I'm going to be doing a CarPC soon, and I would really like to integrate some amount of control over the AC, Windows, Locks, Lights, etc. I know most if not all of those things are attached to the CAN bus (or is it 'CANBUS'?), but I don't really know how to access it. I have a ELM knockoff and I've tried monitoring the bus, but it has soooooo much chatter it just overruns the buffer and I can't make heads or tails of it.
I do know a little about programming (C++ mostly) but I'm deffinately not what you would call a 'hexhead'
I'm kindof at a loss even as to where to start, so any information would be helpful,

 

So, nobody huh?

 

There are usb-actuated relay boards you can buy, which you can wire up to simulate the switches more directly, and avoid interfacing directly with the CAN.

http://www.relaycontrollers.com/Rela...lay_controller

Or you could just do a wireless one, connect to it with your wifi-enabled phone and control it that way:

http://www.relaycontrollers.com/Rela...ay_Controllers

 

^I work with card access and have programmed microcontrollers in the past... I could do a more direct approach... but it would be a wiring nightmare

I think I might have an idea on how to do the can bus though. I'm thinking about getting a can "sniffer" and starting on the ac controls once I install the metra kit.
Maybe if I can isolate the ac commands, I can learn a little something about the rest of the system.

 

Did you ever get started on this project? I'm kind of curious about making my own info system as well for a 2004 G35x.

Was considering buying this to get a start:
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/id...cName=en537141

 

Nope. I got a new job and about 10,000,000 other projects that took all my time.

 

The controller area network (CAN) bus is not an easy one to reverse engineer. Each CAN bus since '96 has to implement a subset of available PIDs (process IDs - used for monitoring and actuating) for smog purposes. That's what your typical ODB2 scanner will read. In order to find all the PIDs, including those that will control windows, etc, you could take the approach of monitoring all values (assuming you knew the word size for that bus) and you could use the process of elimination of figure out which PIDdoes what.

I know for a fact that in order to get the PIDs all defined for you for easy access, you will have to pay nissan big bucks - that's what all the aftermarket companies like snapon do to provided the functionality that they do.

If someone wants to work on a PID sniffer open source project, let me know - I would be interested in participating.