My homemade scan tool

[greasymechanic]

Synopsis: I made my own scan tool to clear my check engine light.

Background: The other day I set my 2019 Yamaha Tracer on the center stand, put it in gear, and "drove" in place. As many of us have discovered, this triggers a check engine light that is persistent across hard power cycles.

Failed Attempts: I made an adapter to go from the 4-pin Yamaha diagnostic connector to the 16-pin automotive OBD-II connector. I then connected my cheap automotive code reader, but it couldn't establish communication. I tried two other low cost code readers and a high cost Autel scan tool, but none of them could communicate.

My Solution: Being too stubborn to admit defeat and take it to the dealership, I made my own scan tool. I used an Arduino Nano, a Microchip MCP2515, a couple open source CAN hacker libraries, and can-utils packaged for Linux Mint. I was able to see all the Tracer's internal CAN bus communication between devices such as the ECU, the ABS module, and the instrument cluster. I was fascinated to see the CAN messages change in response to inputs such as wheel speed, throttle position, and drive mode selection. Thanks to wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs, I learned how to query for existing diagnostic trouble codes (send 01 03 CC CC CC CC CC CC using ID 7DF) and clear the DTCs (7DF#0104CCCCCCCCCCCC). And with that, the malfunction indicator lamp was finally off.

Message me if you want more info.

[Heli ATP]

Wow, nice job, impressive.

[piotrek]

Nice little project... 👍

This must have been fun. I never worked with Arduino, but I did some tinkering with the 2nd gen Raspberry Pi and their I/O modules, some moons ago. Board is now assigned a boring duty as a Spotify client.

[knyte]

That's my kind of hax!

[bwringer]

Nice, verra verra nice! Legendary persistence...

Pardon my ignorance on the subject, but is there a commercial scan tool available to us mere mortals?

In other words, could one apply money to solve same problem, or is hacking the Yamatrix the only way? Just curious.

[piotrek]

11 hours ago, bwringer said:

...is there a commercial scan tool available to us mere mortals?

@Wintersdark was incredibly excited about one in this thread...

[Wintersdark]

On 4/15/2023 at 6:41 AM, bwringer said:

Nice, verra verra nice! Legendary persistence...

Pardon my ignorance on the subject, but is there a commercial scan tool available to us mere mortals?

In other words, could one apply money to solve same problem, or is hacking the Yamatrix the only way? Just curious.

Any ODB scantool will work.  You need a Yamaha 4 pin to odb adapter, but that's cheap and readily available on eBay.

 

As with that thread, I'm a huge fan of ODBLink Scantools.  You get the same basic functionality out of the cheap little blue Bluetooth adapters, but they can't go to sleep and will drain your bikes battery if you leave them connected when not in use. 

 

The cheaper LX is fine, the MX has some extra car functionality but they're identical for bikes.  

Then you run either their software or TorqueODB on IOS or Android, and you get live engine diagnostics both direct from the ECU and calculated - such as current actual horsepower output.