September 2011 & never been hacked?

[Brammofan]

Maybe it's just me, but when I had my Enertia delivered in June 2010, I totally expected that within a year there would be a community of hackers dedicated to decoding the motor controller software.  We would be able to adjust our torque curves, have the ability to program a "launch button," and generally be able to dig in to the bike's performance capability. Another daydream was the iPhone (or Android) app that could tie into the bike's battery management system and, in conjunction with Google maps, could show you a radius of "reachable" destinations based on your battery state of charge. 

So far, nada. 

Where are you, hackers?

[WanderLust]

Where are the bikes?
The more bikes we have out, the more likely your 'dream' is to make it to reality...
Do we have any data of how many Brammos are actually on the road right now, being used by people like you and me?
I'm waiting for the empulse...
The battery meter would be nice. We would need to install a module of some with a measuring device, a communication device (may be bluetooth) and probably a controller or something to convert the "reading" into data that can be transmitted over bluetooth or some other medium.

The iphone app is the 'trivial' part. This could connect to the bluetooth onboard to get the data.
It could do all the necessary calculations and potentially give some sort of trending info, to show you a graph or something visual, that would tell you how you were driving and how that impacted your bike's performance.
The app could use your iphone's gps signal to calculate where you are and where you can go based on 'normal' driving patterns or in realtime show you the impact of your driving on your range, may be warn you that if you don't slow down or drive more conservatively, you probably won't make it to your destination.
It could potentially integrate with a gps app provider like garmin or tom tom to give you directions.
All this data could potentially be uploaded using the iphone's cellular data connection to a website where all the riders could have accounts. Depending on their privacy settings make their data available to Brammo for further R&D...

What say Brammo, wanna hire me to do this? I would love to be part of it...

[Brammofan]

This kind of arrangement (sharing maps, sharing data among Brammo riders) has been around for a while.  But that doesn't mean it's not a good or workable or desirable idea.  I wish they (or a devoted group of hackers) would develop this.

As for the numbers of Enertias in the market, I'm not sure.  And given that Brammo is privately held, it's not something that they are likely to divulge in the near future.

[WanderLust]

This kind of arrangement (sharing maps, sharing data among Brammo riders) has been around for a while.  But that doesn't mean it's not a good or workable or desirable idea.  I wish they (or a devoted group of hackers) would develop this.

As for the numbers of Enertias in the market, I'm not sure.  And given that Brammo is privately held, it's not something that they are likely to divulge in the near future.

Oh I wasn't saying that it't not desirable I would jump on it if it were out there, provided I had a Brammo to use it with of course
As for sharing data right now, it is very tedious and limited.
The Excel sheet one of the Entertia users has been maintaining for months now, is surely a commendable effort and gives us some insight.
But imagine making it automatic, that's so easy we won't have to do anything. Just 'sync' the iphone with device and let it upload on it's own. That would make it so much easier to share data, potentially even real time data, it could use to give the rider meaningful information he/she could use to improve their ride/range etc.
It's not a tiny project, it needs hardware, firmware and software expertise... The software part I can handle, but I don't have enough knowledge when it comes to the other stuff... I could potentially figure it out, but for that I'll need time, money and of course a Brammo to tinker around with
I'm totally up for it, but I still need to pay bills

[protomech]

When Brammo was first discussing the Enertia, they indicated that the bike would ship with GPS and 802.11 interfaces. The 2009 owner's manual (sadly I cannot find the original manual, so I'm basing off skadamo's comments) indicated that these features were forthcoming:

The Enertia has been designed for future product feature enhancements that
will include; GPS and WIFI

The 2010 manual excises any mention of wifi, though it does point out a GPS indicator on the dash. I would guess that this indicator is solely a placeholder, and that production bikes do not have GPS integration.

Without wifi or bluetooth, one way to directly import the logs into an iPhone / iPad would be to use the USB camera adapter kit and jailbreak iOS. You might also be able to replace the log thumbdrive with a mass storage device that also shares files over bluetooth/wifi - something like this.

As far as hacking the bike controller software, that will require some pretty extreme dedication or support/documentation from Brammo. You may see more of this as the owner community grows and more people get their hands on the bikes.

[protomech]

Unfortunately the Airstash will not work -- even if it physically fits, which it may not.

From the engadget review:
We also noticed that the AirStash network shuts down when plugged into USB, so you can't access files from your PC in real time.

Oh I wasn't saying that it't not desirable I would jump on it if it were out there, provided I had a Brammo to use it with of course
As for sharing data right now, it is very tedious and limited.
The Excel sheet one of the Entertia users has been maintaining for months now, is surely a commendable effort and gives us some insight.
But imagine making it automatic, that's so easy we won't have to do anything. Just 'sync' the iphone with device and let it upload on it's own. That would make it so much easier to share data, potentially even real time data, it could use to give the rider meaningful information he/she could use to improve their ride/range etc.
It's not a tiny project, it needs hardware, firmware and software expertise... The software part I can handle, but I don't have enough knowledge when it comes to the other stuff... I could potentially figure it out, but for that I'll need time, money and of course a Brammo to tinker around with
I'm totally up for it, but I still need to pay bills

The Enertia does log charging and operational data to a thumbdrive, the log format is not terribly difficult to pull apart. Interpreting it is another matter of course.
http://brammoforum.com/index.php?topic=361.0

[Brammofan]

Yes, the log files cover state of charge, position of throttle, etc., and those are all stored on the thumb drive under the seat.  To tinker with the motor controller settings, however, requires something that the cable on the back of the dashboard screws into.  When BrammoJen upgraded the firmware on my dashboard, that's what she did - unscrewed the cable, screwed it into a small fitting that went into a cord that terminated in a USB plug that she put into her laptop. 

[protomech]

Brammofan - can you unscrew that cable and take a picture of it?

[Brammofan]

Brammofan - can you unscrew that cable and take a picture of it?

Sure... I'll do this tonight. (if I can remember  )

[Brammofan]

Here you go . . .
Back of the dash:
[smg id=288 width=300]

the cord end:
[smg id=289 width=300]

[WanderLust]

Unfortunately the code didn't really run on Visual studios 2008. I'll try downloading the express addition of 2010 when I have some free time...

As for the USB on engadget, it seems like a good idea, but won't work for this application for several reasons... especially if real time monitoring was required.

The fatal flaw of the AirStash is in its WiFi implementation, however; since it creates its own wireless network, when in use you lose your internet connection.

Basically this was something similar to me trying to stream netflix to my apple tv from my iphone...
since you can't be connected to a wifi network and use your 3g or other cellular data network to access data simultaneously...
I didn't know that it used a usb stick to store log files. Given that we may be able to get a USB stick with onboard bluetooth to connect to it. But I'm not sure if that exists, and if it would be possible to power off a USB port.

[WanderLust]

Alright found a solution...
well sort of...
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/15/tomtom-announces-z-e-live-navigation-system-to-measure-ev-batte/
If it works on a car it can be made to work on a bike too right? may be we should Ask Tom Tom to come out with one for bikers as well?

[Brammofan]

Good find! 

I was thinking about the earlier comment/question you had about whether the USB connection on the bike is powered or not.  I don't know the answer, but this morning, after riding in the 40 degree temps and freezing my fingers, I researched a bit on heated gloves and... of course most of them have to be powered off the vehicle's 12V system. 

Amazing that no one has yet to come up with a basic aftermarket 12v socket for the Enertia. 

[WanderLust]

To my knowledge power in the batteries is stored in DC, and USB ports provide up to 5V DC.
I don't think that will be enough for heated gloves, unless someone finds a way to connect to the batteries directly...
Get thicker leather gloves

[Gavin]

40 degrees...heated gloves...

bah....i don't have heated gloves and I rode in negative 5 degrees this Feb...

Gavin

my ride to work temp: