Screen for researchers

Good news for people who want to dig deeper into their ZOE data themselves. We have had several functions to peek into the car. For instance, you can switch on field logging and when on, all fields that are pulled from the car by CanZE are also logged in files in your phone’s memory.

Also, there is the “All Data” screen where you can get all known fields of a single ECU in a single shot. On screen, and simultaneously in a log file.

This does give limited control though on what is pulled while driving. In the next release not only have we improved the log format, there will also be an experimental screen which enables you to log anything you want, as fast as possible. To enable this function you need to create a simple text file called _Research.csv in the folder where CanZE stores it’s log files (usually something like Phone\CanZE\). This file should have the exact same format as CanZE’s internal field definition files. Here is an example:

,7ec,24,39,.02,0,2,%,222002,622002,ff,State Of Charge (SOC) HV battery
,7ec,24,47,1,0,0,km,222006,622006,ff,Total vehicle distance
,7ec,24,39,.5,0,1,V,223203,623203,ff,HV LBC voltage measure
,7ec,24,39,.25,32768,1,A,223204,623204,ff,HV LBC current measure

This will show these 4 fields when opening the Research screen and they will be refreshed (and logged) as fast as possible. The field definitions can be found in the Assets folder of our github repository. BTW, these will all be updated in the upcoming release.

Note: ELM327 based dongles do not handle free frames (UUDT) very well. It is far better to use the equivalent diagnostic field (using ISOTP or ASDT). For ZOE, those always start with a 7.

This is ample opportunity to drop a serious reminder, as displayed when opening the repository and starting the app for the first time. A partial quotation:

Before you download and use this software consider the following: you are interfering with your car and doing that with hardware and software beyond your control (and frankly, for a large part beyond ours), created by a loose team of interested amateurs in this field. Any car is a possibly lethal piece of machinery and you might hurt or kill yourself or others using it, or even paying attention to the displays instead of watching the road. Be extremely prudent!
By even downloading this software, or the source code provided on github, you agree to have completely understand this.

4 Comments on “Screen for researchers

  1. I’m still waiting for my dongles to arrive from Asia, but couldn’t wait trying the Research / log innovations right now. Therefore, I’ve created the _Research.csv file, and verified that it is correctly read by CanZE.

    I have just two a minor questions.

    In the Settings page there is a “Log level” combo box having as options None | Only device | All.

    I understand that to activate log of research screen variables I should select either Only device or All.

    My questions are:

    – if I select “Only device” or “All” are signals from _Research.csv logged whatever the screen I use during my run, or I must stay within the research window?

    – what the difference between “Only device” and “All”?

    • Nope, log level is for what errors you are bugged on-screen with popups. As soon as everything works as you expect, best set it to None.

      What you are looking for is on the right side “Field logging”, but if you select the Research screen it will be automatically activated, so no worries.

  2. Salut. Is it possible to set the logging frequency to 2Hz for example? Also, can the time stamp be logged together with the car speed? Thanks.