GaryHere said:
I think I am going for a EML 27 I saw on Amazon.
Just waiting to get my brothers password on to Amazon cause he has Prime
Be careful what you buy. From the PDF of the Leaf Spy manual for Android I have
In order for LeafSpy to communicate with a Leaf a user supplied OBDII adapter must first be installed in the Leaf's OBDII socket located under the dash above the driver's left knee. The Leaf must be turned on (dash gauges active, not just ACC mode) and after starting LeafSpy for the first time the OBDII adapter must be selected using the "Select OBDII" option. LeafSpy supports three types of OBDII adapters: Bluetooth 4.x LE, standard Bluetooth and WiFi.
The recommended OBDII adapter type is the newer Bluetooth 4.x LE which is low power and requires no pairing. There are two supported Bluetooth 4.x LE adapters the LELink available from Amazon and the PLX Kiwi 3. Of the two the LELink is the recommended adapter.
The cheap standard Bluetooth OBDII adapters available on ebay and other places are hard to recommend due to two issues. The first is that most standard Bluetooth OBDII adapters are cheap clones of the original ELM327. This was originally not a problem as they supported the required ELM327 commands to communicate with the Leaf. But a year or two ago these cheap adapters started to change as outline below in more detail. They were cost reduced resulting in critical ELM327 commands not needed to communicate with a gas car being dropped. Instead of reducing the version number (fewer commands supported) the version number either stayed the same (1.5) or changed to 2.1. Making the version number meaningless. An adapter that really supported the ELM327 v1.2 or v2.1 command set would work with LeafSpy.
The second issue is with the Bluetooth OBDII adapter that had previously been recommend which was the Konnwei KW-902. This supported the required commands but has recently been cost reduced. However, the cost reduction is not the issue as the supported commands are still there. Instead the wrong resistor is being used to terminate the +/- CAN signals. Due to a design or manufacturing error instead of a 120 ohm resistor being used it was changed to a 20 ohm resistor. If plugged into the Leaf this low resistor value will prevent the CAN bus from functioning properly and can result in an i-Key fault, not being able to drive the Leaf and other strange behavior. If you have a Konnwei KW-902 you should check the resistance between pins 6 and 14. A reading of 20 ohms indicates a defective adapter which should not be plugged into your Leaf. The CAN bus is fault tolerant so if you have plugged it in unplugging should allow the Leaf to resume normal operation.
If you are lucky enough to already have or buy a standard Bluetooth OBDII adapter that still support the full command set the adapter must first be paired with the Android device using the Android Bluetooth Settings menu. The typical PIN is "1234". Then when LeafSpy is first started go into the LeafSpy Menu and select the "Select OBDII" => "Bluetooth Paired Devices" to bring up a list of paired device. From the list select the OBDII adapter then reenter the PIN.
At this time it seems all WiFi OBDII adapters support the required ELM327 commands and can report v1.5 or v2.1. Most are large and will extend about 3" down from the bottom of the dash so could interfere with your legs. Being WiFi they have a much longer range but the tradeoff is much higher power drain from the Leaf 12v battery when the Leaf is off. When LeafSpy is first started go into the LeafSpy Menu and select the "Select OBDII" => "WiFi Devices" to bring up a list of Networks. Select the OBDII adapter network and if a password is required enter it on the next screen.
Recently it has become harder to find a low cost OBDII Bluetooth adapter that works with the Leaf due to a recent cost reduction change made by many of the Asian manufactures of clone ELM327 adapters. These manufactures have eliminated the dedicated PIC processor that decoded and execute the ELM commands. That function has now been combined into the existing Bluetooth processor saving several dollars in cost. Whether because of code space limitations or inexperience in the ELM command set the critical commands needed to communicate with the Leaf have been dropped. To make things confusing for the buyer these lower cost (to produce) ELM327 adapters are given a version number of 2.1 instead of the previous 1.5 designation. Since commands have been dropped not added it is totally inaccurate to label them as 2.1 which should match the version of the ELM command set supported. Adapters bought from the same seller before and after the change can look exactly the same outside. Only by opening them up for examination can a difference be seen (lack of PIC processor).
LeafSpy does not look at the version number reported by the ELM327 adapter. It is not until LeafSpy attempts to configure the ELM327 for communications with the Leaf does LeafSpy discover the lack of support for the needed ELM commands. If the ELM327 reporting a version number of 2.1 actually supported the official version 2.1 ELM command set it would work with LeafSpy. This incorrect labeling as version 2.1 gives the impression that LeafSpy does not support ELM version 2.1 which is total incorrect.
Are you planning to run on Android or iOS?
If iOS and your phone is iPhone 4S is newer, choose LELink. That's what Turbo3 recommends.
He also recommends LELink for Android now but your phone must have Bluetooth LE. What phone or tablet do you plan to run this on? I need to go. Otherwise, I could provide a few more pointers. Whatever you get, make sure others here on MNL have reported success in the past year or two with the same exact model.