Something else I would be interested in is what vehicle profile you are using with the carscanner tool you screenshot.
I am using 4.4 tdv8 and i don't get a percentage for dpf status. mine is in grams per meter squared.

@scotsjon,

Great to hear you joined the regen nerds group
You need to have a play with your fonts & layout in Car Scanner Pro to make it prettier & easier to read “on the hoof”
e.g.:





@jtq4u, have a thorough read of both of Kots’ links above, and just go get the kit.
With the Vgate iCar Pro & CS Pro combo, around £25 all in gives you peace of mind.
My “Miles between regens” has gone from 125m to almost 200m as a direct consequence
of using “Kots Kit” as it hereinsoforth and forever shall be known  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” -where’s the fun in that?

Hi,
good to hear from you.
Yeah I have an ODB bluetooth device and a copy of CarScanner. They work really well - though it is a mystery as to why it shows g/m rather than %. It may be my year of RR (2011 4.4 TDV8).

When I use the more professional scanner from Autel - the AP200, I also get given g/m readings.
The Autel is a lot more pricey but it has the advantage of allowing you to trigger Regens whenever you like (as long as there is more than 6g of soot). This means you can trigger them at the start of a journey you know to be a long one.

I have taken the plunge and just given around £40 to this company https://aaoil.co.uk/ for a oil analysis kit. So I will let you all know what the result is - will my oil be over 7% diluted (the threshold for RR) or not.. I can hardly wait with suspense

Oh Incidentally I am also thinking I will make a physical (non phone) DPF guage if anyone's interested. I have extracted the secret PID code for querying the DPF status from a RR - which I have tested via the terminal command line of Car Scanner Pro.

Now I know this code I should be able to code an arduino to talk to the bluetooth plugin dongle and ask it for the soot level. The arduino can then display this via an analog guage or a numeric display.

Is that exciting to anyone?

Hi James, interesting.

Did you get the “Pro” (paid) version of Car Scanner? I think there’s greater functionality with that, the free version is limited.
Having said that, I just checked my settings in “Dashboard” for CSPro and it seems you can’t change units for SOOT, its set at “%” for mine, although say for “Oil Temperature”, you can choose deg.C or F, for example, so maybe it changes with vehicle age/engine/model? -mine is L405 TDV6 MY2017.

Isn’t the arduino just complicating things you could rig up an old iPhone to do instead?
Vgate warn you not to leave the dongle plugged in, in the instruction manual…  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” -where’s the fun in that?

Probably it is an improvement on later RR then - %age is a lot more meaningful than g/m
after all whats the upper threshold of g/m - its a secret you have to learn!

The trouble with using an old phone is that you have to log into the thing each time.. or if you hacked that then you'd need to start the car scanner app.. or even if you root it to auto start car scanner you are going to have to press 'connect' in car scanner and wait quite a bit before you can even launch the dashboard. To be honest having a dedicated phone like that wouldn't be much better than just using the one in my pocket.

I am hoping to just have a dash board item that does its own thing, no need for me to interact with it other than look at it now and then. If I went with an analog display It might even replace the analog clock neatly (I am happy with the digital one on the dash lcd).

I'd also like a 'request dpf regen now' button so I could press it at the start of a journey I know to be long, however I havn't yet hacked the PID for this out of RR like I have for the soot level

> Vgate warn you not to leave the dongle plugged in
Probably because it might flatten the battery, however I'd end up moving the OBD socket anyway because I kick dongles accidentally sometimes. When I moved it i could always relay the 12v feed to it so it is off when the ignitions off.