Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

nathaniel
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by nathaniel »

Turbopete wrote: Thu Apr 06, 2023 8:40 am Hi, has anyone successfully used these with rapid charging of any sort? Especially without any form of cooling?
Hi. I have the 24kw pack from the X5 but essentially the same cells but just 2 times as much. Have charged yesterday for half an hour with 60 amps so just under 1c and the cells got at max 3 degrees c warmer, no cooling.
If you want to go higher you need to head up the pack before you can push it, but when you are pushing the higher power in you need to start cooling again. See this post with some cell data from a compatible cell:
viewtopic.php?p=31688&hilit=Samsung&sid ... 0c2#p31688
This is why modern cars want to know when you are going to fast charge so the car can pre-hrat the battery. But I'm also still figuring this out how much I can push the battery without damaging it. And even with the new cars you can tell if a battery is always fast charged or not after a couple of years. So maybe you are fine it you push 2 or 3c into the battery sometimes, but I want to do more homework before I kill the most expensive part of my build.
If anyone else have some ideas about this I'm curious what they are.
Btw, charging with ccs lim and Zombi vcu
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by bobby_come_lately »

Not cooling them at all for driving. Might do if I add fast charging. But I've seen very little temperature change under load (Prius Gen 3 inverter into Outlander rear motor). Unless you're going to be sucking big current, I don't think it's something you need to worry about. Save the weight!
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

hi all I am tempted to interrogate my second BMW 530e gen1 (9 kWh) hybrid battery pack using Damien's Arduino code on my DUE this weekend. I understand that he provides the pin out to the white connector directly on the S Box, but my question is have any of you found a way to connect via the external plug on the outside of that kidney shaped aluminum case, please forgive me for being an ignoramous I do realize that port is to connect it to the mother ship I just thought there's a way to bypass or trick whatever gatekeep to talk to the S-box


https://github.com/damienmaguire/BMW_SBox

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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by SciroccoEV »

It shouldn't be a difficult task to 'bell out' the connections between the two connectors.
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

SciroccoEV wrote: Fri Jun 09, 2023 7:51 am It shouldn't be a difficult task to 'bell out' the connections between the two connectors.
ha ha indeed, are you going to make me watch my own video?


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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

well I tried to see if we can follow the wires from the Safety Box white 18 Pin connector to the external 24 Pin connector but no dice, I think all but one red wire go to the BMS master module first where I assume some VooDoo takes place before they head back out to that external connector (as mentioned in this thread years ago)
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this is just the white connector pin out on the BMW white safety box connector as pointed out on Damien's Git Hub page
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by royhen99 »

It needs four links on the black connector 10 - 13 CANH, 23 - 26 CANL, 16-18 0V and 1 - 5 12V. On the external wiring loom red and grey/purple are 12V and brown is 0V.
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

royhen99 wrote: Sun Jun 18, 2023 2:57 pm It needs four links on the black connector 10 - 13 CANH, 23 - 26 CANL, 16-18 0V and 1 - 5 12V. On the external wiring loom red and grey/purple are 12V and brown is 0V.
thank you so much I appreciate that, seems like we have to open up that coffin to do this though so might as well just tap into the Safety Box directly, unless I am missing something ?
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by royhen99 »

I did this just to avoid cutting the cable for now. I can still connect the BMS master and log CAN messages etc.
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by cloudy »

Does anyone have any of medium/long HV module interconnect cables they would be willing to sell/swap in UK? (I have several of the short "back to back" connectors available)
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by FFMan »

I am also using a 9kw BMW pack. I dismantled it and mounted each of the packs along with its CMU module separately and i pickup can direct off the blue connector as i ditched the contactor box before i realised it could be handy.

I have some working code to read all 96 cell voltages cribbed some stuff on the web, but the code i found wasn't so clear on balancing.

It looks as if message id 0x80 is involved but its not clear to me how this works exactly.

Do you know how to make the balancing aspect activate ?
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by royhen99 »

I bought a 12KWh Dec 2020 pack last week. Got S-Box switching and voltage and current readings working a couple of days ago and working on BMS today.
Took an hour or so to work out the problem with the connection ( have since found a post from March 2021 but not on wiki ), as it appears to have changed in about 2019. Anyone else have info on the blue connector that only has five connections? Which year did it change and does it also apply to the 3 series pack. If I can get some more infomation I will update the wiki page.

I have simpBMS ( running on Teensy 4.0 ) reading voltages etc, and have updated the DBC file to show all 96 cell voltages correctly. Would be good if others could try this to confirm it works especially with the 5 module pack. I have checked by adding one extra module at a time and it seems to be correct.
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by tom91 »

Do the voltages using your dbc in savvycan match the voltages shown by the SimpBMS code? Then the dbc is correct.

The Gen2 has one master slave with canbus others are on another internal daisy chain specific to the BMS IC used.
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by royhen99 »

Voltages match SimpBMS I far as I can tell. It's matched to 10/11mV so not easy to see any errors as the voltages are so close. I worked out the DBC from SimpBMS but as it uses masking of ID to determine each cell it was not it was not obvious which ID related to each cell. That explains the extra wire on pin 4 which indicates that all the modules are connected.
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

I just wanted to share this in case anyone is planning on using the OEM BMW 530e battery pack cables

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the core appears to be about 9 mm
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

I tried a couple different AWG sizes and think 1 AWG fits the best

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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

and here I am about to crimp them on

Note: 1/2" heat shrink is too small I think here I am using 5/8"

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the outside fatness of the cable is 14mm and the inside core of copper is 9mm

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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

I figure with the popularity of the sport we may have folks of different skill levels so it don't hurt to share some basic stuff like crimpin'

so this crimper aint the best, it leaves sharp edges, hence the file, now if you crimp in two steps, using something like a 35mm jaws then go down to 25mm ones you can sort of minimize the sharp edges, but if you just use the 25mm jaws you get a razer blade like edge to file away


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I did this 3/4" mini heat shrink to ensure the metal is all covered up and to give it the same thickness as the rest of the cable or close to
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

I was left unsupervised so I made this



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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Mhs »

Gregski wrote: Tue Jul 04, 2023 6:24 pm I was left unsupervised so I made this
Nice work, I was wondering if you have the "CRC.h" library available as I "believe" I found and downloaded the other required libraries but failed to find the CRC one.
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

Mhs wrote: Tue Jul 04, 2023 6:38 pm Nice work, I was wondering if you have the "CRC.h" library available as I "believe" I found and downloaded the other required libraries but failed to find the CRC one.
I recall missing one library but in true seasoned programmer fashion I neglected to document which one, however the way I got it was first I was on the newest version of Arduino 2.x something which today already updated again to 2.1.1

anyway I went to Tools \ Manage Libraries and just typed CRC.h and installed the one with some dudes name next to it, and whalla that worked

sorry about the basic graphic below its not intended just for you but newbs that may come along with the same issue

CRC library.jpg
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by uhi22 »

Nice, but I have a small dought: The orange cable has a copper shield, and I guess this shield is (or should be) grounded. In the pictures above the distance between the "hot" metal part and the copper shield seems quite small, even with the heat shrink it feels risky to me, that isolation is too bad. Just thinking what happens if you move out from the underground parking into hot, wet summer air. Condensate everywhere. Not a nice thought ;-)
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by robertwa »

uhi22 wrote: Tue Jul 04, 2023 7:45 pm Nice, but I have a small dought: The orange cable has a copper shield, and I guess this shield is (or should be) grounded. In the pictures above the distance between the "hot" metal part and the copper shield seems quite small, even with the heat shrink it feels risky to me, that isolation is too bad. Just thinking what happens if you move out from the underground parking into hot, wet summer air. Condensate everywhere. Not a nice thought ;-)
I thought shielding is for EMI reduction purposes? What would grounding the shield do to reduce the impact of condensation? What would you propose to do differently?
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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by Gregski »

I was thinking outside the box today trying to figure out how and where I can mount a third battery pack on my truck and I think cutting the pack in half and rearranging it like so makes it narrower and more of a box, this could potentially work on some vehicles behind the rear axle in lieu of the fuel tank, especially now that we can control the Safety Box inside of it, I envision running the stock BMW 530e cables from the stock connector along the frame rail to the front of the vehicle

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Re: Info on BMW hybrid battery packs?

Post by uhi22 »

robertwa wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2023 12:40 am I thought shielding is for EMI reduction purposes? What would grounding the shield do to reduce the impact of condensation? What would you propose to do differently?
Yes, the shielding is for EMI reduction purposes and also reduces the risk that a marten-bite leads to exposed HV, instead the grounded shield is exposed and the isolation test has a chance to detect the issue.

The grounding does not reduce the condensation. I was talking about the fact, that if there are only 4mm space between the HV and the grounded shield, with no seal in between, the condensate makes path for the current, and the isolation test fails. The better solution should make sealed border between the HV and the shield. I have never seen how this looks in real life. At least I would remove the shield at at least 2cm, and use a heat shrink with inner glue, which seals the path between the HV and the shield, at a length of 1 or 2 cm.
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