[WIP] Volvo V50 upgrading to Brain board

[johu]

Great job
Too bad all the original components were lemons but at least now it's proven stuff

[JanJouke]

By now I am sometimes using the Volvo. It drives very good. But the battery is a big concern. I hope to have a other battery soon, so I can start on getting a good battery in the car. Meanwhile I have got the Zombieverter Display completely functional.

[Tomas]

Which battery are you going to use?

[JanJouke]

I want to put a 42 kwh fiat 500E battery in. But it is a problem to get one. The BMS is a Blue bms from WDR Automatisering. That is delivered already. The big advantage I see from the fiat 500E modules is that they have cooling on the modules. So the cooling and heating should be not to hard to get working.

[arber333]

I want to put a 42 kwh fiat 500E battery in. But it is a problem to get one. The BMS is a Blue bms from WDR Automatisering. That is delivered already. The big advantage I see from the fiat 500E modules is that they have cooling on the modules. So the cooling and heating should be not to hard to get working.

Fiat 500e
https://rrr.lt/en/used-part/abb180634-0 ... xact_match

Fiat 600
https://rrr.lt/en/used-part/pll599624-9 ... xact_match

[Tomas]

There's a few of them in Sweden and Norway also

https://www.bildelsbasen.se/sv-se/pb/S% ... nning/Alla

[JanJouke]

Thanks for the tips on the battery's. I have a good as new 42 kwh fiat 500e battery. The teardown is in progress, it is a very nice battery they made.

In the meanwhile I have been working on the 12 volt system. The battery kept draining. This was caused by the leaf stack. The stack is connected as given in the wiring diagram, but it would not go to sleep I guess. So I made a system to power the Zombie and leafstack of when not in use and power on when the door is unlocked. The lead-acid battery was broken by the regular deep discharge. So I replaced it with an LTO battery. The BMS should protect it against deep discharge and LTO should be robust.

[tom91]

What generation of Nissan Leaf stack do you have? Possibly the "Master" Branch does not have all the correct fixes in place to allow sleeping of the leaf stack. Also what version of the Zombie Firmware are you on?

It should allow sleeping of the stack as intended and have minimal current draw. Various others with various generation of Nissan Leaf stacks have tested this.

Keep in mind the Zombieverter board itself has "quite" a bit of drain of around 50-70mA when the rest of the car is off.

[tom91]

Best would be for you to share CAN bus logs containing: 1 HV system on, 2 Key off, 3 capture for a minute after key off.

[JanJouke]

I have an 2022 110Kw leaf stack (gen 3?), the zombieverter runs on standard firmware, version 2.30A.
I added 3 can logs, during HV on, while turning the key off and from key off until 1 minute after. While HV is on there are about 800 frames per second and aboyt 20 seconds after key off it drops to about 80 frames per second (and this stays like this). Let me know if these logs are not usefull, than I will make others. But in the coming days I will remove the HV battery because I am working on the new HV battery.
The wiring will be checked completely (again) when the Volvo is added to the Zombie.

When the bms is added the drain will be about 0,16A (if the zombie and motor go to sleep and use about 70ma), so the battery will be empty in about 8-10 days with the current battery. That is still a bit fast.

[arber333]

.....
The battery kept draining. This was caused by the leaf stack. The stack is connected as given in the wiring diagram, but it would not go to sleep I guess. So I made a system to power the Zombie and leafstack of when not in use and power on when the door is unlocked. The lead-acid battery was broken by the regular deep discharge. So I replaced it with an LTO battery. The BMS should protect it against deep discharge and LTO should be robust.

I would recommend you use a latched pair of relays or one DPDT relay to provide power to zombie only when TWO conditions are fulfiled. One condition may be 12V supply from key lock and another signal could be 12V pulse from body control computer using brake pedal. BCM usually wakes up when you unlock the car to supply the brake pedal with power. You can take this supply to provide power from one side of relay. Now you need a signal from another side. This is normaly a signal that you can remove to switch relay off. Like ignition key lock or start button. This would put relay into latching mode and it will hold power until you remove 12V from key contact...
I would not just trust the body control module with 12V, hence latching relay...

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q ... hing-relay

[Bigpie]

I've added some.code that allows a configurable option to monitor the 12v battery voltage and if it drops below a setpoint it wakes up the HV and dcdc for the configured amount of time to prevent the battery going flat.

Hopefully this can make it in to a future zombie release, but I'd have to check if it's a feature the maintainers want in there, as obviously there's implications that if people aren't properly isolating and disabling the HV before working on their cars, there's a chance it could wake up.

[JanJouke]

It is an interesting option, but I see the potential risks. Some reminder stickers will be needed.
I saw that I was running the Zombieverter on version 2.22A while making the can logs. I updated to 2.30A and after a few minutes the draw is still around 1 amp.

[tom91]

What is on your CAN network with the Nissan PDM and Inverter?

Seems for some reason the Zombie sends CAN sleep but does not exactly do so itself. Will review this as I had it working on the bench and seen it work for others. Reviewed logs more closely Zombie does stop sending CAN after sending the stop CAN comms.

Have you wired it as per diagram with the Zombie controlling some of the 12V power via a relay? There is also a possibility there are errors with the PDM or Inverter and they are keeping each other awake. Not looked at how to tell them to ignore errors and sleep anyway.

[JanJouke]

Thanks for looking at it.
The only things on this CAN bus are the Zombieverter, leaf stack and the isa shunt.
When I disconnect the ISA shunt the draw drops from about 1 amp to 0,4-0,6A (on the 12V bms, don't know how accurate this is). I have the Zombieverter display on the other CAN bus, when I disconnect this one also the draw goes to 0,2-0,4A.
This was checked without activating the HV (battery is removed).
The wiring is connected conform the wiring diagram (including the relay). I saw in the current version that the ISA shunt is removed. I have one connector from the stack so I checked the pinouts with some info from the gen 3 crosschecked with the older version. The wiring will be checked again when the Volvo is added to the zombieverter.
I had sometimes (with the car days on a 12V battery charger) that the leaf stack was not reacting to the zombieverter (no faults on the Zombie). When I disconnected the the connector to the Leaf stack and reconnected it, it worked. This was before I powerd the systems down. It looked like there was a fault in the Leaf Stack.

I just checked the 12V to the PDM and inverter. The constant 12V is present on the PDM but on the inverter there is only 0,9V (maybe damage in the wiring loom?) and the 12V via the relay is not present (with ignition off or T15 on). Checked with the current schematics.

[JanJouke]

The last weeks have I been working on the new battery. First step was to teardown the 42 kwh Fiat 500E battery.

The work on the new battery boxes is getting started. I want to use the original box, modified to 3 12S modules, just in front of the rear axle. I made a model so I know it will just fit. The other modules go from above the rear axle to about 30/40 cm from the rear bumper (as was in the original conversion).
It looks like the biggest challenge is to get the coolant connected to the modules. Does anybody know how I can modify the original coolant hoses? Or how I can get parts to make new connections to the modules?

[MArp]

Thanks!
Very informative video. I have also made same battery teardown and have bought same BMS, which I now saw first time working with that battery (all modules) !!! Very good !!! I am also working with building new battery boxes trying to locate those modules into my Saab 96 1979. Main problem is weight of modules (240 kg + etc. I need to make the car lighter (have 4 glassfiber fenders, should create hood, rear lid, bumpers with carbon fibre) or use only 4 big modules a'30 kg and 2 small modules a'20 kg which is together 16o kg. But then my battery capacity will be about 30 kwh. I have 144 V motor and Curtis 1239e controller in the car with shafts connected preliminary.

[JanJouke]

Hi MaArp,
Are you going to use the liquid cooling on the modules? I am trying to figure out the parts I need to connect the hoses. For now I think I need to make connectors myself and reuse as much from the original parts as possible. Suggestions on how to do this and where parts are available are appreciated.

I am also going to connect a bmw Lim for CCS charging. Does anybody know where to put the ccs contactors? In the lim wiki they are between the ccs port and main contactors, and on the general Zombie wiring they are between the battery and main contactors.

[tom91]

am also going to connect a bmw Lim for CCS charging. Does anybody know where to put the ccs contactors? In the lim wiki they are between the ccs port and main contactors, and on the general Zombie wiring they are between the battery and main contactors.

Put them where ever your architecture allow from a saftey and packaging point of view.

The CCS port contactors will need a fuse before them with the appropriate current limit for the cabling and contactors. If you can fit this within your HV Battery enclosure you can have this straight to battery. If not, this goes on the HV bus in a junction box after the battery contactors.

[MArp]

Sorry, liquid cooling is a problem ahead for me. My Think City motor has liquid cooling. First I am working to locate the modules (battery boxes). In my battery pack original pipes and joints are mostly useful, only 1 cracked when uninstalling pipes from modules. Also the connections to the car from battery pack were broken, when I received the pack. In my project four big battery modules go to the trunk, two small may fit under the back seat and 2 big and 1 small to the engine room,,,,, if the weight issue is solved. I need to create cooling pipe network through the whole car, so building/buying pipes and hoses is a big question for me , too.