Prius Gen 3 Inverter Logic Board Support Thread

[Jack Bauer]

There will be an accessory pack for the gen 3 available soon including the ampseal board, brass terminals for hv connection and a few other bits.

[Aquinax]

There will be an accessory pack for the gen 3 available soon including the ampseal board, brass terminals for hv connection and a few other bits.

I will be waiting for final release and compability approvement to my assembly

[konstantin8818]

I've just realised that ampseal connector's lock disangages with a flat screwdriver from a wire side of connector, so it will be no issues to make an offset inside of the inverter, as it is on the original plate. So there will be no problems with fitment of straight socket and existing connection board.
Will make V3 plate design by the end of the day.

[bobby_come_lately]

Cool - not tried the last one but width of the slot for the seal was fine before. Only depth that needed increasing slightly.

[konstantin8818]

Cool - not tried the last one but width of the slot for the seal was fine before. Only depth that needed increasing slightly.

Left width as before, depth is -0,5mm.
So now offset goes inside of inverter as it is on original one. No need of angled socket and plate must fit no problem. Calculated room for a plug and it's lock, but tests need to be performed

gen3 plate V3.zip

(30.16 KiB) Downloaded 142 times

I think we need to clean this topic a little as this plate has nothing to do with board support.

[Jack Bauer]

Well, The Prius DCDC just loves 360V:)

And one photo especially dedicated to those who said the MG2 power stage could only do 100amps.... The siemens motor would like to differ.

[Isaac96]

Just a casual 42kw...
Very nice!

[Kevin Sharpe]

And one photo especially dedicated to those who said the MG2 power stage could only do 100amps.... The siemens motor would like to differ.

[arber333]

Well, The Prius DCDC just loves 360V:)

How did you do that exactly? Did you correct the resistors on the DCDC to get 14V from 360Vdc?

[Jack Bauer]

CNC machined HV terminal posts now available:
https://www.evbmw.com/index.php/evbmw-w ... term-posts

[Jack Bauer]

Details of the dcdc mod in this video :

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

CNC machined HV terminal posts now available:
https://www.evbmw.com/index.php/evbmw-w ... term-posts

Yeesh. 90 euros. That's as much as the inverter costs sometimes.

This is the more money than brains/time option I suppose. Especially after Damien describes and demonstrates exactly how to make them, measurements and all.



(From MetalsSupermarket, the place to overpay for small amounts of metal. You can buy 3 feet of it for that price anywhere else, not 3 inches.

Though I guess if you can't figure that out for 22% the price, you're probably the type to jump at a $100 pair of studs.

Not begrudging Damien for the price at all. It's great to have an option for someone who insists on it being available for purchase.

[arber333]

CNC machined HV terminal posts now available:
https://www.evbmw.com/index.php/evbmw-w ... term-posts

Yeesh. 90 euros. That's as much as the inverter costs sometimes.

I used to make them on my lathe when i built DIY inverters. I guess first you need to have a lathe...
It took quite some time to get a product out. I do think the price is excessive though. I bought "sechskant" rod 13mm or 10mm, cut it and just turned it to length leaving 5mm formed edge so that i could grab it with spanner if i had to retorque it.
Nowadays... i just dont want/take the time. It is all OEM now.

Remy HVH200 needs those posts as well. I made them with a threaded bolt to go in on the motor side and with a threaded bolt on the cable side to fit the cable with a nut.

[Jack Bauer]

Times like this I really wonder why I bother

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Times like this I really wonder why I bother

??

Sometimes things come out differently than I meant them.

Other than being obvious about which side of the time:money balance I'm personally on, I was complimenting you for putting the time into making not just one, but both options available.

- If people want to build them themselves, you've got a video tutorial complete with measurements. And it's cheap for materials, even from pricier sources, if the cost is the more intimidating thing for them.
- If people want to just throw money at it because despite your tutorial, some light, loose-tolerances machining is the intimidating thing, easy, you've hired it out to a CNC shop and made it available alongside your kits.

Everybody wins.

Things cost what they cost. If people are focusing on the budget part of a budget build, there's a lot of money to save by doing it themselves. If people are focusing on just having a solution that works, they are probably happy to have it ready to purchase and not intimidated by the price. Suitable for everyone regardless of your preferences.

I should've been more clear to separate my lighthearted revulsion at spending money (I am building my EV from actual garbage), from my comments about those who get the option to buy something finished.

[celeron55]

To be fair, this is the support forum of an open source product. Most people aren't going to be swimming in money. But it's not a reason to be rude.

If you're on a tight budget and don't like doing metalworking of any kind (how are you going to put your car together though?), you could buy a bunch of M8 or M10 brass nuts, make sure the conducting surfaces are flat and heatshrink tube them. That's going to cost you about 20€ even if you order online with international shipping. And you can use the original negative cable connection and only use this hack for the positive terminal.

EDIT: Actually if you buy from China, you can get a relatively meaty 30mm M8 brass standoff for 3€ delivered. Then just sand and polish the ends flat to give enough surface area for the current to go through. Or maybe just bang it flat with a hammer and hope it doesn't crack.

But for that extra bling, reliability, ease of assembly and overall doing things properly, I think CNC spacers will work better.

[BMW2002]

People have choices,

Just like a certain other person that directs people to Johu 600 euro consultation when they have a problem, people may have an extra 600euro, which means people lose heart and a anther unfinished project at the back of the garage

[Kevin Sharpe]

Just like a certain other person that directs people to Johu 600 euro consultation when they have a problem

Assuming that comment is aimed at me (see below) then I'd be absolutely delighted if you/anyone stepped up and offered support to the forum member. Having never used the V3 Nissan board myself I don't have many answers but I do recognise when someone is out of their depth.

It's important to remember that the Open Inverter 'community edition' purchased by the forum member is aimed at developers who can support themselves and I don't begrudge Johannes charging 600 euro if he needs to step in and help when the 'community' is unable/unwilling to support end users.

You should limit the HV current and precharge the inverter capacitors during initial test. If you don't understand how to do this then i'd strongly suggest you consider Johanne's support services because you can easily damage the inverter;

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Again, not criticizing at all. There's not really anything to debate here, we're all on the same side.

Other than doing nothing (which is all we're entitled to), what Damien could have done was say in 5 seconds "We're going to use these terminals, you'll have to make some standoffs"... and be done. Walked away. Task complete. Casual mention and no further details.

Instead he came up with a specific solution and machined some, on video, to show the process. And he shared a diagram with measurements. And showed installing them.

And then, because of course there would be people who'd whine and say "Unnngh, I don't know how to do that", Damien could have just said "Call a machine shop" (or not said anything). And they would probably say "Unnngh, I don't want to. Can't you just do that for me and sell me some?". And Damien went the extra mile again, called up a CNC shop he knew, paid for them to machine a run of studs, host them on his webstore, and be willing to ship them to people in kits.

That's a level of polish far beyond the zero that any of us are entitled to, and even in excess of his usual efforts.

And if people say "Unnngh, I don't want to pay that much", then, simply don't. Make 'em yourself. Or pay someone else to do it.

Again, no criticism. Quite the opposite.

My comments about how expensive it is were just me being silly, and poking fun at myself for being cheap and poking fun at those who wouldn't be as cheap as me.

Everyone's playing for the same team here. Sorry about the way I said things that made it seem otherwise.

[Kevin Sharpe]

Let's take this thread back on topic now

[m.art.y]

Hi. Would somebody be able to tell what is the difference between Damiens Prius gen3 inverter boards V2 and V1c? Which one do I need for gen3 inverter?

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Hi. Would somebody be able to tell what is the difference between Damiens Prius gen3 inverter boards V2 and V1c? Which one do I need for gen3 inverter?

Either will work. I'm not certain, but I think one is an older version from an older supplier. There's no date the product was added so I can't tell which either is likely to be. The boards are definitely different from each other (look at the upper left), so, it's not just that one is the kit form of the other.

It's a bit confusing, as the webshop has no, like, overview page, lots of the content in the items is repeated, and it's a bit tricky to tell what's in what. One of us should write up a guide for that, for Damien.

Just to be clear, I think you're comparing these two:

V1c: https://evbmw.com/index.php/evbmw-websh ... ilt-tested
V2: https://evbmw.com/index.php/evbmw-websh ... rd-partial

The version numbers are the version of each respective thing I think, which are different (one is a "built and tested" the other is a "partially built"). So, V2 is not superior or newer than V1c.

V1c:
- I'm guessing this is from the new supplier, which was less expensive to have most components from their library placed.
- It's Tested (link says it's tested anyway)
- It says it's complete for components, some of which you have to solder.
- It appears to come with the wifi dongle and other things you'll need.
- It's 350 eu.
- The image is from 15 May 2020, so, newish.




V2:
- I think from the old supplier, which was just as good but more expensive to place components.
- It still has most of the SMT components placed,
- It doesn't appear to be a full kit, it's just the board as it comes from the factory. You might even have to source the other SMT components yourself.
- It's 120 eu.
- The image is from 19 Jan 2020, so, older, I think before he found the new supplier?



Random note if Damien's reading this, there's a typo in the V2 page, the "product code" is the same as the V1 board, and even says V1. I don't know that that is used for anything, but, yeah.

[Bassmobile]

The V1C BOM is incomplete, so much as it only includes the part numbers for the SMT parts that are placed by JLCPCB.

The assembly video shows the remaining parts that need to be sourced and fitted by hand:
It appears that some of the same connectors that are being hand fitted are present on the original V1 BOM https://github.com/damienmaguire/Prius- ... V1_BOM.ods but can not be certain of this, as the layout designators seem to have changed.

Does anyone have handy a list of these part numbers for each of the parts that are hand fitted in this video? This information here would be super helpful for myself and others in the future. It would be good to include these part numbers in the V1C Github source files.

[Jack Bauer]

Folks, apologies for the confusion I had not updated the partially built section on the webshop. That is now done. The only board available is the V1c.

Now I have had several contacts over various platforms recently all asking that I add things like extra part boms, extra software etc to github to make life easier. Sadly I'm not going to do this as I'm just one person and the level of fatigue I am feeling recently is quite overwhelming if I'm honest. Sometimes feels like I'm that guy doomed to push a rock up a hill everyday just to watch it roll back down. What I will say is that if people want to see more detail on github then please get involved. Submit a pull request on there with boms etc and I'll hapilly merge them in. Or just upload on here and I'll pop it up on github. But this does mean YOU doing the work not me.

[Kevin Sharpe]

Does anyone have handy a list of these part numbers for each of the parts that are hand fitted in this video? This information here would be super helpful for myself and others in the future. It would be good to include these part numbers in the V1C Github source files.

If the information you want does not exist then you'll need to create it yourself. My advice is to buy the V1c kit (and ideally update github with any missing information you find)