OBD II conection question?

holypaulie · 10-30-2008, 06:17 PM

Today, I received from my insurance tracking device with OBD II port. My Scangauge is curentlly connect to that port. How can I connect both devices together? Thanks for any reply.

GasSavers_BEEF · 10-30-2008, 08:24 PM

just as an idea (and it isn't easy) you could parallel another obd2 connector on your existing one. the problem with that is you have about a dozen wires to splice, solder, and tape up/heat shrink. it may be worth it in the end though. to my knowledge, all obd2 connectors are the same. some research would have to be done to see if this is possible. if it was, you could go to a junk yard and pull one from pretty much any vehicle 1996 and above. you may have to come up with a custom mount location for the other obd2 connector but you could steal the mount off of the doner vehicle as well.

I have actually been thinking of paralleling two scangauges so that I have more displays. I would really like about 6 but of course, they don't make that one.

good luck and remember, this is just a crazy idea from someone that really needs to go to bed.

theholycow · 10-31-2008, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BEEF

just as an idea (and it isn't easy) you could parallel another obd2 connector on your existing one. the problem with that is you have about a dozen wires to splice, solder, and tape up/heat shrink.

The easy solution to the dozen wires is this:
- Don't use the ScanGauge's OBD connector.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the SG have a standard RJ45 plug on the other end of its OBD cable? So, you know it only uses 8 wires. Now, cut the end off an ethernet patch cable and run it down to the back side of your car's OBD port. There, splice it into the OBD port's wires only where necessary. It's easy if you use something like 3m Scotch-Lok quick splices:

Lots of people have had bad experiences with those connectors damaging wires but I haven't.

My concern: Don't OBDII devices communicate two-way with the car's OBDII system? If so, can it communicate with two devices?

GasSavers_Scott · 11-01-2008, 02:35 AM

Now I read about this in a 1997 issue of Turbo magazine, after ODBII came out in 96, ODBIII was scheduled for 2004, it was supposed to have integrated telemetry with a cell connection. Now the whole big brother thing at the time was that any mod you did to your car would show up on the ODBIII, call the manufacture and call you back that your car was polluting. This went a step further by generating interest with local law enforcement that if you were speediing, your car would call the cops on you and you would get a ticket in the mail.

Stuff like that actually brought ODBIII into the eyes of congress, that the last I heard was a violation of civil liberty and privacy. When I used to work for the city back in the 90's, they had brought out an experimental radar photograph unit, it worked. The problem was you didn't know you were being issued a ticket, so during trials, the unit kicked out close to 100,000 citations, those citations had to be processed, that took a huge work force. Then the courts got wind of this, in one week those 100,000 citations were estimated to back up the courts 3 years, that with only one week of work done by the photo radar.

This also brought out one of my favorite determinations, "Lack of Show of Force". During the trails, a number of people speed 5 days a week, by the time mail could catch up it would be 3 weeks, so do you procecute this person with 15 counts of speeding? If you see a cop with a radar gun you slow down, if there's a camera, that you don't see, the camera doesn't pull you over, you don't know your doing wrong.

Lack of show of force and lack of due process, is a major hurdle that faces these red light camera's, which I believe could be cured by installing a 5 second delay between lights. The whole point of the red light cam is safety, not profit, right?

My Solstic has the integrated cell phone, so when it's time to change the oil, the car calls the manufacture and I get an email that it's time to change my oil. Will there be a day I get an email telling me to slow down, or a digital recording telling me I'm doing 28 in a 25 mph zone? It seems that my ODBII already has some ODBIII features.

During the trails at the city, they kept raising the MPH that the camera would trip at, it started at 75, then 80, then 85, and finally they determined that to have enough of a work force to process tickets, that they would have to set the camera to 90 MPH. At that speed the person would be considered out of control and a risk to safety, it also got the number of citations down to a level that the courts could get to in a year.

That there is a scenario of the Big Brother effect, will the car tattle on you, will the car ask you why you stopped at a liqour store for 6 minutes and why the cars weight incresed by 127 ounces, the same amount as a 5th of booze. How much data will be collected on your movements? Look at all the blue tooth accessories that talk to each other, digital information being shared. Finally, look at your cable box on your TV, it can send and receive information. Advertizers pay big bucks for demographics studies, I'm quite sure your channel choices download each night.

Don't get paranoid, there are too many of us to arrest at once.

theholycow · 11-01-2008, 03:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott

the car calls the manufacture and I get an email that it's time to change my oil. [...] It seems that my ODBII already has some ODBIII features.

Your OBDII system probably does not; that's probably a separate system that's interfacing with the OBDII system, or getting its sensor data from the PCM with a proprietary protocol. The end result is the same, though -- that system effectively has access to all the data that your has.

Quote:

started at 75, then 80, then 85, and finally they determined that to have enough of a work force to process tickets, that they would have to set the camera to 90 MPH.

...and that didn't tell them that their speed limits were un-democratic?

Democracy (noun): government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

The People have spoken, by their actions (which speak far louder than words). The speed limits are as nowhere near as fast as the speed that The People want to go. If engineers made that speed limit for safety, then is that stretch of road abnormally dangerous? If so, there's a public safety issue that needs to be addressed. If not, the engineers made a mistake and the speed limit should be raised.

Ah, but really...so many speed limits and traffic laws are for revenue generation, not safety. A radar camera can pick off the worst offenders. A live cop can select randomly from nearly everyone, since most there are speeding.

Quote:

Don't get paranoid, there are too many of us to arrest at once.

...so they won't arrest us all at once. Maybe it will be random, like the live cop selecting from speeders, or maybe it will be the hypermilers first, because the telemetry shows that we do weird things like P&G, EOC, EOI, and such, which could scare those who don't understand.

A lot of paranoia is unhealthy, but zero paranoia isn't so useful either. Without paranoia, there's no way to protect yourself from the crazy crap that's going to happen in the future, and you can be sure that SOMETHING crazy is going to happen.