Torque Pro, tablets and OBD2 adapters, oh my
 

I picked up a $100 Lenovo tab 4 the other day and I'm wanting to hard-mount it in the turbo T56 truck for additional gauges. I was able to get the factory GMT400 gauges to work with the LQ4 but like most GM gauges of that era, they're kinda meh. The precision and the speed at which the gauges and sensors update in HPT scanner made me think that a permanently mounted tablet would be a nice addition in the truck to monitor things and also check against the GMT400 gauges. What is this like an airplane or something? Kinda lol, I like redundancy I guess.

ANyways. I picked up an OBD2 to USB adapter from Amazon and so far I haven't been able to get it to work with the Torque Pro app. I have a bluetooth OBD2 adapter on the way also. I wanted to test a wired USB OBD2 adapter vs a bluetooth OBD2 adapter and see if there is any speed difference in populating the gauge layout. I'm guessing there will not be any.

Anyone that has experimented with a setup like this or intends to and otherwise knows anything about this, please chime in. Details of your setup, what you had to do to get it working etc.

Torque is decent. I have Torque Pro and use it with my phone from time to time.
I'd recommend downloading and trying out RealDash for a more permanent application.
Lots of very high quality gauge layouts you can buy for a few bucks if you don't like the free ones.
It also uses GPS to turn your gauge cluster into a navigation screen that can datalog your trip.
It'll also datalog the sensor data it gets while connected, and read CEL codes.

Torque works better for diagnostic stuff and as a quick plug and play app. For something you want to look at everyday, I'd try RealDash.

Thanks Joe. I was hoping you'd be one of the ones to respond. Will you post pics of your setup please?

I got the bluetooth adapter in the mail today and I'm disappointed how slow it updates. I've seen vids of people using the bluetooth adapter and it is pretty quick in terms of response time.

which one did you get?

I got this one here:


I think once I play with it a little bit I can get it working like I intend!

k,well keep researching and pave the way for me:cheers:

Hahaha will do!

I LOVE your caddy man. Thing is fuckin DOPE!! :chug:

I'm interested in this as well. I need to find a full time gauge option for my truck build. was thinking the same thing on tablet with torque but ill try and research realdash some as well. post up what you guys find please. and ELQueFor I found people saying theres different Bluetooth adapters that effect response time. didn't look at the one you posted but was definitely something I made note of when looking at torque stuff. have to look again and see which ones others had good luck with.

I'm a fan of "Dash Command". No complaints about it - update rate is no problem.

Rick

Yeah, the adapter I have isn't anything fancy at all. Maybe eventually I will try a "better" dongle but I don't know how much difference it will make. I have played with some settings in the TorquePro app, there's a box to tick that enables it to go a little faster in the settings.... Can't remember off the top of my head what it is called exactly but it's in there for sure. Also, turning off MPG calcs and other useless functions seems to speed it up also. Also the more gauges you display the slower it seems to run.


Thanks for the info, I downloaded that one and have been looking around at it a little bit also.





I have so far not been able to get oil pressure to display. I have read about needing to tweak or custom define some PIDs to make them work on our LS vehicles????? Even though my PCM is a 411, and my harness is a RED/GRN that I repinned to RED/BLU, and, this 411 was from like a 2002 F body which did NOT display oil pressure from the factory in the data stream, I DID get it working.... On the HPT scanner I can view and log oil pressure, so it would be awesome if I could get the torque app to display it also.

Does anyone know about how to get the oil pressure working in the Torque Pro app???? And like I say, even though some LS vehicles don't display oil pressure in the datastream from the factory you CAN pin in the wires from the OP sensor to the PCM and get it in the datastream as I have done. Just need to figure out how to get it in the Torque app.

yea certain things not defined can have custom pids created. issue is having to dig around to find out what that pid info is. I had seen people doing the same thing for trans temp. also when I referred to the bluetoothy dongle and certain ones working better than other I didn't mean expensive ones, they were all like 20-25 bucks. but different manufacturers use different chips/controllers with different speeds. the one I haved saved in my amazon list is linked below. granted this was saved two months ago so there may be a better option but wanted to get back to you with what I had saved. maybe this will help boost refresh speeds for you cheaply.

also....did anyone find any actual reviews from people using real-dash? I searched bookface and youtube and most all videos are from the company or people over the pond. anyone with an LS platform have any real world experience and any pics or videos to help us peasants that havent bought anything yet to make a decision? thanks in advance :) matt

check out the thread here and sift through the pages for users that recommended a decent obd2 Bluetooth dongle:
https://ls1tech.com/forums/pcm-diagnostics-tuning/1892142-inexpensive-opensource-flashing-read-100-working.html
most of the decent ones you'll most likely want to coin up and pay above $30-40+. I have a bafx that goes for $25 and it does the job but I found it is finicky on other vehicles that aren't a 4th gen. I tried using it on a grand prix gxp ls4 and it wasn't able to read with my torque app pro.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/ls1tech...b524c88cb2.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/ls1tech...a2a822c549.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/ls1tech...c15d039899.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/ls1tech...700fbd112f.jpg


All various screens I tested from various RealDash layouts. All with megasquirt and USB so I can't comment on stock PCM with bluetooth.

My only complaint are the popups. Pay for the full version fixes that problem.

FAR nicer and more refined than Torque Pro. Will do GPS navigation right inside of the cluster, and will save datalogs in a few different formats. Lots of $5 premium layouts available that have tons of features, but I would recommend trying the free ones first. A few of the free ones have multiple screens you can toggle between which are more than enough.

Joenova, does it scan pther parameters such as spark advance and KR for example?

Joe those pictures are perfect, thank you sir. if anyone else has feedback with using this app via oem ecu and Bluetooth that would be awesome, but either way good to see some real world reviews on it

I've used Bluetooth and Torque Pro. Just don't use a cheap Bluetooth dongle. Pay $50 for a good one.

fst, yes, it scans a lot of parameters. You can even setup some yourself.

do you have a brand or model info on any particular Bluetooth dongle you've had good luck with joe?

Instead of finding and constructing mounting space and hardware for a tablet, get an inexpensive android radio. You can listen to your tunes while doing everything you planned to do with the tablet, while only using the space of the stock radio. Just remember that the cheap obd adapters are hit and miss for quality control.