The VCU change discussion

[mdrobnak]

Most on the forum I would hope are technically minded and understand the open source life cycle where the old VCU have progressed into long term support (this has happened earlier than expected, however the reasons for this are sound as stm32 availability is very strong and not likely to be an issue in the next decade) , there is nothing preventing important changes to be ported back.

Personally I think unifying around the stm32 and unifying around a openenverter code is the best for long term development.

I wish to convey my point that contributions of the developers are appreciated and they have every right to proceed in any direction they wish.

Agreed, and well said.

[jon volk]

Nobody asked for my opinion, but its the internet so Ill give it anyway.

If I were to offer a commercial product based on an open source project, I'd be maintaining my own repository of both hardware and software for stability to my customer base. As the open source version morphs and changes, relevant improvements or changes would be added to the commercial version once proven. To rely on community support of a project that can ebb and flow with the desires of others seems awfully risky as a large scale commercial offering.

[Bratitude]

What is open inverter “to the next level “?

this project is young in the grand scheme of things. but the pace of development is staggeringly fast. With time comes maturity, with maturity comes stability. And we are starting to see that. Unification will only improve this pace.

Democratization isn’t easy. But this project has made insane strides in that area. another 6month cycle I bet that the “plug’n’play” ability will become ever more present.

I’d say this project is still in its “pioneer” stage.
And I’d like to think that’s pretty obvious

[arber333]

Final thought for today... have you checked your support model is legal in Germany? A friend just reminded me that EU law requires the manufacturer to offer a two year (minimum) guarantee and that includes demonstrating the product works

I remember that goes for the small series end product which are essentially new products and require warranty.
For them You need to demonstrate that you have parts availability and customer support for minimum 2 years. This rule also prohibits the use of reverse engineered technology (which some of OI actually derives from) in your end product.
The same rule does not apply for single car conversions, so i think we are still good. If you would want to convert a fleet of cars of the same type... i dont know.

[New Electric Ireland]

Thats why I sell kits only

That's not how it works. You really should get some good legal advice

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/d ... dex_en.htm

[New Electric Ireland]

I remember that goes for the small series end product which are essentially new products and require warranty.

That is correct. Products sold in the EU need a minimum two year consumer guarantee. Commercial guarantees ("warranty") are optional but recommended.

Open Inverter "kits" are products and must meet the same legal requirements. We need to find a better way of supporting people who buy the kits and are having problems.

[New Electric Ireland]

To rely on community support of a project that can ebb and flow with the desires of others seems awfully risky as a large scale commercial offering.

I agree. However that doesn't really help all those people who have recently purchased Open Inverter products which are clearly no longer supported. If this transition had been discussed within the community then it would have been possible for those customers to make an informed decision about whether to purchase or hold off until the new version is available. In the commercial world we announce new products all the time but we also run EOL programmes.

Maybe the existing customers who are impacted should be offered an upgrade. This would remove the legacy issue and also get the new hardware/software tested rapidly.

[New Electric Ireland]

Democratization isn’t easy.

Open Vehicles is a case study in how well community development can work

[New Electric Ireland]

Most on the forum I would hope are technically minded and understand the open source life cycle

A lot of Open Inverter product customers are 'car people' not 'computer people'. Many read this forum but do not communicate because this is a challenging environment for none technical people.

[Jack Bauer]

Well, I am deeply upset by some of the postings on here. So much so that I barely slept last night so indeed we do need to find a better way forward. Kevin, am I right in saying that the individuals suffering problems with the existing vcus are participants of the courses we ran? In any event may I request that you ask those who are in difficulties to contact me directly so we might work out a resolution. That's number one in my mind anyway.

Lots of other points raised that I will address but the most important being this : my mission here is to help as many as possible. It would seem to be in the process of backfiring so I also need to assess my options. I care very much about those who put their faith in me and the things I offer. Yourself included.

[rstevens81]

Most on the forum I would hope are technically minded and understand the open source life cycle

A lot of Open Inverter product customers are 'car people' not 'computer people'. Many read this forum but do not communicate because this is a challenging environment for none technical people.

To suggest we are to start marketing to neon lights under the 'car people' is terrifying I have personally seen the quality of the workmanship... Well alas 20 years ago now.

All joking aside everything here is what I would call Debian SID i.e. unstable. You need to be able to understand circuit diagrams, understand the essence of the code so that you can test things before you apply the high voltage, I can see tge magic smoke already!

If you want full plug and play with the full life cycle support, companies like zero ev have embraced that and made their own copy at a fixed point and run with it.

I don't want this thread to discourage Damian, Johu and others to do exactly what they are doing in any project you will meet a decision point where it is easier to going in a different direction rather than carry on fighting.

[New Electric Ireland]

Kevin, am I right in saying that the individuals suffering problems with the existing vcus are participants of the courses we ran?

It's a mix of people but many are from the courses.

In any event may I request that you ask those who are in difficulties to contact me directly so we might work out a resolution. That's number one in my mind anyway.

I will.

Lots of other points raised that I will address but the most important being this : my mission here is to help as many as possible. It would seem to be in the process of backfiring so I also need to assess my options. I care very much about those who put their faith in me and the things I offer. Yourself included.

This is not your burden alone. If you read many of the comments you'll see lots of members are happy to throw Open Inverter customers under the bus. That's not a project I want to be involved in.

[Jack Bauer]

Right, another cup of tea in me so time for a little context. Sometime in the next 6 to 9 months I will no longer have the facilities that I now enjoy such as workshop in the back garden with space for kits , boards and parts, indoor office and a long driveway for storing cars. I'll most likely be reduced to a corner desk and one car. So this is why I started the Zombieverter vcu project. So as I could amalgamate as much as possible into one control unit that comes as a complete board just needing header and enclosure. I am also deeply commited to making the user experience more friendly. Of course it's unfair to expect people to need to program a micrcontroller for the simple task of calibrating a throttle pedal.

Now the key point about the SAM3 based vcus : http://libopencm3.org/docs/latest/html/

Notice anything familiar in the supported processor list? I already have a developer quoting for porting libopeninverter AND the Zombieverter code to the SAM3x when its in a space that I can at least roll some cars with the native stm32 version. Back in a few. More tea needed:)

[Jack Bauer]

So yeah, I should in hindsight have been clearer about what's been going on. My sincere apologies for that. As I'm sure can be understood by all the moving issue has thrown me into quite a flux hence no videos for a while etc. as I've been paddling away under the surface.

The pcb manufacture issue is well raised. I lke JLC for a good few reasons but the main being it allows people to just call off boards without me needing to be involved. Regardless of what may happen to me I would like the designs to continue to be accessible even after I'm no longer involved. Now I do have a good realtionship with an Irish based small batch manufacturer who in fact made the first runs of tesla board amongst others prior to jlc. The prime issues here were cost and reliability. I needed to arrange a pcb test rig in order to solve the latter and that would have affected the former. This in part fuelled the move to kits.

[Jack Bauer]

Software : as anyone who follows me on here knows I am a complete and utter dunce at high level software. Hell I even managed to confuse the classic = and == but a few days ago. The existing Leaf and GS450H vcus are built on the sholders of others on this forum. In particular the software. It annoys the tar out of me that I can't do better in this area. So by using a device supported by libopencm3 and libopeninverter AND previously used by Johannes in the BMS master I could try and build on the sholders of others. Always in the back of my mind was the idea to allow backwards compatibility to the SAM3x. This thread has highlighted the absolute need for this if nothing else.

Arduino is easy ish and forgiving and super well supported so I had (with hindsight foolishly) belived that others would come along and add the bits needed to make it more of a polished experience. I think I even have an open task to that effect in that section for some time.

[Jack Bauer]

Ok here we are :
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=642
and
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=643

I'd like to commend everyone who has and is helping make the wiki an excellent resource. That said sadly there was no response on the software side. Correct me here if I have missed something obvious or if it has happened off forum.

Support and Patreon : I serve at the will of my supporters. Simple as that. without those who have and do support me, whether by part donations, money, help with designs or just a good old ego boost I wouldn't be here. Don't want to embarress Kevin but he's been instrumental. I won't say any more as his ego is not in need of as much constant reinforcement as mine:)

I'm going to say it here and on Patreon just to be super obvious : if anyone finds what I'm doing or the direction I'm taking to not be in their interest then please discontinue support. No hard feelings of any kind.

[celeron55]

Sometime in the next 6 to 9 months I will no longer have the facilities that I now enjoy such as workshop in the back garden with space for kits , boards and parts, indoor office and a long driveway for storing cars. I'll most likely be reduced to a corner desk and one car.

This sounds terrible.

[Jack Bauer]

Its just life. I normally would never post personal stuff like this as everyone has problems and challenges outside of "work" but it is relevant I believe that people understand my motiviations.

[rstevens81]

Thank you damian, we all appreciate your efforts and fully support you. I would donate more if I could in paetron, but as for many the pandemic has drastically reduced my income.

There is a point that keven/NEI raised that many members are car guys and not technically minded.

I always assumed that everything discussed and posted was based on the Linux model i.e. GPL V3 i.e as is use at own risk.
Most things discussed on the forum have the potential to kill, blowup your cat, battery, motor, inverter etc.

Do we need to describe everything as an experimental beta kit?

I'm just worried that if the target audience is non technically minded and wordings around the 'kits' that it is only a matter of time before someone has a serious accident and we have to close the forum & erase the github repos due to legal action

[johu]

Do we need to describe everything as an experimental beta kit?

I'm just worried that if the target audience is non technically minded and wordings around the 'kits' that it is only a matter of time before someone has a serious accident and we have to close the forum & erase the github repos due to legal action

Yes that is pretty much what I do in my disclaimer, as the issue was already raised 10 years ago: https://openinverter.org/shop/index.php ... ation_id=5

I'm just worried that if the target audience is non technically minded and wordings around the 'kits' that it is only a matter of time before someone has a serious accident and we have to close the forum & erase the github repos due to legal action

Well that worry is the result of FUD being spread lately. I mean look around: has Twitter been held responsible for the grossly negligent posts of a certain powerful individual? Or Facebook? If things go into felony territory thats when platforms have to react and delete content. Platforms are not responsible for the actions of their members.

That said a lot of effort has been put into making things safe, no one here is interested in creating bad press and frustration by suggesting negligent practises. For example timed precharge is something we never suggested because it has blow up potential in case of a broken precharge resistor or reversed inverter polarity. If we suggested something dangerous it was clearly marked as such, see "Rich/poor mans charger".

[Jack Bauer]

Yes indeed the risks associated have been highlighted by Kevin and I fully agree with his analysis. where I would however differ is the solution to this (limited liability company, insurance, legal rep etc) was in the past completely useless in protecting me against personal harm in a previous endeavour. Moreover it would add a very considerable financial and organisational workload that would be prohibitive for me personally. So my choices are to continue as is and attempt to be as robust as possible in explaining the nature of the items being sold (not that that amounts to anything in law of course) or wrap things up. Sad but there it is.

On that subject, I do have the following text on all pages of the webshop :
You must support yourself using the resources on the openinverter forum and wiki.
IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO DO THIS THEN PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE FROM THIS WEBSITE!

On boards that are purely experimental :
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT IF YOU DO NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND ITS USE AND FUNCTION!

And this video is on every page :


Perhaps this needs an update. Do please note that I do not see those notices as an abdication of my responsibility. Merely an honest representation of what is on offer.

[rstevens81]

This is the predicament I am in, I have been working (very slowly) on the Prius gen 3 inverter with a motor as an inductor to boost then use the internal dcdc to buck to battery voltage (when below 360v) when I had a working skeleton, I was going to release it on github with similar warnings to the poor man's charger.
Now clearly this is very dangerous and would not advise anyone whom doesn't fully understand the implications and ramifications to be in the same area code let alone use it. I was only planning to use it to my project moving and to upgrade to Outlander or Tesla chargers at a later stage (when I have a better paid job again). I was just trying to give back to the community. I may fail in a plume of magic smoke anyway.

Now this thread seems to go on and on about proving support for opensource GPL V3 as if it were a commercial product.

Now if were expected to provide support for non tech people as seems to be implied that would be something I would feel very uncomfortable about which makes me feel like not sharing.

I feel this thread has polarised the members, I consider anything opensource is an 'as is' and it is at the descression of the developers and forum members to help if they can and it is not a commercial product and should never be interpreted to be that.

[New Electric Ireland]

Do we need to describe everything as an experimental beta kit?

I'm just worried that if the target audience is non technically minded and wordings around the 'kits' that it is only a matter of time before someone has a serious accident and we have to close the forum & erase the github repos due to legal action

Yes that is pretty much what I do in my disclaimer, as the issue was already raised 10 years ago: https://openinverter.org/shop/index.php ... ation_id=5

Have you had that disclaimer checked by a Lawyer in Germany? Have you had the legal standing of "Open Inverter" checked by a Lawyer in Germany? It's not enough to say everything is ok in a litigious world.

[Jack Bauer]

That would also be my interpretation. It would seem however that some "fallen through the cracks" as it were and have purchased from me in the belief it is much more ready for end users. I have asked Kevin to put these individuals in touch so as I can make some arrangements with them.

[New Electric Ireland]

Yes indeed the risks associated have been highlighted by Kevin and I fully agree with his analysis. where I would however differ is the solution to this (limited liability company, insurance, legal rep etc) was in the past completely useless in protecting me against personal harm in a previous endeavour.

I fully understand that and while this was the opinion of my US Attorney other options may be possible. His first piece of advice was get a Lawyer in Germany.

On the wider point of protection via LLC you're right that this is no match for a determined 'assailant' with wealth or a bureaucracy behind it. One of the easiest ways to shut down Open Inverter today would be to tie up Johannes in expensive litigation even if the case has no merit.