OBDLink SX

Connection: USB / Cable

This OBDII Can Bus Adapter connects to your USB port. It is a fast and very reliable way to connect to your Car.

Status

supported

Where to Buy

As of 2017-08 the device is available via amazon for some EUR 50

How to use it

Basically the OBDLink SX uses an USB to serial converter to connect your computer via USB to the ELM327 compatible chip that connects to your Car.

Usage

on Rapsberry PI

Plugin the device to the USB socket and check that it is activated

lsusb

One of the lines should show:

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0403:6015 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd Bridge(I2C/SPI/UART/FIFO)

Indicating the use of an FTDI USB to serial converter There should also be a ttyUSBx device available

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0 
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 Sep  6 07:27 /dev/ttyUSB0

This device can be used for testing

Testing

If not installed install minicom

sudo apt-get install minicom

start minicom using the ttyUSBx serial device

Start minicom with the default baud rate of 115200

minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200
ATD
ATZ
ATE0
ATL1
ATI
STI

The result should be:

ELM327 v1.3a
STN1130 v4.0.1

Hit enter. then cntl-A then q then enter to exit minicom.

Changing the baud rate

see https://www.scantool.net/blog/switching-communication-baud-rate/ after sending the STSBR code you might want to change the communication baud rate of minicom and check that the STI or any other command works before saving the new baud rate with STWBR

STSBR 115200
STI
STN1130 v4.0.1
STWBR
OK

Testing with Python script

see OBDLink_LX#Testing - you might want to change the script and use /dev/ttyUSB0 instead of /dev/rfcomm and optionally change the baud rate

on Mac OS X

After connecting the USB cable to your MAC you can check whether the device is visible. If you have macports/lsusb installed with the command

lsusb
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0403:6015 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd Bridge(I2C/SPI/UART/FIFO)

otherwise/in any case

ioreg -p IOUSB -l -w 0

"idProduct" = 24597
...
"USB Product Name" = "OBDLink SX"
...
"USB Vendor Name" = "ScanTool.net LLC"
"idVendor" = 1027

Then check that the cu.usbserial device is available with

ls -l /dev/cu.usb*
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel   17,   1 10 Jun 14:28 /dev/cu.usbserial-113010822821

The name of the device will depend on your environment.

From there http://pbxbook.com/other/mac-tty.html shows how you can test the connnection via a screen/minicom session. If the device at /dev/cu does not show up you might want to fix the situation - it will depend on the version of your Mac OS.

Working around a bug in Mac OSX El Capitan

There is a built in driver:

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBFTDI.kext

which is the original Apple FTDI driver. You might want to reboot to activate it.

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