so i got myself the elmscan 5 w/ bluetooth for use with carman and had a few questions.

i connected everything and was reading data fine from my car. i hit the record button on the live data screen and it began to record, or so i thought. after about 5 mins or so, the app would go back to the startup screen and no recorded file was shown. i would have to reconnect to the elmscan and start over. i am guessing that it runs out of space because i have little room left on the internal memory (not the internal card), as well as the removable card. i havent found any config for where it stored the recorded data. is it possible to change where the recorded files are kept?

i noticed that the app seems to bomb out, and loose connection with the elmscan every once in a while. it seems that if you try to do too much flipping around and going to a bunch of screens too fast, something chokes. i will play some more and see if i can validate this and repeat it.

i did read that you can customize the app by adding manufacturer specific codes to the sensors.xml file. though this is a handy feature, it think it may need to be reworked a touch for full feature viability. since there is no way to ensure a manufacturer dont use the same custom codes as another, it could make things confusing. if i put code XXXX into that file for my ford car, and i happen to test another car from a different manufacturer that has the same code number, but a different meaning i could confuse myself and botch the diagnostics.

moreover, the same manufacturer could use the same code on the same car, but a newer model, and change the meaning of the code. different model cars could do the same as well.

my thoughts lead me to think that being able to create a file

"sensors_$MAKE_$MODEL_$YEAR-RANGE.xml"

would allow for pluggable modularity in the app. an example file could be

sensors_Ford_EscortSE_1997-1999.xml

when i set up my profile at the start of the app, i could set that file to the custom code library and use that for each subsequent diagonstic routine.

I am not sure if there is a way to determine what kind of car you are connected to, but either picking one from a list, or pre-defining one and being able to specify a custom code library/xml file would be a cool feature.