OBD2 plug in camera?
 

Anyone know if something like this exists?

What I'm looking for is a camera you can stick in your car, with two cameras, one forward, one back (into the cabin). I want it to plug into the OBD2 for power and draw the vehicle speed, throttle position, etc from the PCM/BCM.

I know about DriveCam, but doesn't pull the data from the OBD port. Has to be hardwired, and it's horrendously expensive. I don't want to sign up for a contract to service this thing. I want to be able to access the data myself.


Thanks

to pull that kind of data from the OBD2 port, I think it would have to depend on car. I don't know if you can get that type of data off every car's ECU.

What is the need for the camera? For recording your drive?

If you don't need the camera, you can use a Scan Tool OBD Link, plugged into your laptop to access data from the port.

That's the beauty of the OBD2 interface - it is a standardized connector. There are only five possible communication protocols being used, and all cars in North America have CAN bus since 2008... so the data is readily available. The pins for power and ground are always pin 16 and 4, also standardized.

The cameras are for the drive, yes. I figured that would be pretty obvious. I know there are camera options out there that pull the vehicle speed, other inputs (ie. siren, horn used in police cars). I could go with a Digital Ally system, but I figured I would look for something plug and play if it exists.

Maybe it doesn't exist yet. Perhaps I should patent it :)

^
ah. so you are saying that every communication protocols used will record all of the driver's input to the vehicle? that's really cool.

http://www.blitz.co.jp/touch-brain/index.html

use this and point 1 of the 2 cameras you have at the screen. Done deal.

Then I would need three cameras :failed:

i'm sure its possible but most likely hasnt been done yet.

obd2 - bluetooth which will sync with your android phone and feed it real time info. (torque app).... i'm sure if that can be done, an app can be made to utilize the camera to record video AND populate that real time info from the obd2 while recording.

Most data aq systems use a CAN/RS232 connector (because most serious data logging is used for racecars, and most racecars use some sort of aftermarket ECU)

You can simply get an ODB2 to RS232 adaptor cable and run pretty much any data logging system.
http://www.obd2.neostrada.pl/hha/obd_cable_drawing.png


AIM is the top end of affordable software/hardware for semipro/pro motorsports:
http://www.aimsports.com/auto/index.html

There's stuff cheaper than AIM that works ok too. Just google "data logging camera overlay"

I would suggest product from Race Technology, they support up to 4 cameras. All "off the self solutions" are expensive.

http://www.race-technology.com/conte...cat=8&cat=7557

For DIY, I suggest pulling OBD2 data and piping the data to a text file along with GPS time data. Get one of the many ARM7 prototype boards available, they all have SDcard for storage and RS232 for GPS and OBD data (I highly recommend you to avoid USB to grab data from both due to unnecessary complexity). The result will be a record OBD2 data relative to the GPS time.

Use the GPS time on your video's time index. You can then join video and OB2 data, post process (after the run) using the GPS time stamp as index. The problem is you have to find a camera model that has time resolution higher than seconds. Most off the shelf cameras that don't have geotagging feature only have time resolution down to the second.

Also make sure you warm up the GPS units before you record, so that everything is synchronized and nothing is drifting.

That picture is rather misleading.. the connection from OBD2 to a PC is not pin to pin straight through.. these cables as illustrated DB9 -> OBD2, are available on the market but do not plug the car into your PC as is. It will burn your serial port to crisp. You need some type of bridge logic. The DB9 -> OBD2 cables are typically used by Chinese manufactures who are selling cloned copies of Carsoft diagnostic software.

Racecars who use aftermarket ECU (eg Motec) typically uses Mil spec, plug and twist connectors though. OBD2 comes loose rather easily.

This is going to be difficult for so many reasons.

- OBD2 is limited. It's designed as a standard interface to allow generic aftermarket scan tools to easily see what's going on with your car when there's a problem (like reading codes). It will let you look at a list of standardized sensors, not all the sensors you might actually have on your vehicle.
- OBD2 is powertrain/engine only. You can't get any sensor information from ABS or the transmission (unless the transmission is integrated with the engine ECU). Although most manufacturers can access the entire vehicle through the OBD2 connector, they are doing it with specialized software and protocols.
- OBD2 is slow. And the update rate will get slower with an increase in the number of sensors.


If I wanted to do it cheaply, this is how I'd go about it:

- Get an inexpensive OBD2 software package that runs on Windows and can do data logging/graphing (Autoenginuity is one, and it can access vehicle specific sensors beyond the OBD2 spec).
- Get a camera system that allows multiple USB cameras to be connected to your laptop.
- Arrange and size the windows for the cameras and the data logging on your laptop screen so they look good and are readable.
- Use a screen capture video package to turn the entire contents of your laptop screen into a video. This last one I know exists, but haven't used them so some research/testing would need to be done to see how well they can capture videos playing in a window.