What did you do to your Volvo today? Topic is solved

[MrAl]

Hello again,

Neil, glad you got it going. I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore myself i may be willing to let mine go. I had to enter the code once myself lucky i had it from the previous owner.

As to what i did, I have been working on my telemetry project mostly for measuring the car battery voltage remotely. I had to create my own monitor program because i didnt like the one i downloaded as it did not log the date and time with the data it received via USB port.

Here is a screen shot of the initial result. I am not using all that yet, just the voltage and the time really. The date and time and voltage are all logged permanently to a file on the hard drive. This may look simplistic but it doesnt have to have fancy graphics for me i just need it to show the results of the transmissions from the vehicle.
Later Channel 2 will be current and Channel 3 will be temperature. Channel 4 maybe insolation level.
Channel 5 for the Stock Market (ha ha).

[454cid]

Hello again,

Neil, glad you got it going. I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore myself i may be willing to let mine go. I had to enter the code once myself lucky i had it from the previous owner.

As to what i did, I have been working on my telemetry project mostly for measuring the car battery voltage remotely. I had to create my own monitor program because i didnt like the one i downloaded as it did not log the date and time with the data it received via USB port.

Here is a screen shot of the initial result. I am not using all that yet, just the voltage and the time really. The date and time and voltage are all logged permanently to a file on the hard drive. This may look simplistic but it doesnt have to have fancy graphics for me i just need it to show the results of the transmissions from the vehicle.
Later Channel 2 will be current and Channel 3 will be temperature. Channel 4 maybe insolation level.
Channel 5 for the Stock Market (ha ha).

Very nice! I checked my voltage today too, on the 850. I had to stand in the cold with a meter, Though! Oh well, today's a bit warmer (low 30's) and it's sunny.... a good day to be outside this time of year.

I checked the oil on the S70 too. I plan on changing it this weekend.

[abscate]

I think you can get a decent B+ reading from the OBD port inside , away from Bears and such.

Pin 16 is B+, pin 4 is ground

[MrAl]

Hello again,

Neil, glad you got it going. I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore myself i may be willing to let mine go. I had to enter the code once myself lucky i had it from the previous owner.

As to what i did, I have been working on my telemetry project mostly for measuring the car battery voltage remotely. I had to create my own monitor program because i didnt like the one i downloaded as it did not log the date and time with the data it received via USB port.

Here is a screen shot of the initial result. I am not using all that yet, just the voltage and the time really. The date and time and voltage are all logged permanently to a file on the hard drive. This may look simplistic but it doesnt have to have fancy graphics for me i just need it to show the results of the transmissions from the vehicle.
Later Channel 2 will be current and Channel 3 will be temperature. Channel 4 maybe insolation level.
Channel 5 for the Stock Market (ha ha).

Very nice! I checked my voltage today too, on the 850. I had to stand in the cold with a meter, Though! Oh well, today's a bit warmer (low 30's) and it's sunny.... a good day to be outside this time of year.

I checked the oil on the S70 too. I plan on changing it this weekend.

Hi,

Yes as Steve said you can measure the voltage inside the car on pin 16 which is positive and either pin 4 or pin 5 ground.
If you have trouble getting to the OBDII connector you can get an extender on places like Amazon. You can even get a connector with breakout wires.

[MrAl]

Hello again,

Well i installed a solar panel on the Volvo today about an hour ago. It did boost the engine-off battery level a small amount but that was with direct sunlight. Not sure how well it will perform in cloudy weather.

The real test is to see if the battery voltage level is higher than usual around 12 noon tomorrow. I can compare it with lots of readings i got over the past few days and determine if the panel is helping, and if it is, by how much. I am hoping this works especially for winter.

One of my neighbors cars would not start because of the cold on the battery. He had to charge the battery with a plug in charger.
Amazingly my car, the Volvo 1998 v70, did start, even though slightly sluggish. That's probably because i had it running yesterday too.

[MrAl]

Little update on today's work....

Apparently the solar panel is working. It is the first time ever i saw the battery voltage climb up a little. Normally after the engine is turned off the voltage continuously falls, fast at first, then slower as time goes on. After about 24 hours it can drop to as low as 12.01 volts.
Now, the voltage initially fell somewhat, then started to climb as i think the sun got brighter. It's up almost as high as when i first shut the engine off after running for some minutes. That's pretty amazing, and if this behavior keeps up this could be my solution to low battery problems, and i would suspect other people can do the same thing if they have battery problems.

There may still be a problem however. That is, right now the sun is quite bright, but once we get some cloudy weather the effectiveness remains to be seen. Will it perform well enough in that kind of weather.

I'll be keeping a close eye on it over the next few days, and nights, and see how it fares after one night with no sun at all.

[scot850]

Decided to try to clear more fine 'saved' parts and components from my workbench that have been waiting me having time. I showed previously I had replaced and tested 2 x Volvo SC-816 audio/radio units and replaced most of the interior bulbs as they were either missing or failed. It is a fairly easy process and now they are only waiting me to complete the speaker test units so I can fully test their operations like sound, CD and tape.

I had another unit which my brother returned to me on my last visit to Denver as he had updated the head unit in his 850 that I rebuilt for his daughter. Naturally it fired up OK but one bulb was out. Easy, 10 minute job I thought, but forgot this was an SC-815 head unit. I have attached Robert DIY's video on the process for this:



Not the 10 minute job of the SC-816 but not terrible! Took about 30 minutes but now all is good and I just added it to the pile for adio output testing and function of the CD/tape units.

Neil.

[abscate]

It’s a bad day for car work at Mount Washington NH today.

[MrAl]

Decided to try to clear more fine 'saved' parts and components from my workbench that have been waiting me having time. I showed previously I had replaced and tested 2 x Volvo SC-816 audio/radio units and replaced most of the interior bulbs as they were either missing or failed. It is a fairly easy process and now they are only waiting me to complete the speaker test units so I can fully test their operations like sound, CD and tape.

I had another unit which my brother returned to me on my last visit to Denver as he had updated the head unit in his 850 that I rebuilt for his daughter. Naturally it fired up OK but one bulb was out. Easy, 10 minute job I thought, but forgot this was an SC-815 head unit. I have attached Robert DIY's video on the process for this:



Not the 10 minute job of the SC-816 but not terrible! Took about 30 minutes but now all is good and I just added it to the pile for adio output testing and function of the CD/tape units.

Neil.

Very interesting video.

I can recommend a couple things here.
First is to get a solder sucker to remove the solder from the circuit board before removing the old bulb, and then again if needed after the old bulb is removed. These things work great for this kind of repair. You can also try solder wick.
Second, we can probably mod this with 2mm or 3mm or 5mm white LEDs, or maybe surface mount LEDs. If we cant get one with resistors for 12v, then we could use SMD resistor or a 1/8 watt resistor. Value would be up to around 1k Ohm assuming they are using 12v to power the bulbs as is. You could go with a color LED if you feel like trying that too. For a really crazy display, get a rainbow LED which are the ones that flash different colors repeatedly (ha ha) although that might be distracting.

[MrAl]

It’s a bad day for car work at Mount Washington NH today.

Yeah yesterday was nasty too when i went out there to fool around with the solar panel. Almost said the heck with it for now but then figured it shouldnt take too long to do so went ahead. It was pretty cold out though even around 12 noonish.