Main Content

Hold on to your car just a little bit longer.

According to the research firm IHS Markit, “The average age of light vehicles in operation (VIO) in the U.S. has risen to 12.1 years this year, increasing by nearly 2 months during 2020”. If you’re following my projects, you’d know that I drive an older truck (probably the one that skewed the curve).

Have you seen car prices lately? Now more than ever, I must keep this truck running. I need to be ready for my check engine light to come on. Like Andreas Spiess said, “It can happen to you, too”. The only problem is OBD-II CAN-BUS Development Kit is Out Of Stock.

Upon further research we found ELM 327 V1.5 with Bluetooth connectivity. The idea here is to connect Wio Terminal wirelessly to ELM 327 which will allow us to connect to Engine Control Unit (ECU). We are interested in five parameters:

- Battery voltage
- Engine’s Revolutions Per Minute (RPM)
- Vehicle’s speed
- Intake air temperature
- Engine coolant temperature

The first one can be obtained by connecting to ELM 327 only, but the remaining parameters need a connection to ECU which can happen on my truck only when the ignition is on.”

Link to article