Clarity Inverter Teardown

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hurricos
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Clarity Inverter Teardown

Post by hurricos »

The ECA1 in the 00-06 Insight shares its L-series transmission bolt pattern with the '18-21 Clarity PHEV and G3 Insight. All other Honda hybrids ever sold in the US with this bolt pattern are mild hybrids.

https://git.laboratoryb.org/hurricos/Cl ... md_sbs.jpg

I've already retrofitted ~8kWh of batteries into my 2001 Insight, so I'm interested in doing a conversion to a full-hybrid.

So, they fit together. What next? A swap. How's that? Well, we need things running on the bench, and before we can do that, we need to drive the inverter on the bench.

https://git.laboratoryb.org/hurricos/Cl ... module.jpg



I've
hurricos
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Re: Clarity Inverter Teardown

Post by hurricos »

I notice the BM60051 does not have an overcurrent protection function; I'm a bit curious what the gate drivers on the Gen2 and Gen3 Prius inverter are, and whether the Prius in those cases relies on the gate drivers for overcurrent protection. I know the bulletproof nature of the HSD was one of the things that made it easy to hack on.

Clarity inverters run about $200, but I don't want to blow up a dozen of them.
hurricos
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Re: Clarity Inverter Teardown

Post by hurricos »

After
- considering my goal for a while,
- listening to a lot of Damien Maguire's videos, esp.
- reviewing some excellent papers by Keihin -- https://git.laboratoryb.org/hurricos/Cl ... s/Inverter

... I've decided not to try and continue reverse-engineering the Clarity or Gen3 Insight PCU, with the goal in mind of creating the gate-drive pulsetrain myself. Problems abound, but they all come down to the simple fact that, if I'm going down the highway at 80mph and my inverter code crashes, my battery voltage -- I'm expecting to use Mudder's excellent LiBCM in my Gen1 Insight with Gen3 Transmission conversion, so 60S NMC -- is low enough that the resulting force-charge would put me in harm's way.

I've decided instead to see if I can retrieve the CAN messages from a working Honda Clarity, on each the EPP_CAN A and F_CAN A buses -- the only two CAN buses directly connected to the PCU -- and see if I can get them working with the Insight transmission and mated Clarity inverter (my understanding is that the transmissions are essentially identical, except for the number of diff splines and the presence of a motor temperature sensor on the Gen3 Insight). I've already shown that the PCUs mate interchangeably.

Anyways, I'm going to create a thread here getting messages off those buses, and seeing if I can get the PCU to turn the transmission with all of them. I prefer taking Damien's advice on this one, particularly given that I've already worked on MITMing CAN devices, and given how hard CAN hacking can be -- -- it seems like the safer option.

Prior deets https://www.insightcentral.net/threads/ ... or.125142/

Perhaps I'll end up using the Insight transmission and talking CAN directly to the gate-driving MCU which I know exists within the Gen3 Insight PCU (though I'm unsure if said MCU handles the generator, VCU and traction motor).
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