Twizy DBC for Torque Pro

An approach to display status of Renault Twizy with an Android device, using Torque Pro app.

Background

Usually most of contemporary vehicle is compatible with OBD-II standard, especially comply with ISO 15031-5 standards. Basically a diagnostic devices make an request by publishing a packet to the CAN bus, then device of interest, such as ECU, TCU, make a response packet to the bus, then diag device catches then displays useful information.

Renault Twizy has quite different approach. They do support request-response based communication for SEVCON device, (see Twizy-Cfg repository) but most of useful information is just broadcasted into bus without any request made.

This difference breaks compatibilty of most OBD-II diagnostic devices or application.

Prerequisites

What I have tested:

• ELM327 bluetooth adapter (BLE device).
• An Android device with bluetooth connection.
• Torque Pro app from Google Play Store

I tested 4 different bluetooth adapters, but only one was compatible. Others were not responding to AT I command, presumably because they all are partially-compatible emulators of genuine ELM327 chips

Configuration

• Install Torque Pro app
  • Create a vehicle profile for Twizy
  • Set it to use CAN bus monitor mode, as we will just listen CAN bus without making any request.
• Download DBC file, import.

References and further readings

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torque
• Twizy CAN bus objects (AFIAK Credit: @dexterbg)https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gOrG9rnGR9YuMGakAbl4s97a6irHF6UNFV1TS5Ll7MY/
• https://docs.openvehicles.com/en/latest/components/vehicle_dbc/docs/dbc-primer.html