like Vista/7 might not support drivers properly or not at all (yet) ...

http://www.talktomycar.co.uk/drivers.htm
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=40367

http://www.palmerperformance.com/pro...scan/index.php
http://www.digimoto.com/Shop/default.aspx

check this links, there are tons of free demo (windows) software to try (limited functionality), some of them are really simple or more or less useless like toys. Palmer Performance PCMscan covers amazing things however in my case it was so limited that it was close to useless and i tried a "borrowed" full version ... not demo ... for me DigiMoto V wins hands down so far.

Professional (non-PC) tools (e.g. actron) are more expensive, but most likely as you say no hassle involved to get it running.

[DIY_Apprentice]

Well, it seems that 2 people have recommended Digimoto V so far, and it looks like a good tool. Probably what I would go with if I was using a windows laptop. Actually, depending upon whether or not I can get some free RAM for this thing, I may just leave Windows on it, which would make this decision a lot easier.

Since both the Actron CP9180 = about the same cost as Digimoto V

Can you guys give examples of how you are using the tool? The features you use most often, and why?

That would REALLY help me, because I am not exactly sure what I DO and DONT need in a scan tool.

Thanks!

[fenixus]

just look here:
[SOLVED] 2000 camry gen4 5sfe short and long term fuel trims

it helped me a lot in troubleshooting, recording live sensor output at idle and test driving, getting many other stuff which helps in narrowing down the problem and diagnosis.

[DIY_Apprentice]

And You Did all that diagnostic with Digimoto V? Was it pretty user friendly software or was there a significant learning curve?

[fenixus]

yes, i did almost all diagnostics with software (digimoto), however i wasn't sure if it works right so i checked with like 5 other programs and all of them were showing same (some of them were very limited though). to rule out some driver programming errors I double-checked what i could with real world test (e.g. hand vacuum pump and compare results with other peoples), taking multimeter measurements, doing some factory described torture tests, etc.

i'm not saying i fixed it already, it's a work in progress still, might still have a minor vacuum leak somewhere (e.g. out of spec exhaust valve in engine or some vacuum lines that i didn't check).

anyways, digimoto is very easy to use, once you got it running (latest FTDI chipset driver and USB cable in my case) on your PC laptop then all is pretty straight forward.
there are tabs that allow you to see live ECM monitoring or datalogging them to a file (very hard to browse though, they need to work on a datalog viewer), separate tab for charts and graphs, separate Tests tab, etc.

in the beginning i had old driver that wasn't working, but after a while i found a piece of software to clear those old driver files and installed new one. then used autodetect button for setting cable connection properties (ELM327 uses 38400 baud rate, 8N1) and all supported PIDs started working instantly. each car's ECM may support different set of PIDs (monitoring commands).

now it's as simple as plugging the obd2 cable to car's port, clicking "Connect" button and starting the live feed ("play" button) or datalogging mode ("record" button). i was taking screen shots of graphs with PrintScreen button and saving them from clipboard to a JPG file with Paint program. very easy.

[DIY_Apprentice]

Hey Thanks! I was able to get some free RAM for my Laptop So I Reformatted my PC with XP again, and hopefully it will run smoothly enough now that I can stick with Windows and avoid the Linux issue altogether. In which case it sounds like Digimoto V is the way to go, seems you have done some pretty extensive testing of you own to prove out the software. Thank you for the detailed response it really helps in making this decision.

One Last Thing, My Wife Has a Saturn 2004 Ion2 do you think this would workjust fine on her car as well? I can't see why not.

[ajkalian]

Originally Posted by DIY_Apprentice

Hey Thanks! I was able to get some free RAM for my Laptop So I Reformatted my PC with XP again, and hopefully it will run smoothly enough now that I can stick with Windows and avoid the Linux issue altogether. In which case it sounds like Digimoto V is the way to go, seems you have done some pretty extensive testing of you own to prove out the software. Thank you for the detailed response it really helps in making this decision.

One Last Thing, My Wife Has a Saturn 2004 Ion2 do you think this would workjust fine on her car as well? I can't see why not.

ScanMaster is another option to try. I've found it the best of the lot of the PC scan software. Most of the others don't have any hard copy printing capabilities. I know it's hard to believe but it's true. ScanMaster prints a nice 4-6 page report that you can refer to.

There's more detailed info in this thread OBDII codes

If you get the OBD Link from Scantool.net, get the Bluetooth version. It frees you up and you don't have to be in the car. ScanMaster, Digimoto, and OBD 2007 all work with ScanTool's OBD Link Bluetooth module.

There seems to be a little dust up between OBD 2007 and ScanTool.net and their use of ELM hardware, but OBD 2007 works fine with ScanTool.net's hardware, no problem. You can read all about it on OBD 2007's web site here... http://www.glmsoftware.com/

OBD 2007 has some nifty looking guages and is a close runner up to ScanMaster but like most all the others OBD 2007 lacks any printing capabilities.

I passed on AutoTap because they don't offer a Bluetooth version, and don't plan on offering one. I talked to the tech support people and asked if Autotap software would work with ScanTool's OBD Link hardware and they said that they have encrypted their software to only work with AutoTap hardware. I thought that was pretty narrow minded thinking, so I passed on that product.

Like others have said, Palmer Performance's Demo was too crippled to even use so I passed on that one as well.

There are many packages to choose from, and I've tried most all of them, and still prefer ScanMaster's product.

One thing I've found out about all of these PC based software products. They are all produced by small, sometimes one man companies. Most all of them use the ELM 327 hardware interface, and some have Bluetooth capabilities. It will take you a while to weed through all of the different offerings, but it will be worth it in the end. They can give you much more information as to what's going on in the ECU and with that information, you will be better prepared when you have to make the repairs.