
Figure 8. The J1962 Vehicle Connector
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ELM329
ELM329DSC
Elm Electronics – Circuits for the Hobbyist
www.elmelectronics.com
Example Applications
The SAE J1962 (ISO 15031-3) standard dictates
that all OBD compliant vehicles must provide a
standard connector near the driver’s seat, the shape
and pinout of which is shown in Figure 8 below. The
circuitry described here can be used to connect to this
J1962 plug without modification to your vehicle.
The male J1962 connector required to mate with a
vehicle’s connector may be difficult to obtain in some
locations, and you might be tempted to improvise by
making your own connections to the back of your
vehicle’s connector. If doing so, we recommend that
you do nothing that would compromise the integrity of
your vehicle’s OBD network. The use of any connector
which could easily short pins (such as an RJ11 type
telephone connector) is definitely not recommended.
The circuit on page 75 (Figure 9) shows how the
ELM329 might typically be used. Circuit power is
obtained from the vehicle via OBD pins 16 and 5, and
after a protecting diode and some capacitive filtering,
is presented to a five volt regulator. (Note that a few
vehicles have been reported to not have a pin 5 – on
these you will need to use pin 4 instead of pin 5.) The
regulator powers several points in the circuit as well as
an LED (L6) for visual confirmation that power is
present. We have shown an LP2950 for the regulator
as that type has very low quiescent current which is
important if you are going to use the low power feature
of the ELM329.
Note that there are some electrolytic capacitors
(C2 and C4) shown on the input and the output of the
regulator. In addition to providing transient capability,
the output one (C4) is also needed for regulator
stability. Most types will work fine here, but solid
tantalum or multi-layer ceramic are preferred.
The top left corner of Figure 9 shows the CAN
interface circuitry. We do not advise making your own
interface using discrete components – CAN buses
may have a lot of critical information on them, and you
can easily do more harm than good if you fail. It is
strongly recommended that you use a commercial
transceiver chip as shown. The Microchip MCP2561 is
used in our circuit, but most major manufacturers also
produce CAN transceiver ICs – look at the Microchip
MCP2551, the NXP PCA82C251, the Texas
Instruments SN65LBC031, the infineon TLE7250G,
and the Linear Technology LT1796, to name only a
few. Be sure to pay attention to the voltage limits –
depending on the application you may have to tolerate
24V, not just 12V. Also, note that some transceivers
should have a resistor in series with pin 8, for the slew
rate (slope) limiting function.
The voltage monitoring circuitry for the AT RV
command is shown connected to pin 2 of the ELM329.
The two resistors (R9 & R10) simply divide the battery
voltage to a safe level for the ELM329, and the
capacitor (C10) filters out noise. As shipped, the
ELM329 expects a resistor divider ratio as shown, and
sets nominal calibration constants assuming that. If
your application needs a different range of values,
simply choose the resistor values to maintain the input
within the specified 0-5V limit, and then perform an AT
CV to calibrate the ELM329 to your new divider ratio.
The maximum voltage that the ELM329 can show is
99.9V.
The USB interface shown is a relatively new
module from the people at Future Technology Devices
International (FTDI - http://www.ftdichip.com). It has a
9 pin D-Sub footprint so is easily dropped into existing
designs, and only needs a driver installation to be
complete. Drivers are available for download from the
FTDI web site - you will want a VCP (Virtual COM
Port) driver. Since the default baud rate for the
ELM329 is 38.4 kbps, you should set your COM port to
that when first connecting. Once connected, you can
change PP 0C to provide a different baud rate (but
make sure you then change your COM port settings as
well.
A diode (D5) and resistor (R11) are also shown in
Figure 9 between the FTDI interface and the ELM329.
This is to prevent backfeeds from the USB supply into
the ELM329 circuit, which could cause erratic
operation.
The only remaining components are the LEDs and
the crystal. The LEDs are standard ones, and may be
any colour that you require - we only offer suggestions
here. The crystal is a 4.000MHz microprocessor type,
while the 27pF loading capacitors shown are typical
only, (you may have to select other values depending
on what is specified for the crystal that you use). This
crystal frequency is critical to the circuit operation and
must not be altered. Do not substitute a resonator for