I know it’s a little outside the purpose of this forum, but has anyone removed the bluetooth module in their dashbox and replaced it with something say like a FTDI USB to serial adapter?
I’ve got a cheap no name head unit that I’m using that doesn’t play well with the dashbox’s bluetooth. I honestly would rather have everything as a wired connection anyhow.
I think SPLeinonen offered this modification at some point. Have you tried to contact them about it?
Yes, I have. Getting a response from him honestly is difficult at best. He mentioned he’s done it on “prototypes” but only supports the BT module. I asked for the specifics but that email has gone unanswered.
There’s only 4 pins to the module. And really only 3 would be needed. (No need to send it 5v) Really the only info I’m looking for is the baud rate, and any specialized settings that serial port might need.
I do not have that info as its proprietary for SPLeinonen.
I’ll email again and see if he’ll respond. Otherwise, it’ll just be a process of trial and error.
I have been in touch with him recently. He is having some personal issues. He is on Facebook. Find him there and message him thru the app.
That’s the first path I took trying to reach him, message is still unread.
I removed the module tonight and plugged it into a FTDI usb/serial adapter. After playing around with various baud settings I’ve found I can talk to the BT module with 115200, 8 N 1. The module on mine is:
+VERSION=JDY-31A-V2.241,Bluetooth V3.0+BLE
It also doesn’t respond to over half the AT commands there are out there. So I’m going to program a V4.0 module I bought to see if that’ll behave any differently. Or simply just wire in the FDTI interface in place of a module all together. I don’t believe there’s going to be anything special outside of that baud/parity settings needed for us to connect to the dashbox via another module or wired directly.
I sent him a message referencing this thread. Hopefully he will be able to comment.
I heard from him. DM sent to you from me.
I heard back from him, not knocking him for the lack of support, I am going outside the norm of his product. But I’d like to report a few things.
The JDY-31 module behaved the same way as the module he had loaded onto the dashbox board. (I cloned all of it’s settings) So it’s just the nature of the beast when it comes to the cheap chinese head units.
I didn’t give up, and honestly this is what I wanted from the start. I used the same USB to serial adapter I was using to program the modules to simply connect the dashbox to the android head unit. Works perfect. (115200, 8N1 settings same as the BT modules) Just simply assign a dashbox as you would in realdash, but select USB/Serial connection. I honestly don’t recall what it was named on the next screen, but it was easy to tell as it said something to the effect of USB Serial or something like that. (Other module is the canable module I have for the holley) I will get some picture of the setup tomorrow as I need to actually secure it in the dashbox case and make an opening for the USB cable to pass through. I only made a quick video to show it picking up the signal and high beam indicator.
Sorry for the lack of pics. Wife has covid, son has flu, and I’m getting one of the two as well. I didn’t have any double sided foam tape so I 3d printed a simple “holder” for the serial adapter and hot glued it to the board. Probably easier to just get double sided foam tape, but I didn’t feel like getting out.
Main notes are to observe the color coded pinouts on the board to the converter. I’m a little foggy at the moment but I believe I had to cross the RX/TX. Also I chose to disconnect the 5V+ lead. You could also do this from your USB cable. I simply cut the male A end off and re-terminated it with a new connector. I guess another option would be to add a blocking diode from the dashbox side, then it could be powered either way. Leaving the +5 line disconnected is the easiest/safest IMO.
I haven’t had a chance to dig into the hardware side of things. Too many other projects that must come first.
Wondering if it might be possible to use just an FTDI cable to do what you did to interface via USB?
https://ftdichip.com/product-category/products/cables/
Should be able to. That is just a ftdi adapter as well.
