I picked up two of those bluetooth obd 2 things from amazon. Connect to my laptop, and managed to connect via ScanXL Professional, but only under generic OBD, where I only get rpm's, water temp, intake temp. No speed, gear, mpg, etc. When I try to connect under Ford Engine/airbag/transmission/etc it fails to connect. I downloaded ForScan and tried to connect, but had no success at all. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? I ordered an android tablet and will download and try torque when it gets here, but I thought I would be reading more info on the pc software side. Suggestions?

 

Using my known-to-be-good bluetooth adapter (works just great with Torque on my phone), I could not get Forscan to connect via PC. I had bought a hard-wire adapter sometime back (which I could never get to work with the phone and Torque), and gave that a shot with the PC -- no problems at all...

I figured it was me not knowing what driver to load or whatnot for the BT to work on my PC. Anyway... I also had trouble with my very 1st adapter that would drop and do all sorts of craziness (kind of like what you saw, some data, some of the time) - seller replaced it and that's what I've been using for 6+ years now...

What adapters did you get?

Scott

 

I bought these two:



The results are the same, i figured it's me not configuring it properly. I am looking at hardwire ones, but I want to try the torque app on the tablet first before I buy anything else. It should be here today.

 

The Blue one looks like my BT adapter that works. Here is the hardwire one I bought that will work with my Laptop/Win7/Forscan:

 

I looked at that one, that's hte one i was considering if i didn't have good results from the bluetooth on the android thing. How is the software? Does it show boost pressure/speed/etc? Boost pressure is what I'm after, I want to make sure I got my turbo back together properly, as I'm still feeling a bit underpowered. I can't feel any leaks, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any.

 

Forscan has way more diagnostic capability than Torque, that said, it is how I would use the two: cumbersome PC and data link when I need to do tests, etc., and I use Torque on my Droid phone for watching things, or like your example there's been a number of times I want to do some "after driving" data analysis, so I set up what to log to a file and kick that off when I go for a drive. With my little bluetooth unit I can set it to Faster Communications and log data down to one tenth second intervals. So, since you said you were getting a Droid tablet, I'd set it up with Torque Pro (though I did this myself and rather use my phone), and I think you will be pleased.

Good luck!

Scott

 

OOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhh god i've have it with torque. I try to set up some gauges. basic crap. So when i have 5/6 in perfect condition, press the last one and every one shifts half way across the screen. So i painstakenly do it again, and on the last one, all 5 shift. Repeat 5 times, same thing happens every time. I'm done with this stupid app.

 

The tablet works fine otherwise?

I've had it on no less than 6 Droid devices and have never seen what you are describing. When I tried to port my small, phone based, real time screens over to the tablet, which worked, the size of the gauges were all wrong, but then again I gave up on the cheap chinese tablet early on....

I'm assuming you've set up Torque on a Droid device before? Painful is not what I'd call setting up Torque screens, programming SGII gauges, I'd call that pain....

Try Forscan on it, or any of the other apps.

 

It's a samsung galaxy tab 2, i'm familiar with the cheap chinese tablets and didn't go that route with this. The tablet otherwise works completely fine. For some reason if I moved my finger even a hair when trying to get the menu to come up to move a gauge, it would move all the gauges half way across the screen. I did finally get it all set up nicely eventually. closed the app and came back later, and this is what i found. It took 20 minutes to get the damned thing just right, careful not to mis-touch. Then this happens.

 

Dash Commander, on the other hand, seems to do everything that torque does. Doesn't have hte customizable things though. But no headaches. Other than it crashes on occasion.

 

OBDLink's UI seems nice. Does many things. comes with multiple default gauges, but fully customizable.

 

Sorry, just getting a chance to do some forum stuff. In Torque: You did set up a profile, load the Ford Specific PIDs and all that? You can also pick how many real-time screens you want and flip between them, I have caught myself flipping to a blank screen. But it sounds like you know what you are doing and it's got me scratching my head, but like I said I gave up on the tablet and just use my phone -- I have the drivers glovebox and a short right angle micro usb cord that goes to the power port next to it. Phone fits in there perfect and has constant charge.

Find whatever works for you, but it still is strange that Torque doesn't run like any other app on your tablet...

Scott

 

I tried Torque on my jaguar and it worked fine, but very little working on excursion.

I did get Forscan working via usb obd on my laptop. Worked great, tons of codes thrown though. Not sure all of them. I'll get a list.

 

I hope the processor speed on the 03/04 trucks isn't too slow to support the ELM Bluetooth on ForScan.........

 

It might be. I tried forscan on my friends 2012 escape hybrid via bluetooth and it worked fine. I can connect via numerous apps in android with it without issue, but for some reason, laptop and bluetooth on my excursion just didn't work well.