ibeat Connection guide:
A few weeks ago I started on a project that I have been envisioning for a couple of years; building my own engine monitoring dashboard monitor with a single board computer (SBC) like a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino. I have two Italian Huskys, a 2008 TE510 and a 2012 TXC310. At first, I was going to build something like a Trail tech with "additive sensors" but I remembered reading about iBeat a few years back so began to investigate tapping into the diagnostic port for getting data. But I knew that to get started, I would need to get iBeat working. Plus, the scope of what I wanted to do was far simpler than what iBeat was designed for, so I knew that at some point I would just want to get iBeat working.
One very important note before I dive in; my ability to do this was only because of the 7 years and 35 pages of posts made by others before I stumbled upon this thread. I don't really add anything new that others haven't already investigated and shared on their own. My intent of this was to compile all of this information into one spot, from the bike to the software and all of the pitfalls in between. It was pretty simple for me to get this going, but I do have a background in industrial controls, serial communications, computer programming, etc so I was able to fill in the blanks pretty easily. I wanted to fill in some of those blanks for others who may have different backgrounds. Also, many of the links of the parts are old, so I wanted to update that as well. And occasionally, there are a few questions that have gone unanswered that I have seen asked here and on other forums that I wanted to address as well.
Overview:
Connecting iBeat to your bike requires:
1. A physical connection to the motorcycle ECM via the factory diagnostic port
2. A converter cable to make the physical and protocol conversions USB to K line communications used by the ECM.
3. A Windows XP computer or a Virtual PC running windows XP
4. Special software (iBeat)
All four of these items must be setup correctly for proper iBeat communications.
Definitions:
· Physical characteristics- The geometry of the connections, the numbers of wires, and their voltages.
· Protocol characteristics- This refers to the number of wires, the “language” they speak etc.
· Male Connectors/Female Connectors- The gender of connector is referenced by the pins, not the body of the connectors. So if you look at the connector and it seems like there are a bunch of tiny wieners pointing at you, that’s a male connection!
1. Physical Connection to the ECM
The connection on your motorcycle is a female 6 position weather proof connector called an AMP 070 Econoseal Type J Mark 2. If you want to connect to it using the same connector, you need to get a male one of these. I purchased these from www.cycleterminal.com for a about $7 plus freight. The nice thing about buying from Cycle terminal is that you get all of the parts in one SKU; you don’t have to buy the outer housing, inner plate, pins, and seals separately.
AMP 070 Econoseal-J MKII (cycleterminal.com)
You connect this connector to a female OBD pigtail:
Amazon.com: iKKEGOL 1ft Feet 30cm/12 16 Pin J1962 OBD OBDII OBD2 Female Connector Car Diagnostic Extension Cable Cord Pigtail DIY Mobley Adapter : Automotive
There are multiple type of these, some are meant to make a cable assembly and others have the wires loose and the connector is designed to be panel mounted. This is how it is mounted in your car.
You only need three wires, but I recommend getting one with all of the wires to make sure the pins you need are available. When you get it, and it doesn’t come with a pinout guide (which pins are which color) you will have to use a meter or a light or something to ring out the 3 pins that you need.
When you find the 3 wires, you crimp on the pins to the wires and build the connector.
You can use pliers, but to crimp on the pins well, I recommend a dedicated pin crimping tool. I got mine at a local electronics store for $10, but here is one I found on Amazon. The ratcheting ones are nice but not necessary if you are only doing this occasionally.
Amazon.com: Molex Crimping Tool,Knoweasy Open Barrel Terminal Crimping Tool for Molex,Delphi,AMP and Tyco,Harley,PC and Computer,Automotive 24-14 AWG : Everything Else
Once you have this completed, you now will have a standard OBD2 connector on your bike that is compatible with a commercially available OBD cable and converter.
Note that this is a PHYSICAL connection only, and you are just rearranging the physically layout of the pins for convenience. There are many photos of guys on here that have just run wires from the bike connector to an OBD converter cable. Electrically, it will work totally fine. If you go that route, I recommend heat shrinking the pins so you don’t accidentally short them out (ummm I might have done that).
2. USB Converter Cable.
I used the following cable from Amazon:
Amazon.com: OHP INPA Cable FTDI FT232RL USB OBD2 for BMW Diagnostic Coding | K Line | Windows Only : Automotive
This is a PHYSICAL and PROTOCOL converter. It doesn’t just rearrange wires, it actually makes 2 conversions just inside the housing. Starting at the OBD plug, it converts the K-line signal from the bike using resistors and transistors to a half duplex serial connection. The K-line is bidirectional meaning the sending and receiving signals go back and forth on a single wire. A half duplex serial connection has two wires, one that send and one that receives. The next conversion is to take the half duplex signal and convert it to USB. This is performed by a chip called and FTDI FT232RL. FTDI is the company name (Future Technology Devices International) and the FT232RL is the model. This chip is WIDLEY copied and there are tons of devices with fake FTDI chips. It has not happened to me, but I have heard that if you download newer drivers (which happens automatically with WIN10) the driver will brick a fake FTDI chip. One of the reasons I chose this cable is that is featured a real FTDI chip. I have no way of actually verifying other than cost and apparent reputation of the seller. Sub $20 devices will rarely have real FTDI chips. I also purchased the following cable:
Amazon.com: Qiilu Car OBD2 USB Cable Scanner Scan Tool for COM KKL 409.1(Blue) : Automotive
but it didn’t work because WIN10 was struggling with drivers. This device is identical to the one above, but it uses a CH340 converter chip. Not a “fake” FTDI but a cheaper competitive brand. I have had issues with these converters on other devices, such as knock off Arduino SBCs. I probably could have gotten it to work had I spent more time dorking with it, but since I had a working converter cable already I just left it alone.
Both of these converter cables have a red LED. On the more expensive one, the LED turns on when the battery is on on the bike. On the cheaper one, the LED turns on when you plug in the USB. Doesn’t really matter, just interesting to note.
If you are looking for one from a different source, you want to look for one that is compatible with ISO 9141 K-Line protocol or ISO 14230 KWP (Key word protocol).
IMPORTANT NOTE! AN ELM 327 device, serial, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth WILL NOT WORK! Without going into too much detail on an ELM327, just note that it won’t work because the Mikuni ECM does not actually conform to the ISO-9141 protocol. It only shares the Bi-directional line. An ELM 327 is designed to communicate with all of the standard ODB2 protocols, so it is pretty nifty, just not in our case.
3. Windows XP computer.
If you have a Windows XP computer, you can pretty much skip this step and install the software. If you can’t find one, or don’t want to buy and old XP laptop, a virtual computer running XP is the way to go. If you have an old windows 7 computer, it probably has “WINDOWS XP MODE” which is a virtual computer that came with Windows 7. That might work, but I haven’t tested it.
To make a virtual Windows XP computer you will need a Virtual Machine “player” which are generally free for non-commercial use. I used VMWare Workstation 16. I have heard that Oracle Virtual Box works as well. Hyper-V, which is includes in Windows 10 (but not installed and running by default) will NOT work because it doesn’t support bridging the “real” COM ports to the virtual ones without extra paid for software.
Download VMware Workstation Player | VMware
You will then need a copy of Windows XP. This can be the real trick. I was lucky to have some old ass computers and copies of Win XP, so I had the CD AND the activation code. These can be found on the interwebs. It isn’t legal, but it does work, but there are a lot of sites where you can download a bunch of crap thinking you are getting a copy of XP. This is where buying an old Ebay laptop actually can be easier.
There is a mechanism where you can create a folder shared between the hose (real) computer and the virtual computer. This is a convenient way to move files from the host to the virtual computer, such as iBeat software, any logs you create, or USB drivers.
4.The iBeat software
The last piece of the puzzle is the software itself. Here are links to it supplied by DYNOBOB
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9yr7xbfh36dl4ot/iBeat 2.1.iso?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/aoez1atenxm77cu/iBeat Husqvarna EFU USB V2 Drivers 1.0.iso?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kvk2rztd7bx6uc/iBeat_OperationManual-English.pdf?dl=0
The first link is for an ISO “image” which is like a virtual CD. You “mount” the image by right clicking on the .iso file and it will act like a CD drive. You can then install ibeat. Note this has to happen on the VIRTUAL machine!
When you plug in your converter cable you will hear the USB “doink” sound. In VMWare, a box will come up asking if you want to hook the device up to the host or the virtual computer. Also in VMWare is a bunch of icons in the top right of the available devices and if they are connected. You right click the symbol that looks like a USB plug and you can connect that way too.
You would then go to SYSTEM PROPERTIES and then DEVICE MANAGER and then expand the PORTS section to see the COM port assigned to the USB converter cable. Take note of the assignment. When you start iBeat the first time it will probably give you an error that the COM port was not found. It will open up a dropdown box where you pick the COM Port you saw in the Device manager. You will have to restart iBeat. Please note the cables have to be plugged in, and the bike powered up to start communications. If this is all done when you start iBeat, you should connect no problem. If not, click on the orange “off line” in the top right and it should connect.
Since I first got this working, it has worked flawlessly, and I have stopped started connected and reconnected a gazillion times in the last two weeks.
Final Note:
I have made headway on my original intention on starting this project, and have figured out how to connect to the ECM without using iBeat and send data requests and receive data. I have done this with Hyperterminal on the PC and with a Raspberry Pi 3b+ running Node Red. I will probably make a final solution with a Pi Pico or Arduino Nano. I have been using my Node Red setup as it is far quick for prototyping. Here is a quick dashboard I have made with the few data bits I have been able to decode. In the coming weeks I am hoping to figure out how to SEND commands other than just reading data.
