E90 Warning lights.

After way too long I finally found the message for the warning lights. It is on ARBID 592.  It is an 8 byte message.  Byte1 and the first bit of byte 2 are the "Error ID".


 
The error ID is referenced in documents for the "check control symbols" like this one.   Before I found one of the documents I just made a program that cycled through the error codes one at a time.  Found that not all the symbols are explained in the document.


 

Like this one to the right.  It is error ID 153 (0x99).  I expect this one is for a police version of the car.  Anyway it made me laugh.





ARBID 592 as far as I have made out so far is as follows
length - 8
B0 - set to 40 seems to be for errors
B1 - Low byte of Error ID
B2 - First bit is part of Error ID. Rest unknown
B3 - the first bit indicates on or off. 1 on, 0 off.  Other bits seem to effect how long it is on.
B4 through B7 are unknown. For the bulb check FF or 0 is there.  Expect it has something to do with
conditions when the error was set.

Anyway have fun.  Here is a video of my test bench showing a few of the symbols

E90 LCD add + iPod

Added a LCD to my car to show the coolant temp.

Then got to thinking.  While I had a connection to the CAN bus then why not have the program monitor for the skip buttons on the wheel.  The send skip the song on my iPod. Similar to the ibus ipod interface I had for my E46.

Got that working. Then thought if I put a bigger screen I display the song title (E46 I put it on the radio display).  With this screen I could fit a bunch of information.

View of the screen in the ash tray.

 

Close up of the screen.  It's a color screen. I chose a color that matched the rest of the cars displays.  I do have the engine temp change color based on Cold, Normal or HOT.

I made the screen bezel on my 3D printer. I need to glue it in instead of the tape. But you get the idea.

The program is essentially the same ipod program I posted earlier in this blog.  Except I modified the ibus inputs to be CAN bus.  And the outputs go to the LCD instead of the ibus.  I'll post code in the future.  Need to work out a few more formatting things.

E90 Test bench

 With the holiday visitors coming I needed to clean up my test bench area.  After tossing everything in a cardboard box I was unhappy.  Doing some testing during my time off would be fun.  Decided to take my first day off and use it to mount all my E90 modules into an old computer tower.  There is a Kombi, IHKA, JBE and DME.  Soon there will be an EKP.  Need to do a little more to finish but it's quite portable now.

This will help keep my desk from being too cluttered and the test setup is wired up much better.

3/20/2018 edit:
Here is another video of the test bench.  Added a bit on to it.

In this video a Arduino with a CAN bus shield is mimicking the E90 DME signals to run the gauges and errors lights.  Another Arduino with a fault tolerant CAN chip mimicking the CAS module to turn the unit on.

E90 review, opinions

This is the third generation of 3-series BMW I've owned.  My first BMW was a 1993 325i,  E36 in BMW code.  I've also owned several E46s (still have 3 on the road).  And now I have an E90.  Excited to have the newer and better designs and technology.  However it is interesting to see that not everything is better.  Here are some thoughts on the E90.  In fact there are several things gone all together.  There is no spare tire, no dipstick and no temperature gauge.

No spare tire.  Well this is pretty obvious why it isn't cool.  But beyond the obvious the trunk space is smaller.  The specs I had read was the e90 trunk was LARGER.  There is no way this is true.  That is if you include the space in the trunk where the spare is.  And it is trunk space and should be included.  On a recent trip with my e90 I took a BMW wheel with me to return to my brother.  With that wheel in the trunk there was not much room left for luggage.  Only hand luggage or duffle bags would fit.  In contrast my previous 3-series BMWs had a spare and could fit luggage in as well.  What gives?  The reviews of the e90 said the trunk is bigger.  No way!

No dipstick.  Found this out soon after getting the car.  How do you check the oil then?  There is an electronic sensor.  Well that sounds ok.  I guess.  Except in older cars it is nice to look at the oil to look for and diagnose problems.  Guess one has to drain the oil to do that now.  And how about doing an oil change.  How does one know if they have filled it up enough?  The electronic sensor can take up to 5 min to get the oil level vs 10 seconds with a dipstick.  This may be some cool tech that allows me to check the oil when I drive (that is pretty funny).  But keep the dipstick too.  Deleting it is a big annoyance.

No temperature gauge.  I hadn't really thought much about it.  That is until, the weather got cold and my heater wasn't warm.  The first question I needed to answer was is the engine getting warm.  Something that on previous 3-series was just a glance at the dash.  Now I had to go through trouble to find out.  Find and connect a diagnostic tool to the car.  Just to find no it wasn't getting to temperature.  Something I would have noticed BEFORE it had gotten cold if I would have had a temperature gauge.  (And no there was no check engine light).  So I had several very cold drives while getting the parts and repairs done.  And had to work on the car in the cold.  All knowing this would have been done in the warm weather if there had been a temperature gauge.  Oh and by the way.  It wasn't a simple thermostat.  That was the first and third thing I replaced trying to repair it (oddly it was the radiator).

Over all I like the car.  There are many things that are improved.  But it seems to me there isn't a reason to make the car worse in some ways while better in others.  Feels like a case of one step forward.  Ones step back.