I'm in France and I have a few connection with interesting people. This give me the chance to got the full electrical system of an Citroen AMI. This is a small electrical car limited to 45Km/h.
Things I didn't get : key and neiman and front panel switches and throttle foot contactor; break switch contactor, probably a few things I didn't know they exist.
For the moment My first task was to check and prevent the main battery from dying by too deep discharge. All this was given to me because all the system was out of order. So the Li-ion battery SOH was unknown.
I put everything outside the first day and I checked the battery voltage by opening it. I reconnected everything I tried to charge it. This system need a auxiliary 12V battery as almost all EV. I used a lab power supply to put 12V on the auxiliary battery connector. Reconnected all the chassis ground and put 0V on it. Plugged the 230V power outlet. The display powered up and shown an error message. Asking me to set the hand break. I found the connector by guessing (I didn't do the full tear down) and after few check I short it. Tada ! the charge started.
I have few idea for this :
- Make an electrical karting because I got everything except the key ( have to make an immo off)
- Use the battery as 12V supply in a regular combustion engine car. this will allow to reduce the consumption by virtually removing the alternator load. (I think is can still pass and get the technical car inspection)
- Next step (more complicated) is to make the motor assist the regular combustion engine and reduce the torque needed on it. Increasing the reduction of gas consumption. But it will need to replace the alternator of the original car with this one and will probably not get the technical car inspection.
- open to any other ideal...
My background :
I design and create PCB project for client from prototype to small series production. I have solid knowledge in analog and digital electronic, I know a lot of protocol including the CAN BUS and LIN protocol. I have also designed PCB for battery balancing system so I'm experienced in large current design and BMS design.
the next step for me is to get the CAN bus message(s) protocol to make the battery switch on the main contactor (GND of 48V is mixed with GND of 12V on this vehicule) and to make the motor run at a given speed or if the motor i able to retrieve the information at a give torque.
Any help of clue is welcome ! Thanks for reading me.