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So this not that thrilling but my BMW r1200gs has this bus. I dropped the bike recently and killed one of the turn signals. Canbus lit up saying you have a light out. I fixed the turn signal and it still lit up. I thought I needed to reset it or something.

Turns out I killed the headlight in the drop as well. Without the canbus it would have been months before I would have caught that. I thought it was a BMW over-the-top thing but it actually helped me, it was the daylight running headlight that went out. Good to have that one.

Like I said, not thrilling, not programming, but an upvote for the Canbus.



My riding school was big on checklisting the bike before every ride: indicators front and back, low beam, high beam, brake light by the lever and the footbrake, horn. Not thrilling either but it's how I found out about my busted horn and busted brake light switch promptly instead of the hard way. In most places riding in traffic is risky enough that it's worth knowing all the bits are working every time.


If you want to see what's possible with a BMW r1200gs CAN Bus hacking have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ6LvHBWGio http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=69676


CAN is just the communication protocol. The diagnostics just ride on top of it.




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