By: Stephen Jensen on 11-12-2009 in Technology Events

Rob Wray from mp3Car takes a look at a wide array of wireless sensors for your car. These sensors can be daisy-chained over any type of serial stream. The sensors can transmit data over Wi-Fi to your iPhone or PC.



By: Robert Wray on 11-11-2009 in Technology Events

Mp3Car reviewed Rev App for iPhone about 6 months ago. Rob Wray from mp3Car takes a look at what is new with this OBD2 app. New features include, horizontal mode, customizing screen, and vehicle saves.



By: mezz64 on 10-23-2009 in Product Reviews


Welcome to my review of the TouchScan OBD-II monitoring software. First off I would like to thank mp3Car and OCTech for donating TouchScan for me to review. I've written this as somewhat of a walk through of the program, sharing my findings along the way with plenty of visual aides. First off is the installation. It is the same as pretty much any other windows application and only requires a few clicks of the next button and an agreement to the usage license. The serial number is entered upon starting the program for the first time. If you don't have a serial number the program will operate in demo mode.

After entering your serial number you are prompted with a warning about using a touchscreen while driving. I found the option to disable this a nice feature, often software leaves the user no choice due to liability concerns.
Once you click past the dialog you are greeted with a nice left side menu and top tab interface. After a few exploratory passes through all the options TouchScan has to offer (There are a lot!) I found it pretty easy to find what I was looking for in the menus. My TouchScan journey began in the Setup section where I was easily able to select my desired Com Port and Baud Rate. I had no problems connection to my generic ELM327 in my vehicle nor my ELM323 software emulator that I use for testing. I should note however that it was a little difficult to select the correct radio or check mark boxes in the setup section under the Connection or PID Monitor tabs with a touchscreen. It's nothing too serious since you will likely only visit these sections once. I had no problem hitting most of the other buttons in the interface with my finger. After successfully connection to my ELM I proceeded to look through the PID Monitor and PID Setup tabs where you are able to adjust a variety of options, including polling settings, dwell time to adjust update rates, as well as the polling rate for each individual PID. I found the individual polling rates to be an exceptionally nice feature that allowed me to retrieve the core values and well as secondary ones without sacrificing speed as much if I polled for all of them at the same interval.
The General tab allows you to adjust the unit system and switch between day and night mode, as well as adjust remembering preferences. While the Device Info tab lists the type of device you have connected.
Clicking the Diag Icon brings you to the set of tabs which allow you to read/clear trouble codes and monitor PID values as well as view the raw hex traffic between TouchScan and the ELM. I had no trouble codes to read so I was unable to test that feature but I found the PID Values to update relatively quickly, and do so at a rate in tune with the polling rate as things should be.
Next up is the Dashboard section which is what is likely desired by most. MPG broken down by total, instant, and trip is displayed as wekk as fuel consumed and distance. In addition to the numeric displays are gauges representing RPM, Engine Load, Temp, and MPH. The possible dealbreaker for some is the fact that a MAF sensor readable through the standard PID is required in order to calculate MPG with TouchScan. Unfortunately, my Honda was not equipped with a MAF sensor so I had to test the MPG feature with a software emulator instead. Testing showed the calculated numbers to be consistent with those generated by Bruce Lightner's formula, MPG = 710.7 * VSS / MAF, so they should be pretty accurate.
The last, but far from least section is Logs. Selecting the Logs icon presents you with the Plots, Plot Config, Data Logging, and Stats tabs. While the names are fairly self explanatory I found the plotting function to be nicely configurable with adjustable scales and sampling time and support for what appears to be as many plots as you have PIDS available. The Data Logging option is also a plus for analyzing data at a later time. And I found the Min, Max, and Mean shown under Stats to provide a nice snapshot of your overall trip.

In summary, if you have a MAF sensor in your vehicle that can be read via the standard PID I would definitely recommend you take a look at TouchScan. The Dashboard was easily visible on my 7" touchscreen and I see no problems embedding the app into RideRunner or any other frontend as everything is resizeable. If your vehicle lacks a MAF you need to determine how important MPG calculations are to you, as you will be unable to receive them with TouchScan.



By: mezz64 on 10-23-2009 in


Welcome to my review of the TouchScan OBD-II monitoring software. First off I would like to thank mp3Car and OCTech for donating TouchScan for me to review. I've written this as somewhat of a walk through of the program, sharing my findings along the way with plenty of visual aides. First off is the installation. It is the same as pretty much any other windows application and only requires a few clicks of the next button and an agreement to the usage license. The serial number is entered upon starting the program for the first time. If you don't have a serial number the program will operate in demo mode.



By: jusjake on 09-09-2009 in Product Reviews

I was recently given the opportunity to complete a review of scantool.nets OBDlink CI by mp3 car. After having tested The OBDlink CI on multiple makes and models I've found it's limited to vehicles newer than 2004. It does however work very well on all the U.S. Models as well as Honda's and Toyota's. This tool is also very simple to work with, after loading the software and choosing the correct com port I was up and running. It picked up multiple trouble codes and monitored each sensor on the vehicle just as accurately as my $2000 snap on scanner.

After trying a couple more things to get the scanner to work on older vehicles and failing I contacted Vitaliy through the scantool.net forum because the new CI can have firmware upgrades made to it. I thought he would have some insight as to how I could set up the CI to work on vehicles like my 2001 Focus, or my fathers 2002 Cadillac DHS. Instead I was delightfully surprised at how personable and helpful he was (customer service is worth more than anything to me these days). Although there was no software or means to get the unit to work on older vehicles hen explained people that purchased the Cl were eligible to get a discount on the new OBDLINK which was coming out soon. We however worked out a deal where I would also get to review the new OBDLINK. So the pluses are; Easy to load software, Easy to hook everything up, works great on vehicles newer than 2004. Easy to read sensor information, DTC's are not only shown but the description is given as well. Negatives; This unit only works on vehicles newer than 2004.



By: Sean Clark on 07-07-2009 in Products and Technology



Sean from mp3Car reviews DashCommand for iPhone from Palmer Performance.

DashCommand stems from its window's counterpart that has been long since in car computers. It offers a wireless connection to your OBD2 port to bring you a ton of engine diagnostic tools.

With DashCommand for iPhone you can see all your available PID's in multiple skins, follow your acceleration and braking, see your g-forces going around turns, read your car's angle while driving, and keep all of this data for a log.

The only downside to DashCommand is that you can't swipe between screens, and that you need to tell it to switch to landscape or portrait mode before the sensor graphics look correct. That is because you will be able to customize the dash boards in later version.



By: Sean Clark on 05-06-2009 in How To Videos, mp3Car News



You don't need an expensive hybrid vehicle or car computer to get the most miles per gallon out of your car. Hypermiling is a set of techniques that maximize your MPG.

Some common techniques are:
Don't drive aggressively
Don't go over the speed limit
Avoid traffic
Avoid coming to a complete stop
Try to accelerate as slowly as possible
Using neutral when going down hills

Some uncommon techniques are"
Drafting behind trucks
Using centripetal force to go around turns fast
Over-inflating your tires to reduce friction

We took a look at how what kind of MPG we got out of our Toyota Matrix when doing basic hypermiling around town. We averaged 61 MPG when hypermiling and 27 MPG when driving normal. At some points on the trip going down hill in neutral we got up to 247 MPG.

If you have any of your own techniques or stories of your own hypermiling let's hear it.



By: Robert Wray on 11-18-2008 in Technology Events



Magden has a current business model of selling an x86 PC with their linux gauge software. I can see how this would be great for people who don't want to integrate their own apps and want the power of a computer in their car with less setup hassle. We strongly encouraged the magden team to consider the sale of their software and hardware to the community, even if they release it with little or no support.



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