OBD Explorer

OBD Explorer lets you explore the functions of an OBD adapter and the vehicle busses it is connected to. You can send any commands that the adapter supports. Consult the documentation for the adapter you are using to see what is available.

Supported Adapters:

This program will connect with an OBDLink MX+ OBD adapter, the OBDLink MX-WiFi OBD adapter and many other WiFi adapters, and with Bluetooth 4.0+ (Bluetooth Low-Energy)(BLE) adapters.

If you don’t already own an adapter, we highly recommend the OBDLink MX+. This, and the OBDLink MX-WiFi, are the only consumer adapters that support the SWCAN (aka GMLan) bus.

Note that BLE adapters provide no security whatsoever. Anyone close enough to your car to make a connection to the adapter can “hack” your car. You should not leave a BLE adapter plugged in to your car’s OBD port when it might be at risk. (The same is true for a WiFi adapter if it doesn’t require a password to connect to it.)

Operation:

After you have selected a connection method in the Menu, you are ready to begin using OBD Explorer. Simply press the “Connect” button and then tap in the “Command Entry” field to bring up a keyboard. You can start with the “ATZ” command which resets the adapter to a known state. Each command you enter is added to the log screen, followed by the response from the OBD adapter. You can enter a comment into the log by typing something that begins with an exclamation point!

Share:

There is a “Share” button at the top-right of the screen that allows you to export the log of your commands/responses to your choice of places.

Macros:

Right off we see that there are two commands that you will probably always enter right when you start a new exploration (ATZ & ATE0). There will likely be others. OBD Explorer makes it easy for you to enter these often-used commands with it’s “Macros” facility, available from the Menu. One macro named “init” is pre-defined for you. You can add, delete, edit macros any way you like. You can also “nest” macros (eg, a macro can invoke another macro). To invoke a macro, just type M_ followed by the name of the macro. For instance, typing M_init will cause each of the commands defined in the “init” macro to be sent to the OBD adapter.

Translation

OBD Explorer, with your guidance, can translate the output from your vehicle into more useful forms. It can translate the data into a character string, or into numbers (either a byte at a time or two bytes at a time). A prime example of this is translating the result from a request for the car’s VIN (PID 09 02) into the desired result.

To do that, you simply select the appropriate part of the response text in the log window. A menu will be shown which includes a “Translate…” option. You then get to choose the desired type of translation and the result is shown as a comment at the bottom of the log. 

When you are using translation to numbers, the selected bytes will be translated to both signed and unsigned values, and also to a fraction of the maximum possible value. (The unsigned value isn’t repeated when it’s the same as the positive signed value.)