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Playing with BMW Motorrad CAN Bus system

Introduction

There is initially two goals to this starting investigation : one is to extract data from the system just because I can, and the other, much more concrete is that, after my bike fall the very first day I had it, the button to turn the 4 blink light stop working. It’s not a button that you need a lot but when you need it, you really do, and so I thought if I could reproduce what this button do programmatically, I would not have to replace a 300€ commodo and rely on my phone instead…. Let’s see if that is even possible.

Starting point

  1. Learn about CAN-BUS, ODB2
  2. See how I can connect to the CAN Bus of my motorbike (BMW R 1250 GS/A)
  3. Figure out how to signal a press on the button so that the central unit respond by turning the lights on.
  4. Defien what’s next :)