Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

[celeron55]

I checked the specs on the contactors in one of these and noticed they're only rated for:

• 120A continuous
• 225A 3 minutes
• 400A 30 seconds

Even according to BMW's documentation the pack itself should be able to provide 80kW, which translates to 225A for 6 minutes, so the contactors are a bit wimpy, especially as these batteries can probably output more than 80kW.

People often use contactors like the Kilovac EV200 which is rated for 500A continuous - that's more than 4 times the rating of these ones.

That being said, the coils in these take about 0.5A at 12V and don't need an economizer so their wimpiness makes them easy to control.

[bobby_come_lately]

I just confirmed the failure mode for the S-Box when you accidentally pull current through it without the main contactor closed.

Not sure how it happened (question for another thread) but my pre-charge resistor is now in multiple pieces and nicely charred in the middle. Everything else looks OK but not yet tested.

Has anyone in the UK found a supplier for these particular KOA resistors? Be nice to do a straight swap if I can, given the available space.

EDIT: I found one on ebay from Spain - a KOA BGR 30.

[zaphodbb]

Hi All

First post but long time lurker - now have an e330 battery pack and Tesla Model s Charger (rev 2) to play with along with one of Damien's Tesla boards and am about to put it all together: being late to the party means I don't have newtis to consult - can anyone please advise what (safe) battery parameters to use with the Telsa charger?
TIA

[sprocketman]

Hi All

First post but long time lurker - now have an e330 battery pack and Tesla Model s Charger (rev 2) to play with along with one of Damien's Tesla boards and am about to put it all together: being late to the party means I don't have newtis to consult - can anyone please advise what (safe) battery parameters to use with the Telsa charger?
TIA

The info that i have is :-
Nominal 292.8V
Max 332V
Min 224V
there are 16 cells in each block and 5 blocks ( total cells 80) in the 330e battery if its the 2016 model etc.
I would recomend that you use simp BMS for the battery monitoring.

[zaphodbb]

Thank you for the reply sprocketman - I knew the published pack voltage, but not the upper and lower limits.
Yes - have already tried Tom's modified SimpBMS on a Teensy: need to look at that in more detail on how to use it with the Tesla Mk2 charger, but at least it showed the pack I'd bought off eBay seems OK (took a chance on a faulty pack at a good price last summer before the Covid situation got bad again): SOC when checked was 80% and the balance was within 5mV . I haven't touched it for a while so it will be interesting to see how it is when I check it next. Been collecting parts for over a year now, and it's finally getting close to the time when I actually connecting it all together!

[sprocketman]

Thank you for the reply sprocketman - I knew the published pack voltage, but not the upper and lower limits.
Yes - have already tried Tom's modified SimpBMS on a Teensy: need to look at that in more detail on how to use it with the Tesla Mk2 charger, but at least it showed the pack I'd bought off eBay seems OK (took a chance on a faulty pack at a good price last summer before the Covid situation got bad again): SOC when checked was 80% and the balance was within 5mV . I haven't touched it for a while so it will be interesting to see how it is when I check it next. Been collecting parts for over a year now, and it's finally getting close to the time when I actually connecting it all together!

Yes I had to search quite a long time to find this info. I cant remember where i got it from but i think its correct. The lower valve is only 2.8v per cell and I am not sure i would go this low?

[Ev8]

Hi all was very helpfully pointed over here from diy electric car forum, and found this thread contains tons of info I was looking for, I have 3 complete 330e battery packs that I plan to use a total of 15 modules in a 5s3p configuration, will I be able to use all 15 cell monitoring slaves chained to 1 simp bms or will I be limited by available address to just using 5 slaves and have to parallel up the cell taps sharing 1 slave for 3 parallel modules, Any help would be great, I am planning on using the simp bms just for charge control and cell monitoring as my contractors and pre charge are already looked after by my current setup.

[sprocketman]

Hi all was very helpfully pointed over here from diy electric car forum, and found this thread contains tons of info I was looking for, I have 3 complete 330e battery packs that I plan to use a total of 15 modules in a 5s3p configuration, will I be able to use all 15 cell monitoring slaves chained to 1 simp bms or will I be limited by available address to just using 5 slaves and have to parallel up the cell taps sharing 1 slave for 3 parallel modules, Any help would be great, I am planning on using the simp bms just for charge control and cell monitoring as my contractors and pre charge are already looked after by my current setup.

I think you can only monitor a max of 6 modules so you will need 3. Unless someone else has a better answer?

[FJ3422]

I am in a similar situation, but with some Volvo / LG-Chem packs of which I want to put 3 in parallel.

My four guesses:

Option 1: (which you already suggested)
Use three SimpBMS / Teensy 3.2 controllers. Link them with some hardwired signals for synchronizing the state (balancing activate / deactivate)

Option 2:
Modify the SimpBMS code so you could connect a second pack to the teensy by adding an additional CAN-bus using a serial to CAN converter (Tom/SimpBMS also sells them). Three packs however is not possible in this way. Programming skills necessary.

Option 3:
Get the SimpBMS code running on a Teensy 4, which has 3 CAN-controllers available. Programming skills necessary.

Option 4:
There is an extra daisy-chained wire between the CSC-slaves, which is possible meant for automatic slave adressing. Maybe it only works when a slave has no address (first init after install), but possibly you could retrigger the renumbering process and check if the slaves continu to increment addresses after the 6th.

In all cases, take into consideration if you want to permanently connect the three strings parallel, or just when using them (three sets of main contactors). When disconnecting them, add a protection against parallelling them when string voltages are not equal.

Orion has some documentation pointing out the difficulties of parallel strings:

parallel_strings.pdf

(398.43 KiB) Downloaded 375 times

[tom91]

I am in a similar situation, but with some Volvo / LG-Chem packs of which I want to put 3 in parallel.

My four guesses:

Option 3:
Get the SimpBMS code running on a Teensy 4, which has 3 CAN-controllers available. Programming skills necessary.

Option 4:
There is an extra daisy-chained wire between the CSC-slaves, which is possible meant for automatic slave adressing. Maybe it only works when a slave has no address (first init after install), but possibly you could retrigger the renumbering process and check if the slaves continu to increment addresses after the 6th.

Option 3, is something I am working on, hardware design is like 70% there, however not started on the coding which will be plenty of work.

Option 4, Not possible I have coding in the PHEV to renumber the boards its all done over canbus but there are no extra IDs that the slaves will accept.

I would wire all packs in parallel via a fuse, just treat them as one large pack and if any cells go a stray just disconnect the full set.

[Ev8]

Thanks for the input I think I will have to go with paralleling up cell taps and having each 3 parallel modules share one slave

[arturk]

Happy new year and thank you for the amount of work you share under this forum!

I own a BMW X5 40e PHEV and I would like to increase the HV battery size in order to achieve at least 40km of range (I estimate 12kwh of usable battery). From your huge experience with phev batteries, I kindly ask for your advice: what battery should I add or swap in order to have a decent 40km EV range?

As sprocketman said, it is not easy task. I am guessing that you have older version with 9kWh battery (2016 perhaps?).
The only reasonable way to accomplish it would be with swapping batteries with another BMW packs of higher capacity. If you do some research you will find out that your car has 1.5kWh modules (x6), newer models use 2kWh modules which are identical form factor, drop in replacement (just slightly heavier). I know because I have both kinds. This would give you 12kWh total (not useable though) bit fairly easy to do.

[180jacob]

I recently purchased one of the newer 12Kwh 34Ah packs and thought I would highlight some of the differences I have noticed to the information that has been posted in the thread so far. This post will focus on the technical stuff, details of the purchase are on my project thread here: viewtopic.php?p=25620#p25620
This is supposedly from a 2019 BMW 3 series G20, but given the pack is dated 6th Feb 2020 either it had a new battery or the listing was wrong.

Physically the modules are the same size and shape though I believe they are slightly heavier (I don't have an older one to compare), the most visible difference is the card/foil piece moulded into the top cover. I don't know what this is for but I guess it's some kind of heat or emc shield?

Once I had the pack fully dismantled I found the most negative module has a different CSC with a white case. Pinout and wiring are a bit different, see below.

The loom for the CSCs is completely separate to the one that goes to the contactor s-box which is convenient unlike pictures I have seen of others where they are bound together.

The end of the loom which connects to the master has far fewer pins populated compared to the picture that OutlandishPanda posted here: viewtopic.php?p=13845#p13845, the pinout is similar with one important difference, CanH and CanL are swapped around!

The S-box is also quite different.
BMW must have listened to Celeron55 calling the Panasonic contactors 'whimpy' here: viewtopic.php?p=22123#p22123 because they have fitted these 175A contactors from TE. The exact datasheet is not available as it is a restricted product but this is the closest public version which I think is the same just with a lower voltage rating and 90°connector position. https://www.te.com/commerce/DocumentDel ... -1904070-1
It says they should be good for 500A for 30s anyway. Also has an economiser built in.

The precharge sense wires are attached in different places, and the connector has fewer pins populated. I plan on wiring directly to the contactors anyway so didn't investigate this further.

Despite all the changes, SimpBMS still read all 96 cells fine, I haven't checked if balancing works yet as my pack only has a 3mV delta.

[celeron55]

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/11 ... fire-issue

I suppose you didn't find any debri between modules as described in the recall?

[180jacob]

I suppose you didn't find any debri between modules as described in the recall?

The article refers to: "welding debris left inside the pack that could create a short between modules. The component manufacturer is listed as Samsung."

I cant see any reason why there would be welding going on anywhere near by when the packs are assembled, it all bolts together and I certainly didn't find any wire/spatter/debris large enough to cause concern.
The only thing I can think of at a pack level is that the sides of the modules are laser welded and in my case there were a few tiny bits of spatter remaining.

I cant see this ever (even considering the number of cars involved) causing a short between modules. More likely (though still very unlikely) is that spatter from welding the cell connections causes a short between cells. I found the following examples in my pack of six modules, whilst the welds aren't all perfect, the spatter is very tiny and not enough for me to worry about. Obviously there are probably packs out there that are worse, and it doesn't take long to check and remove anything upon receiving a battery. Laser welding is a difficult process to perfect and control so I can empathise with the manufacturer.

I think you would have to be very unlucky for any of these to find themselves in a position where they could cause a short (most are strongly attached anyway) and even if they did, chances are it would just melt back until there wasn't a short. I could have completely missed the point of the recall and maybe they are referring to something else entirely, I don't know as I didn't find anything else in mine.

[mjc506]

Thanks for the above, very useful! I've just pulled apart an x5 pack (oct 2020, 12kWh). Each module weighs 13.05kg including bms slave, according to my bathroom scales! (Updated the wiki with this and dimensions, excluding the ~23mm for the BMS slave)

[FJ3422]

For those who are looking for the HV-connectors of these packs, Just found them. Seems to be the Kostal / Herth-Buss PLK 14,5 system.

Contacts:

Housings:

Found a supplier for the contacts (https://www.automotive-connectors.com/c ... =433&q=plk) just ordered some, unfortunately no supplier for the housings yet. Seems that the straight ones are packed per 1000, and no one stocks / sells them in smaller amounts. Anyone have a tip ?

[OutlandishPanda]

I bought a BMW HV cable and connector set like this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-3-F30-2- ... 1195.m1851

I actually bought an X5 PHEV cable (F15 2.0 xDrive40e Hybrid Engine High Voltage Battery Cable 7619781) as it has the same connectors both ends, had more cable and was half the price... I confirm it does fit the 330e pack perfectly and of course, you get a length of the correct spec cable.

You definitely need to shop around and haggle as a lot of the prices for these cables are high. I think i3 and i8 cables have the same connectors. They certainly look the same, but may not be exactly the same... I've seen some i3 cables for under £50.

Good example available at the moment here maybe:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-5-SERIES ... Sw7tBgGAbn

I also bought one of these bridges to complete the connector and HVIL. I can't remember now if you need this to allow it to lock? I'm implementing a basic HVIL so needed this anyway:

BMW I01 i3 G30 G11 G12 Bridge high voltage interlock loop 7630408

Sorry - this is outside the pack and you wanted inside the pack connections...

[marengo]

Which 2017 models may have come with catl cells? The modules i have are 12s stacks and are phev2 types. I'm trying to figure out what to do with an extra bms board and need to start with actually identifying what car it was part of...

[bobby_come_lately]

Does anyone know the specs on the 5 series unit with the part number 6125 7646711? I've seen one for sale listed under the wrong part number. It's a sensible price if it's a 5 module unit but not if it's smaller.

[FJ3422]

Does anyone know the specs on the 5 series unit with the part number 6125 7646711? I've seen one for sale listed under the wrong part number. It's a sensible price if it's a 5 module unit but not if it's smaller.

According to the ETK (https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showpa ... 2147646711) this is the HV-battery of a 5-series ActiveHybrid of around 2012. Capacity around 1.4kWh.

Some information regarding this batterypack & the ActiveHybrid system:

https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/f10- ... r/GEQuux2r

[bobby_come_lately]

Perfect - thank you. Definitely not worthwhile then!

[180jacob]

and no one stocks / sells them in smaller amounts. Anyone have a tip ?

It's worth checking the BMW website, I had to buy another cable to go between modules and it was very reasonably priced at £23. Pretty much every part of the battery pack is available except the modules themselves. I'm normally a VW guy, but I have to say I am very impressed with BMW for this service. I cant think of any other brands enabling or even allowing the general public to order specialist HV parts directly online?
Most of it is still cheaper second hand with a bit of haggling on ebay but for things that no one has its the next best option.

For info, this cable is 500mm long and is actually cheaper than some of the other part numbers for shorter cables, no idea why, it still fits the same.

https://shop.bmw.co.uk/INTERSHOP/web/WF ... le_Welt-UK

[cloudy]

Anyone managed to see the isolation resistance output on the sbox canbus? Have tried putting an artificial resistance between hv pos and neg and logic ground, can't seem to see any obvious change in the CAN data flowing. I guess its possible its not testing unless it thinks contactors are engaged, or it only reports after a get request from the BMS. I've also tried checking for differences in startup burst in case the reporting interval is long. The SME fault code descriptions for isolation check are:

21F14C - High-voltage system: Isolation resistance below the warning threshold value (fault) when switch
contactors closed
21F14D - High-voltage system: Isolation resistance below the warning threshold value when switch
contactors closed


EDIT:
I've also tried this with the 0x300 blue relay ON, doesn't appear to make a difference. There is feedback for this relay on 0x410 (D5 FF FF F9 FF FF FF FF on, C4 FF FF F9 FF FF FF FF off) There is also a momentary change in 0x521 during switching either way on that relay 00 F0 FF FF CB 96 EC FF > 00 F0 FF FF CB 92 EC FF

[bobby_come_lately]

Has anyone else made any progress with the current scaling on the canbus output from the S-box? When I was charging last night, my Outlander charger was reporting 6.4A while my S-box was reporting 4.8A. Stupidly didn't capture a log but I can do later today.