Doctor Doolittle: Talking to your Bongo (with a PC)

[Purple Pixie]

Could this little device interface with the diagnostics of a somewhat larger beast [Our 1999 Ford Freda 2.0 petrol (a.k.a. Ford Freda)] to extract interesting things on the fly? ??? https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9555

Support for all legislated OBD II protocols:
ISO 15765-4 (CAN)
ISO 14230-4 (Keyword Protocol 2000)
ISO 9141-2 (Asian, European, Chrysler vehicles)
SAE J1850 VPW (GM vehicles)
SAE J1850 PWM (Ford vehicles)
Support for non-legislated OBD protocols:
ISO 15765
ISO 11898 (raw CAN)
Support for SAE J1939 OBD protocol

[g8dhe]

Despite much searching on the Net I've not found any reference to the protocol that is used by the pre-2001 Bongo's. Given that it is just pulse counts I suspect that it has never been formalised. It wouldn't be that difficult to program a small micro to do the counting for you and display the results, but to be honest the few times I've needed to do it its been quicker to count them myself than find a plug that will fit all the pins that are used on the socket!

[Mark.T]

The Bongo will only have OBD I, not OBD II, so fancy on-the-fly info will not be available through the OBD port. However, as g8dhe mentioned, some pulse counting could be done, though I don't think this piece of kit has a suitable interface for that.

[apole]

The only device I saw working on my bongo was a carman scan lite, it was at the LPG fitters and it did read the engine and gearbox ECU's. This was stationary so not sure what extra functionality it did or didn't have.

These things are expensive though so probably won't make sense given the limitations of the older OBD.