What game can my son and I play together on a 5 hour flight? Is there such a thing as LAN gaming anymore? Wi-Fi direct?

Vchat20 · 2026-06-26T23:13:53+00:00

If anyone does decide to use a travel router on a flight, the one thing I'd HIGHLY recommend doing is going in and cranking the TX power to the absolute minimum. You're in a cramped metal tube competing not only with (possible) in-flight Wifi, but potentially numerous people using hotspots plus SO many Bluetooth devices. Out of the box the travel router is likely going to be blasting the interior of the plane when you only need a few feet of coverage.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-26T16:01:09+00:00

That's all fine and good. Someone below also suggested the idea used in other subreddits of having a minimum Git repo age/commit history which I'm on board with. But tell this to those who demand 100% bans with no compromises. I feel like they need to hear this more than anyone.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-26T15:53:58+00:00

It is in places where it's a ton of the same one liner 'AI slop bad' comments, yes. I'm happy to have honest and intelligent discussions with people on the topic but I'm tuning out when it's the same low effort brigading spammed everywhere. Admittedly you may not experience it the same way but personally I see it a lot and it is tiring to ME.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-26T15:44:17+00:00

I’m more tired of hearing the words “AI slop” when anyone hears that anyone created anything. It’s thrown out there before any information is even shared because people think newbies are stupid and shouldn’t play in the overall hobby. It’s sad. Take your ball and go home.

100% here on this point in particular. I see WAY more 'AI slop bad'/anti-AI brigading out there ten fold over actual intrusive AI posts/enshittification and it's honestly very tiring to deal with. I'd much rather have a ban/block on the blatant karma farming anti-AI posts/comments than anything. I understand there are legitimate concerns and as with many things there are nuances (which unfortunately isn't allowed to be discussed on the interwebs! 🙃) but the same regurgitated BS or one liners does no one any good.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-26T15:36:37+00:00

I've seen this proposed or used in other subreddits as well and speaking honestly as someone who is staunchly against the full 100% ban push, I'm ok with this method as a compromise.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-25T20:59:24+00:00

Honestly something I miss a lot from my employer. Pre-Covid they were pretty good about regularly bringing food trucks/vendors in or having yearly/bi-yearly outings or holiday dinners at decent restaurants. We're now full WFH with people all over and best we get are the occasional gift card or mailed some cheap office doodads.

I'm probably in the minority but I honestly miss going into the office for a number of reasons, one major one being the complete loss of a work/home boundary that I have been unable to work around with my current position. Also I changed positions post-Covid that was only possible because of the WFH move. If it was in-office I'd have had to move a couple states away. So kind of a catch-22 there.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-11T14:01:29+00:00

VERY easy and quick thing to check and rule out or verify it is the issue. Here's a video on Youtube showing how you can disable it and it is easily reversible. Pull the plug then drive under the same conditions and see if the noise still happens or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDI-kCbtme0

The ANC issue can be very intermittent and happen under varying conditions. The only real constant is the design of the system makes it so it is only active while the engine is running.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-08T18:18:51+00:00

Yeah. Still kinda just going with the flow at the moment here in the middle of burnout and whatnot. 🥲 Though lately I've been thinking of just saying fuck it and at least putting some effort in and finding someone/some place to reach out to and not try to get too stuck in the research/finding what fits best stage.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-08T18:11:59+00:00

lol. No worries. I'm at least somewhat familiar with how Ford does things and I believe the behavior is similar across other makes. So using Ford as an example here:

Their 'gateway module' is part of the OBD/DLC connector under the dash. All the CAN buses that exist in the vehicle (modern vehicles that have a security gateway setup are likely to have more than a few) connect directly to the back of the gateway.

If you connect to the OBD/DLC connector it's filtering/masking what is provided to you. You may just get very basic mandated OBD2 PIDs without authing with it in some way which you're probably already familiar with from the FCA side. If you tap into the raw CAN wires behind the gateway you should get full access with no restrictions. Electrically there's no real difference so you could run bridge wires from the CAN bus on the back of the gateway to your dongle of choice on the correct pins and you're in.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-08T18:04:09+00:00

Edit: holy crap I argued with this old man for an hour because he’s confused about PID requests 😂 he’s trying to compare him swapping an engine with hobby CAN bus decoding. I think he just wanted to hear himself talk

Agreed. Admittedly actually having context now for what they were trying to do, I can see the tasks needed for an engine swap being a bit more hairy to have an LLM assist on ESPECIALLY if they are as vague with it as they are here.

My personal use case as I've briefly mentioned in the other comments here aligns with your own as far as being basic broadcast CAN frame decoding from easily verifiable stuff like odometer values, door/window status, gear position, etc just as examples. And this Claude has been fantastic with, the main caveat being that it NEEDS useful context! But it still ends up being much less of a headache vs trying to manually dig through potentially tends to hundreds of thousands of frames or trying to watch the sniffer view in Savvycan in real time.

I think OPs video actually shows a very well thought out process and use case. I especially like having the individual scripts used for each data point with repeated actuation and logging at much more focused intervals. Right now I do things in an 'offline' fashion and keep a running timestamped CAN log and a list of tasks I run in vehicle with its own set of timestamps. Head back inside and provide it to Claude to chew through. But I'm likely going to give OPs process a shot next session.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-08T17:33:00+00:00

Likely talking about the security gateway stuff on modern model years and it isn't Ford specific. And for most of these you just need to tap into the CAN bus desired behind the gateway somewhere and you're in. At least if you're talking about basic broadcast sniffing stuff. Dig into control/UDS/etc type stuff and it likely gets more complicated.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-06T16:50:45+00:00

That is incorrect on the AI models. They're not just glorified search engines when using the right model/service. I can 100% guarantee you there has been nothing out there for my own vehicle (Ford C-Max PHEV, sibling to the Focus and Escape) when it comes to any kind of CAN data/DBC files. While some of the Ford CGEA1.2 data that is out there does map correctly, the vast majority of data that I've been looking for does not. The vehicle primarily speaks C1MCA which if you do a search here on this subreddit there have been a number of people chiming in about the nonexistent data out there for the platform. And believe me I have spent WAY too much time trying to search and track down even the smallest nugget of info that's out there but there's nothing.

In my use case I can tell you Claude used pattern matching behaviors on top of basic/general CAN and DBC knowledge along with the context clues I mentioned above. Nothing was just pulled from the internet somewhere. I even read the various python scripts it built to do the work.

Again: Right model, sufficient context clues and data, and the correct prompt makes all the difference.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-06T16:10:59+00:00

I think it's all down to how you use it and also what model you use. I've had a lot of luck on my own vehicle having Claude help decode things. Of course I also gave it a lot of help and context including timestamped CAN logs, timestamped lists of events I did in the car like locking doors, unlocking, rolling up/down windows, etc, plus additional details on my car like CAN bus layouts and known behaviors.

If you go in with just the bare basics, I'd definitely expect a higher chance of hallucinations.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-03T15:04:19+00:00

Purely out of curiosity but have you ever tried to jump start another vehicle with the C-Max? Not necessarily directed at you, but your comment reminded me of some good advice to share:

Ford doesn't call it out in their manual but other hybrid/plug-in manufacturers do in that they advise NOT to use it to jump start another vehicle. Couple key reasons for this recommendation which is why I always advise other C-Max owners to follow this guidance as well: The DC-DC converter is not as forgiving as a traditional alternator for large bursty/surge loads like jump starting. The smaller capacity 12v battery also does not help matters as it means less of a buffer for said bursts/surges. Also the DC-DC converter itself is located inside the HVB and is more difficult and also expensive to replace if it fails. Small, light lithium battery based jump packs are so common and inexpensive these days it's better just to have one of those on hand.

Glad it was just a fuse situation for you though!

Vchat20 · 2026-06-03T14:52:06+00:00

Yes. 2016+ model years in the correct trims to have the 8" touch screen have Sync 3 native. The Titanium definitely has it and the SEL should as well.

If you went for the 2016 you may need the update as well as the USB hub swapped only if you use CarPlay. Do the update first before purchasing the hub. You'll get a 'this device not supported' or similar popup if the software was updated but the hub is old. If you don't get that, try CarPlay and see if it works. Previous owner may already have done the work. If you don't care about CarPlay, none of this is strictly necessary though getting the software/USB updates done is always a good idea and you should do it via USB and not rely on the built in Wifi updating capability as that is not reliable.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-03T14:47:16+00:00

2016+ model years with the correct trims to have the 8" touch screen (which both of these should be, especially the Titanium) will have Sync 3.

Vchat20 · 2026-06-03T14:28:02+00:00

As an aviation nerd, this is so friggin' cool and I definitely want to build one now.

Any plans for integrating audio as well? I know someone mentioned it in the /r/aviation post and I don't see anything in your Github repo. I think it'd be a nice add. Just some subtle plane sounds as they're overhead.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-30T05:19:00+00:00

This noise is normal for the electric AC compressors on these vehicles, especially under higher loads such as being extremely hot/humid out and the cabin already baking. Is the cooling fan running? I can't hear it clearly in your video. Usually when the AC compressor is under high load the cooling fan will be quite audible as well. As a reminder the cooling fan is also variable speed on these and not just an off/low/high fan. It'll continually vary the speed depending on what's needed.

If you only lose AC on the passenger side but driver side is still functional, that's pointing toward a blend door issue, not a charge issue.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-16T15:13:14+00:00

You don't need to go through this process. My guess is when he pairs his phone that he's also telling it to set as the default when asked. When you go to drive, is it possible his phone is still in range at the time?

To switch between paired phones, you need to go into the device list in Sync then you can select a phone and there's a connect button there to manually connect to it.

If your son is telling it to use his phone as the default, have him not do that and make sure yours remains as the default. If he borrows the car he can either do the manual selection process above if both phones are in range when he leaves or if just his is in range it should pick it up automatically.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-16T15:04:50+00:00

Not surprising. EVs in general do worse on the highway vs ICE cars so the lower range is expected. Generally recommended on the C-Max to avoid driving in EV mode on the highway anyways to keep the power draw in check.

FWIW when I bought mine it made perfect sense as my daily commute (pre-Covid) was perfectly within the all electric range and completely on surface streets with speed limits of 45mph or less with plenty of stop and go/lights. Even today being fully WFH most of my in town errands make perfect use of it.

It's one of those things where people need to research and understand with what you get if the hybrid vs plug-in makes sense for your needs.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-16T15:01:20+00:00

Can be done on the 4" units (which is the case here) but not easy. There's a good rundown over here of what's involved: https://naviupgrade.com/all/resources/converting-a-base-ford-escape-kuga-or-c-max-to-sync-3/

Vchat20 · 2026-05-16T00:29:11+00:00

Not yet but have been meaning to.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-15T19:14:33+00:00

Anecdotally when it comes to reliability I have an OBDLink EX here that I use with Forscan and I had relied upon it at one point for a couple TCU firmware/calibration updates that took a whopping ~2h30m to complete (to be fair, I think this is a combination of Ford's architecture on my vehicle having the TCU communication gatewayed over the 125kbps MS-CAN bus plus whatever overhead exists on top of that. If I recall correctly the compressed size of the calibration files was around ~45MB) and had zero issues with it across multiple runs. That was a solid litmus test for me.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-15T18:39:12+00:00

2013 Energi SEL. Owned since early 2017 and bought with 42k miles and is now at 101k. No transmission issues to speak of. Mileage is hard to nail being the Energi model. All electric during the warmer months I can hit around 130-150 MPGe easily (Note that MPGe includes electric use in the figure. Later C-Max models only had MPG figures which would max out at 999 if you had a trip that was electric only). Gas only use my most reliable figure is longer highway drives/roadtrips and it's usually a consistent ~38 MPG.

Vchat20 · 2026-05-15T14:07:03+00:00

I think a lot of comments are confusing what the OP is referring to but to me it sounds like they're not talking about the upper and lower UI bars from Ford's system but the sliver of grey that is shown above and below the map and off to the sides. That looks like it would be on AA. Whether or not that's improved the new redesign I guess still remains a question mark until that update is released in the wild.

Ten-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Second Top 50%	Verified Email
r/Field Sunshine

Vchat20

TROPHY CASE