EcuTalk for ZD30 on a Windows tablet

Well since we ZD30 owners don't have the luxury of the OBDII protocol to run the Torque app on our android devices, I recently purchased a cheap Windows 8.1 tablet to run EcuTalk for some real time monitoring of engine parameters, especially coolant temp.
The tablet cost me less than $100 delivered direct from China and so far I'm pretty happy with it. I've also stuck all my music on a micro sd card to play through the stereo with an aux cable.
It's just mounted on a universal suction cup windscreen mount which cost me about $25 on ebay.
I'm also displaying speed & rpm gauges, essentially making a heads up display, pretty much negating the need to peer at the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel (except for keeping half an eye out for warning lights).
I'm also hoping to add a Bluetooth gps receiver and run something like Memory Map with some digital maps for navigation.

Very nice mate...i love a good carpc.
Hows the screen on that tablet?

I asked Peter from ecutalk a while back if he could rescale boost to start at 0 instead of 14.7. He said it was on his list but that it probably wouldn't get done. Drives me nuts!

Time to find a tablet.

camo.b said:

Very nice mate...i love a good carpc.
Hows the screen on that tablet?

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Thanks camo.b. The screen's pretty good. 8 inch, 1280 x 800 resolution, which is better than a few more expensive tablets that I priced locally here in Darwin.

Rumpig said:

I asked Peter from ecutalk a while back if he could rescale boost to start at 0 instead of 14.7. He said it was on his list but that it probably wouldn't get done. Drives me nuts!

Time to find a tablet.

Click to expand...

Yeah, when I first ran ECUTalk on the laptop I tried displaying the boost gauge but having it start at atmospheric was too confusing. I'll stick with my analogue gauge for boost readings.
For normal driving I'm just displaying those 4 gauges- speed, rpm, coolant & fuel temps. My ICV% is still reading low, so I will be interested to see if that fault code comes back again if I don't actually display or log ICV data.

So is the place to buy it from? I have been looking at getting one.
http://www.ecutalk.com/

Shane

shaggy said:

So is the place to buy it from? I have been looking at getting one.
http://www.ecutalk.com/

Shane

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the place. Just double check what kind of port you have. It should be the one with an OBDII plug (even though our vehicles are not OBDII compliant). Edit: I see yours is a 2005. It will have the OBDII port. You can get the lcd display which alot of the Patrol guys seem to have, but they're a bit pricey & I like the look of the gauge displays so I went with just the cable and then bought the tablet. I had it running on a laptop initially but found I that was a bit of a PITA.
The software is free. It sounds complicated to install but it's actually not too bad. You just download ECUTalk & stick it on your desktop, then install the dotnet framework for windows 8.1. Make sure you are connected to the internet then plug the cable into your pc and it will automatically find and install the drivers. You then just have to open device manager and look at the list of COM ports to see which port it is using. When you plug the cable into the car, double click on the ECUTalk icon. You then have to select the correct com port from the drop down menu. It will then connect to the ECU & start loading up the list of available sensors. You can select which sensors you want to display or log and then click "display gauges" to show them on the screen.
You can also read & clear fault codes etc.

Hi I recently got the Ecutalk cable aswell. Is there somewhere that's lists the "normal" parameters for all the sensors? So I can check of the vehicle is running "normal"
Cheers.

Resto said:

Hi I recently got the Ecutalk cable aswell. Is there somewhere that's lists the "normal" parameters for all the sensors? So I can check of the vehicle is running "normal"
Cheers.

Click to expand...

Not really sure... I think there are reference values for most of them in the manual, but all in different sections- not conveniently set out in one place.

Do you have the link for ebay to get the table and holder.I had a look at JBHI and a few other places but on joy.

shaggy said:

Do you have the link for ebay to get the table and holder.I had a look at JBHI and a few other places but on joy.

Click to expand...

I got the tablet through DealsMachine.com. Here is the link to the one I got:

http://www.dealsmachine.com/best_200194.html

From memory it took about 4 weeks to arrive. They have a good return policy BUT be aware- Australia Post won't accept it because of the Lithium battery so effectively you can't return it. I found that out when mine played up soon after I got it & I tried to send it back. Luckily I persevered & fixed it myself by doing a full system reset (which was not easy as the BIOS menus are all in Chinese!) Now that that issue is sorted out I'm very happy with the tablet. I couldn't find anything as good for a similar price from an Australian retailer.

Here is the link to the holder:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/LUXA2-Ta...29?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item3f42d2dcf5

Even though it says 6"-10" I found it was slightly big for the 8" tablet. A bit of double sided tape on the holder grips (with the backing left on the upper side of the tape) fixed that. You might be able to find a better mount but it's from Oz & seems solid and good quality.

I have also been playing around with the colour options in ECUTalk, as I've found that in sunny conditions, with the original colour scheme (in the photos I posted) the screen can be quite hard to see, especially with polarised sunnies which I always wear.

Just looking thru the specs...does yours actually have a functional fm reciever?

camo.b said:

Just looking thru the specs...does yours actually have a functional fm reciever?

Click to expand...

I can only find internet radio in some "X Box music" app. Maybe I need to download a different app, cos apparently it has one, but I think it also uses headphones as the antenna.

Ahh yes that old chestnut..next time you in device manager can you have a look for me...it could be under audio devices.

Thanks for the info I will chase it all up in the next week or 2

camo.b said:

Ahh yes that old chestnut..next time you in device manager can you have a look for me...it could be under audio devices.

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Camo.b, I can't find any FM tuner in device manager...

Hmm..possibly not in there then...from memory windows media center has FM radio support and Xbox music might also.if you come across it can you post back?

Ben_W said:

Well since we ZD30 owners don't have the luxury of the OBDII protocol to run the Torque app on our android devices, I recently purchased a cheap Windows 8.1 tablet to run EcuTalk for some real time monitoring of engine parameters, especially coolant temp.
The tablet cost me less than $100 delivered direct from China and so far I'm pretty happy with it. I've also stuck all my music on a micro sd card to play through the stereo with an aux cable.
It's just mounted on a universal suction cup windscreen mount which cost me about $25 on ebay.
I'm also displaying speed & rpm gauges, essentially making a heads up display, pretty much negating the need to peer at the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel (except for keeping half an eye out for warning lights).
I'm also hoping to add a Bluetooth gps receiver and run something like Memory Map with some digital maps for navigation.

Click to expand...

Ben,

What type of cable connector are you using? The OBD ELM327 type or the K-line/VAG KKL type cable?

This one with the OBS2 type plug, RS232 type I think.http://www.ecutalk.com/interface.aspx
Just installed ecutalk on a $100 chinese tablet that has android and windows on it. Once I figured out how to switch from android to windows it was easy as.

Ran the cable up the inside of the A pillar and velcroed it to the sunvisor. I was hoping to be able to power it thru the Ecutalk cable but it doesn't seem possible.