Zombieverter as CAN bridge

[nickyivyca]

I have a Via Vtrux, it is a Chevrolet Silverado that has been converted to a series hybrid, replacing the transmission with 2 electric motors, retaining the original gas engine as the generator, and adding 24kWh LFP battery, DCDC, bidirectional charger/export power, and HV AC compressor and PTC heater. It works pretty well given its limitations, but in order to get it to pass smog I had to temporarily modify the wiring and use a laptop running a Python script as a CAN bridge to modify a CAN message from the hybrid controller to backdrive the engine with the generator motor to get it to complete the engine's smog monitor cycles. (Details here for the curious)

I was thinking for the next time I have to do this I'd like to do it with something that is more permanently installed rather than a laptop running a Python script with wires going into the engine bay, and I was thinking the Zombieverter would be a good candidate for this, I could use 2 of its CAN ports to bridge the EV can bus to do the same modification I did before, and then I could use the third to tap onto one of the original GM CAN busses to be able to get more information about vehicle states, such as speed, shift position, etc. I could also give instructions to other Vtrux owners - get a Zombieverter, make these wire harness modifications, and load my custom software and you're good to go.

Would the Zombieverter be good in this role? There's a decent amount of CAN traffic it would have to retransmit. I'm not afraid of having to redo a lot of the Zombieverter's software, I figure its normal software load is not written to be a CAN bridge and I would need to bring in the logic from my original Python script.

[tom91]

Hardware of zombie is capable.

You would need to write full custom code to implement this. I think the Open Inverter can library would struggle with such a role.

[Mitchy]

You may find the Teensy to be a more fitting processor for a bridge/router, Hard to ignore the horsepower of that chip. Plus there are a ton of Can Libraries to leverage.

For a more official device, the https://www.mrs-electronics.com/product ... way-module seems interesting as well.

I agree with Tom, Unless you need/want the OI web interface, some of the limitations of OI get frustrating.
That said, I'm simulating ECU and Gearbox signals with the zombieverter, and the hardware doesn't seem to have much issue pushing a decent msg/sec rate.