Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

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Jack Bauer
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Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by Jack Bauer »

Starting a project to reverse engineer the Siemens Elfa2 1200V 450A inverter with a view to fitting a Heubner logic board. I have ten of these with a possibility of more on the way so could be a nice powerful inverter for people to use.

If anyone has any info on pinouts etc that would be great. Looking forward to replacing a ton of expensive logic (including a Xilinx Spartan fpga) with a little cheap STM32:)

One interesting thing is it seems to be a 4 phase inverter with 4 sets of half bridge modules....
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Peter
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by Peter »

Hi Damien. They look very tidy and well engineered. Can these be used with 3 phase induction motors, such as your favourite Enova motor ?? :-)
Try this for info... https://www.scribd.com/document/3669347 ... ter-Manual
TTFN. Peter
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by arber333 »

Hm... may be adding another driver for additional IGBT module and connecting it to motor winding can make a (not so)separate 1phase charger providing some additional connection and control inside box.
Well firmware should support the 4th IGBT too...

A
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by Jack Bauer »

Latest video on progress:
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by jon volk »

This might be interesting for my now "spare" inverterless motor.
Formerly 92 E30 BMW Cabrio with Tesla power
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by Jack Bauer »

Not a bad idea at all ...
Need to figure out how to get a 35kg inverter over to you:)
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PJ007
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by PJ007 »

Hi,

I have lots of documentation about the Elfa Inverters. Are you still interested in it? Can you provide me all the information that you allready get out of the Elfa Inverter? I work daily with the Elfa system. I'm trying to reverse engineer the CAN messages of the Elfa Siemens D-CAN so that I can place loggers permanently on the system. I can provide you software allso (Siadis, Inverter software and parameters, STW-LT2 controller software, ElfaFlash,...). Let me know maybe we can help eachother.

Kind regards
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by PJ007 »

Hi,

The 4th fase is a DC/DC converter for ultra-caps (in combination with inductors), brake resistors. Battery's are direct linked on the DC-link.
mathshub
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by mathshub »

hi @PJ007 can you share documentation for the Siemens ELFA2. I found these inverters in an equipment I'm working on
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by Swing »

I downloaded the manual here: https://docplayer.net/65442386-Elfa2-tr ... er-nr.html
So it is not behind this annoying Scribd wall.

It seems to me, that this Elfa2 drivetrain is controlled by an external controller that also communicates with the BMS.
In other words, there does not seem to be any vendor lockin with Siemens?

I can buy a car which is originally built with the Elfa2 drivetrain (so a ELFA2 DC4-650WM with a 110kW siemens motor, 650V system, 250A max)
It is not working currently, and the company that built it is bankrupt.
But the first hints seem to be a battery issue. Unfortunately, there is no info on that.
I must hope to be lucky finding enough info on the can bus, but more likely, I need to open the battery (and find and solve some issue there, like some bad cells or a broken BMS)

There is a CAN bus gateway device in there, with three CAN connections, so there could be some CAN translation going on.
No idea what the BMS is, or who made the main controller (for starting everything, including the ELFA2)

I have no intention modifying the Elfa2, I just want to use it as it is.
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by Swing »

I have bought aforementioned van with the Siemens Elfa2 drivetrain. It has all kinds of problems with the BMS for which there is no technical support.
However, there are a bunch of controller boards in between the battery and the Elfa2. It is most likely the best option to remove all those German boxes for which there is no support, run my own BMS with the existing chargers, and get the Siemens to work with some other controller. However, I don't know where to start with a search for a suitable controller.
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by m.art.y »

Swing wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:03 pm I have bought aforementioned van with the Siemens Elfa2 drivetrain. It has all kinds of problems with the BMS for which there is no technical support.
However, there are a bunch of controller boards in between the battery and the Elfa2. It is most likely the best option to remove all those German boxes for which there is no support, run my own BMS with the existing chargers, and get the Siemens to work with some other controller. However, I don't know where to start with a search for a suitable controller.
Are you talking about the Azure Ford Connect Van? Common failure seems to be the BMS master and BMS slave modules. I have a load of the BMS slave pcbs for sale here.
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by Swing »

m.art.y wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:09 pm Are you talking about the Azure Ford Connect Van? Common failure seems to be the BMS master and BMS slave modules. I have a load of the BMS slave pcbs for sale here.
I didn't know that van, but it seems to operate at 300v nominal so a bit different system.

I am in Europe and bought a broken German-E-Cars Plantos, basically a converted Mercedes Sprinter, with a 650v Siemens Elfa2 drivetrain connected to the Mercedes 6 speed transmisison.
Funny car, very well made, but no support at all from the German companies involved, and the original builder doesn't exist anymore.

It has the Siemens motor+Inverter, an LFP battery, Eltek Valere chargers (3x for a total of 22kW charging)
At this moment it has a BMS problem. I replaced some bad cells but still will not close the contactors. But there is no support on this Actia BMS.
Nor on the rest of the controllers. So I am expecting to remove all those boxes, install my own BMS (Emus or Orion or whatever) that I can make work with the Eltek chargers (I may write some software for that myself).
But I haven't got much experience with driving electric motors like this, so I think it is best to get some support on that.
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by m.art.y »

Swing wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:19 pm I am in Europe and bought a broken German-E-Cars Plantos, basically a converted Mercedes Sprinter, with a 650v Siemens Elfa2 drivetrain connected to the Mercedes 6 speed transmisison.
Funny car, very well made, but no support at all from the German companies involved, and the original builder doesn't exist anymore.

It has the Siemens motor+Inverter, an LFP battery, Eltek Valere chargers (3x for a total of 22kW charging)
At this moment it has a BMS problem. I replaced some bad cells but still will not close the contactors. But there is no support on this Actia BMS.
Ah, not the Azure Ford Connect then. Are there any more of these Sprinters for sale?
I do use an inverter made by Actia in my car as well. Not very common at all..
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by Swing »

I spoke to a Siemens guy today, and these Elfa2 drivetrains (motor+inverter) typically come with an ESX box from Wiedemann Gmbh.
And my van also has one.
This ESX box is the controller for the Elfa2 inverter. It translates throttle to the motor.
But (unfortunately) it also does a lot of other things.
Checking for safety things like gearbox position (if relevant), and if handbrake is one.
More importantly, it actively asks the BMS to enable precharge, and then when satisfied, it asks to close the contactors.
This is different from applications where you just have the BMS get 12v, do precharge and close contactors.

So, it is a bit more complicated all in all, but if I can keep the ESX box happy with some spoofing of BMS CAN messages, then I keep the drivetrain.

Alternatively, you could build something with the same functions as the ESX box, just controlling the inverter, without modifying it.
m.art.y wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:26 pm Ah, not the Azure Ford Connect then. Are there any more of these Sprinters for sale?
I do use an inverter made by Actia in my car as well. Not very common at all..
Hi, I haven't seen any for sale in past half year. Before that I didn't know they existed, and I didn't actively search for them.

The previous owner bought in Germany, there were 4 for sale, used on an airport. They are 9 seater passenger versions. (but they also made versions with truck beds)
From the 4 for sale, 3 went to South-Africa.

They have 40kWh Winston battery pack at 650v. Battery heating with thermal mats, no battery cooling.
Liquid cooling for motor+inverter.
No AC, and interior heating is done with an Eberspacher diesel heater :lol: (which runs it's own coolant circuit to the dashboard)

Since Actia isn't supporting this, no hardware or software to get this BMS going again, it looks like I need to ditch that plan.
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Re: Siemens Elfa2 Reverse Engineering

Post by luckybreeze »

I'm currently busy with a diy project with the elfa2 inverters and I stumbled onto this forum. I was able to get a few of these inverters through my work. From what I understood is that these inverters originally came from a broken down European commercial vehicle and they had no use for it anymore. However the inverters are still operational and might be very useful for a diy project.

Was any one of you actually able to get your system working with one of these inverters? I also have the ESX box available, but as @Swing mentions, it adds a bit of complexity for controlling it over CAN. I'd prefer to control the inverter directly with an ECU that I can write the code for. For both routes I run into the same issue for lacking detailed knowledge about the device. I will regardless spend a significant amount of time on this project to get it working, but any information to get the project going would by highly appreciated.
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