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Open Pilot Comma 2

Discussion in 'Prime Accessories and Modifications' started by High Mileage, Jun 10, 2020.

  1. cirruspete

    cirruspete Junior Member

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    Hi Rob, and thanks for your insight and for the link.

    You may recall me as a happy owner of you 240V cable for my stock 110V Toyota charger. Still loving the much-shorter charge time!
    I'll read up on the thread and then see about a new battery. My 2017 Prime was a leftover that I bought in May 2018, by the way.
     
  2. cirruspete

    cirruspete Junior Member

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    Rob- one quick follow up: if I leave my Prime connected to its EV charger, even after it's fully recharged, does the EV charger somehow maintain the 12V battery at a good state of charge, or is that 12V circuit independent and thus gets no electrons from the EV charger?
     
  3. mistermojorizin

    mistermojorizin Active Member

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    I just got one the other week. It works well for what it is, but it's not self driving like some have said. It's just improved DRCC and lane centering. It handles reasonable mountain roads/freeway interchanges fine because it slows down for turns. I have a long highway commute, so it'll be a gamechanger for me. I am not a programmer, but decent with software (love to mess with root and roms, etc.). I am horrible with hardware, but I was able to install it pretty centered on the windshield and run the wire behind the curtain airbag down to the ODB port. The part that took the longest was getting the camera cover back on after connecting the comma 2 because there's not a lot of space under the cover. Took about an hour probably.

    Now for the technical stuff: it works better on cars with TSS 2.0 (supposedly coming to the 2021 Prime). For cars with TSS-P, we need to unplug our DSU (sometimes causes delays in starting the car due to errors) or buy an sDSU in order to be able to use comma's DRCC. Also, the pre-2019 primes have a very inaccurate steering sensor. 2019/2020 is better, and the tss2.0 cars are much better. But you can buy something called a ZSS which improves the sensor substantially. You can make the 2018 prime one of the best cars for Comma 2, but you have to get a couple extra parts installed.

    I heard about comma when I bought the car 1 year ago. I've spent half a year seriously thinking about it. Read their wiki: Home · commaai/openpilot Wiki · GitHub and search their discord https://discord.comma.ai/ . Worse comes to worse, they do have a 30 day money back guarantee.
     
  4. Rob43

    Rob43 Senior Member

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    First, I'm very happy to hear that you're enjoying fast charging times using your Rob43 Adapter !

    *****************************************

    Until recently...it was thought that if you left the EVSE continually connected to a Prime, it would trickle charge the 12v battery.

    BUT, we have recently learned thanks to @Salamander_King that leaving the EVSE connected continually after the traction battery (big battery) is charged it actually pulls power out of the 12v battery leading slowly to a dead 12v battery.

    It is my recommendation that you check your 12v battery with a voltmeter, and occasionally connect a trickle charger in an effort to top it off.



    Rob43
     
  5. cirruspete

    cirruspete Junior Member

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    Hey mistermojorizin, thanks for a very helpful explanation. I guess I should be in the market for a ZSS, since my Prime is a 2017. I have another year of warranty remaining, so I am reluctant to open up the steering column and swap out (?) the DSU (if that's correct, I'm not sure). Who sells the ZSS (Eric?)?

    What an "alphabet soup" the whole Comma 2 experience has engendered! Acronyms like sDSU, DRCC, forks, ZSS, DSU... it is all very intimidating to me, a finance guy with no programming experience.

    If they can ever get the time to compose some detailed product literature and a simple user's guide, more folks like me would buy. As it is now, the wiki, plus time on the forum chasing down the fragments of useful info to put together an answer, is all we are afforded.


    Hi Rob- I'll put my Fluke on the battery this morning. I will also probably put it in-line with the battery to measure the battery drain when the Prime is powered-off.

    The whole matter is rather concerning; do I replace the battery, or drive around with a charger in the rear seat footwell, or both?

    I have never been able to find a good battery tester to assess the "health" of a battery. The old testers with massive resistors (carbon pile) were, I guess, the best way to stress-test a battery, but you'd think we'd have an easier way by now.
     
    #25 cirruspete, Jun 20, 2020
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 24, 2020
  6. High Mileage

    High Mileage Active Member

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    Cirruspete, I can confirm that mine also seems to exhibit the same left hug that yours does. Several times it has crossed into the double yellow mostly on the low to medium LH sweeping turns. I will let mine connect to WIFI at night in hopes that it improves.
    I am also reading more on the enhanced steering angle sensor trying to decide if that might be worth investing in. The choppiness of the steering input gets me a little seasick, it would be helpful to know if the different sensor would improve this.
    Also working on learning how to SSH in to look at programming. I was wondering if playing with the Offset might improve the centering on turns, or hug the right instead of the left?
     
  7. cirruspete

    cirruspete Junior Member

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    Howdy - I can confirm that the dang gadget is learning! I drove east on the 108 through Sonora to Soulsbyville, and it never once kissed the double-yellow line. That is the particular drive where it happened a lot. We'll see if it "holds" or reverts back to its old habit of crossing into the double yellow. I noticed yet another update is ready, but I like the current version since it has improved with age...

    Try some more driving and see if it centers in the lane better.
     
  8. mistermojorizin

    mistermojorizin Active Member

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    You can buy the comma2, follow the basic install instructions, just hook up the plug n play hardware, connect to wifi and put in 1 web address and have like 80 to 85 percent of the full experience. Better than Tesla in one major way that Tesla even if you buy full self driving, nags you to hold the wheel and eventually locks you out if not. 30 days money back if you don't like it. Edit: If you get a 2021 prime with tss2.0, or any of the newer toyotas that already have tss2.0 with the new sensor and no dsu, thats it.

    Going further is tricky though. The dsu and zss are in the glovebox also plug and play and you buy them together from the user you mentioned. With the dsu you can have yours modified and sent back to you or you can buy a smart dsu, which is a true replacement part so you can plug and play your old one back in for warranty. It's one bolt for the dsu and one wire ran back to the comma for the zss. So far still pretty straightforward and that's 95 percent for your prime.

    Going further gets harder software wise. Fork gets you like 99 percent of max. And then there's tuning and other hihger level stuff that is above my level of understanding.

    They make it hard on purpose for a few reasons. Legal liability and screening out users that will require more support. They call it a devkit and tell you its alpha level software. The owner has certain views on where he wants to go and this step is a way getting data and funding his vision...which I've gathered included insurance, selling ai to a car company and eventually solving selfdriving. My backgrounds not in tech either. Accounting, corporate law, and education. But tech is a fun hobby.
     
    #28 mistermojorizin, Jun 21, 2020
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
  9. High Mileage

    High Mileage Active Member

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    Cirruspete, I am going to try and reset the initial drive learn and see if that helps. I sound like a whiner but I can't deal with the way it tries to hug the center yellow line. On LH turns it hits and crosses over the line, and even on straight roads it is not centered.
    If the reset does not help it I will try getting on Discord and see if there is an offset or something I can adjust to push it to the right of the lane. Most of my driving is 2 lane roads with no center divide and where it chooses to drive is not comfortable for me. Wish me luck.
     
  10. mistermojorizin

    mistermojorizin Active Member

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    I took it up to a casino on a pretty wisty mountain road the other day and set speed at 50 and it handled it on the stock 0.7.6 without intervention. I've since installed a fork and tuned one line of code to make it slow down a little more for turns, and it now handles that drive at 60, slowing down by itself for turns. I'm just usually 75 on freeways and interchanges though and it's fine for that.
     
  11. mistermojorizin

    mistermojorizin Active Member

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    If you hit settings, and hit calibrate (not reset), it will show how well its mounted. Mine says 0.2 degrees left and 1.8 degrees up. It doesn't hug the yellow line.

    On discord thats the advice for lack of centering -heres avideo https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DQay2ioNJT30&ved=2ahUKEwie1NKrx5TqAhW8HjQIHdAQCJMQuAIwC3oECAYQBA&usg=AOvVaw2MtrueM7vXdL4N0A26vYRh
     
  12. cirruspete

    cirruspete Junior Member

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    What a wealth of information herein! Since the ZSS and SDSU are both plug and play, and my 2017 Prime is the least capable, I think I'll contact Erich and order them both. Thanks again
     
  13. mistermojorizin

    mistermojorizin Active Member

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    just know he calls "deluxe" smartDSU the one where you get a new DSU and smartenedDSU the one where you send him your part and it gets modified and sent back. just fyi
     
  14. High Mileage

    High Mileage Active Member

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    Mistermojorizin, thank you for the reply. I checked mine and it shows 2.3 up and 2.0 right. I thought I did a pretty decent job following the video from Erich, but I guess not.
    I will try again this weekend and see if I can do better. I need to drop it an inch or so since the rear facing camera doesn't see my face if I sit up normally.
    Hopefully this will cure the left hug.
    I would like to connect with someone who has done the SSH thing. Something I at least would like to look at when time permits.

    Cirruspete, please let me know if you go with the SDSU and ZSS and what they cost. I would like to see if you think it was worth it if you get them.
     
  15. robertjackson17

    robertjackson17 Junior Member

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    @High Mileage @cirruspete I've had my OpenPilot setup running for almost 2 years in my 2018 Prime. I added the SDSU and ZSS a few months ago (note: the ZSS is useful for 2017 and 2018 Primes; newer Primes don't need it). It is well worth the expense of getting them. Installation is very easy. The driving is so much smoother now. Feel free to ask if you have some more specific questions. Rob
     
  16. High Mileage

    High Mileage Active Member

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    Robertjackson17, would it be possible to know what the pair cost? I see the ZSS listed as $200 but have not seen price for the SDSU. What does the SDSU get you as far as driving?
    My 18 Prime is jerky I will admit, but it actually does a good job in the winding roads. If I can get it to center, and maybe even stay more towards the right side of the lane I would be pretty happy. Right now I have to keep disengaging it when there is a lot of opposing traffic coming at me. If not, I get sucked over too close to the line by the tailwind from the trucks flying by the other way. If this was a big Ford F series truck with trailer mirrors, the LH outside mirror would be gone by now.
     
  17. robertjackson17

    robertjackson17 Junior Member

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    The jerky driving is exactly what I was experiencing. Others describe it as ping-ponging. ZSS solves that.

    The SDSU does a few things. It hands over longitudinal (distance to the car ahead) control to OpenPilot. The only way to do that without an SDSU is to unplug the DSU. Unfortunately that gives errors and removes AEB (automatic emergency braking). The SDSU resolves both these problems. Erich also pulls the ZSS power from the SDSU. That simplifies the ZSS installation and allows him to prevent power drain of the Prime’s 12V battery.

    i don’t remember the price exactly. The pair was somewhere around $350USD. For me, that was money well spent.

    You have to send him your DSU. Removing it involves removing the glovebox, unplugging the cable, and undoing one nut — very simple. The car can be driven without it while you’re waiting its return. Erich’s turnaround time is very quick.

    ZSS installation is also easy. He’s got some videos to guide you. You’ll have to find a glue to attach it to the steering column. He suggests Permatex Silicone Adhesive and you can briefly see it in one of the videos.

    https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/permatex-black-rtv-silicone-adhesive-sealant-16br-80-ml-0383717p.html#srp

    Hope this helps.

    Rob
     
    #37 robertjackson17, Jun 23, 2020
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2020
  18. robertjackson17

    robertjackson17 Junior Member

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    Search google for “comma eon workbench”. That will give you links to an article about Workbench and the GitHub for it. Workbench is software that an OpenPilot user wrote to simplify the process of SSH.

    It becomes really helpful for ZSS users who must use Erich’s custom form. For the moment, we can’t use Comma’s code. [Hopefully the ZSS code will eventually be pulled into the official code].
     
  19. Joel Natividad

    Joel Natividad Junior Member

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    I’m a very satisfied OpenPilot/Comma user myself, and a lot of things have been covered in the thread, but I just wanted to add a few more items that have not been discussed:
    • Comma fuses the car’s radar with its cameras, along with readings from the CAN bus to sense/control your car.

    • Comma 2 no longer suffers from overheating. With the older kit (the EON, which I have), it was essentially an Android smartphone in a custom 3d-printed case, with some cooling fins and a cooling fan. With the Comma 2, they went further and:
      • removed the battery from the smartphone, which was the main contributor to overheating. This allows you to leave it mounted at all times, even in direct sunlight. With the EON, I still have to dismount it when parking in sunlight during summer months.
      • improved quieter cooling
      • added infrared LEDs, so it can monitor the driver for alertness even at night (the EON can only do vision-based driver monitoring during the day. At night, similar to Tesla, it monitors driver alertness by monitoring steering wheel touches)
    • As its a smartphone in a case, it can do things even when the car is off. With the optional Comma Prime, you get unlimited internet connectivity for $24/mo. With it, you can currently 1) monitor both cameras - both the driver-facing and road-facing cameras, 2) see where your car is on the Comma smartphone app, 3) be able to SSH into the system from anywhere, and 4) have 1 year of cloud-storage for all your drives.

      Without Comma Prime, you need to 1) periodically connect the system to wifi to get over-the-air (OTA) updates, SSH in, and upload your drives to contribute to the training data corpus, 2) you don’t get remote camera/location access, and 3) you only have a few days cloud storage (~ <7 days) for your drives.

      There is talk of future Comma Prime features (remote start, remote door lock/unlock, real-time CAN bus monitoring, etc.), but that’s not the current priority of the Comma dev team, though there is an available API for folks who want to develop these capabilities.

      I used to have Comma Prime, but found the current feature set a bit limited to justify the $24/mo charge, and I discontinued it with no ill effect beyond the slight inconvenience of bringing the kit home every few days, as it will refuse to engage after having no network access for 7 days by default. As its open-source, I’m using a fork that has changed the OTA check to 30 days.

    • Car battery discharge issues have largely been solved. The latest code now intelligently powers off the system when it detects the car battery is below a certain voltage threshold.
    I have it installed on my 2017 Prius Prime Advanced. In addition to the Comma kit, I also installed a new steering sensor (ZSS - Zorro steering sensor - Zorro is the handle of the community member who came up with it), as the stock TSS-P steering sensor was not sensitive enough (causing slight “ping-ponging” when driving inside a lane, as the OP oversteers because of the coarseness of the steering angle readings). With the newer Primes with TSS2, Toyota has upgraded the steering sensor, so there’s no need for this.

    I also upgraded my Driver Support Unit (DSU). The DSU is responsible for cruise control and automatic emergency braking (AEB). With my “SmartenedDSU”, OpenPilot now also controls acceleration/deceleration (longitudinal) in addition to steering (lateral), without loosing AEB.

    Without SDSU, you had two options - 1) Rely on stock cruise control, and just let OP handle steering. 2) Disconnect the DSU and get better/smarter OP acceleration/deceleration, but you loose AEB.

    Since I’ve installed the kit last year, I’ve been on several road trips with OP taking care of 95% plus of the driving and now actually look forward to them now - NYC to Orlando and back; NYC to Montreal and back; NYC to the Hamptons and back.

    It also performs superbly in stop-and-go traffic.

    With that said, bear in mind, that:
    1. its still a Level 2 system and not full self driving. You still need to pay attention and be able to take over at any time.
    2. it still a devkit, that requires a fair bit of developer basics (command line programs, SSH, git)
     
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  20. High Mileage

    High Mileage Active Member

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    Joel Natividad, thank you Joel for taking the time to reply. I have a couple of long drives lined up in the next few days to see how OP does on freeway and more straight line driving. So far my drives have been my 65 mile commute back and forth from work which has a lot of twisting turns that are not great for OP. I am continuing to read and trying to get the hang of the SSH. A ZSS and possibly a SDSU may be in my future depending on how far out Erich is in making them.
    FYI I still bring my C2 into the office each day. Our daytime temps at work can get up to ~105 degf. Even on my drive home I am seeing temps displayed on the C2 of ~60 degC which shows as yellow. I figure the less time it sits in the heat the better.
     
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