I bought a Chevy Volt Gen1 DC-DC Converter - Now What? Topic is solved

[mjc506]

Ahhh bugger. Amazon? Or get hold of an Arduino Due?

[Gregski]

Ahhh bugger. Amazon? Or get hold of an Arduino Due?

yup, I got an Arduino Due and SaavyCAN works fine on that, I am trying to get it working on Teensy to show folks how it works on there type of thing, plus I like pain

[mjc506]

Ah, good to have a working system to compare against

Just a thought, have you got Teensyduino installed? (The Arduino IDE that's been "teensyfied")

[Gregski]

Ah, good to have a working system to compare against

this is actually worthy of a discussion or comment, I feel like to really make it headache free you need a dedicated computer or laptop just to a platform because all these microcontroller boards and Arduino sketches totally conflict with one another, I am constantly pulling this library out and putting this one in when going between Damien Maguire's Lexus GS450h VCU (which I luv by the way) and my UNO to talk to my ISA current shunt, to the DUE for CAN Busing and the Teensy for SimpBMSing, anyone else experienced this? I think I saw Damien with multiple laptops in a couple of his videos.

Just a thought, have you got Teensyduino installed? (The Arduino IDE that's been "teensyfied")

yes and got it working with Tom de Bree's SimpBMS

[arber333]

DOH! I will have to learn all the new systems now!!!

[mjc506]

Things do seem to be more stable on Linux, but that's another thing to learn, so... I would have expected everything to play nicely though, just have to change the 'board' each time you swap projects. But yes, library conflicts can be a pain. Although, once you've got each board programmed, they should just talk over serial (ie, you don't need to even have the Arduino IDE open to use Savvycan, and Arduino set to compile for a Due will happily talk to an Uno over the serial monitor for example. Or you could even use another Serial terminal. Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs...

[Gregski]

so I've been beating up on the Chevy Volt first gen DC-DC converter in a companion thread called: I think I CAN, I think I CAN... but I want to share some highlights in here as well from what I learned

first here is how to check the polarity ie figure out which wire is positive which one is negative

no light so polarity is correct

[Gregski]

and here is something I learned, GM crossed the wires in the intermediate cable running from the converter to the battery pack

[Gregski]

here's a close up

[Roadstercycle]

Hi Guys,
Been a bit since I've been here. I've been using the Chevy volt Gen 1 DC-DC converter on 3 of my builds. I use a Teensey and 1 line of code to run them. Very simple. Here's the code. I believe I set it to 14.0 volts. I'm on vacation so I can't verify at the moment. The charger is hooked up all the time with no relay, I just turn power on to the teensey and the DC-DC with ignition or when the J1772 is plugged in to run water pump and cooling fan.

Happy Charging!


#include <FlexCAN_T4.h>


const int ledPin = 13;

FlexCAN_T4<CAN1, RX_SIZE_256, TX_SIZE_16> Can1;


void setup() {
// put your setup code here, to run once:
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);

Can1.begin();
Can1.setBaudRate(500*1000);

}

void loop() {
Can1.events();
static uint32_t t = millis();
if ( millis() -t > 4 ) {
CAN_message_t frame;
frame.id = 0x1D4;
frame.len = 2;
frame.buf[0] = 0xA0;
frame.buf[1] = 0xB1;
Can1.write(frame);




t = millis(); // reset 5 second counter
}

if ( millis() -t > 4 ) {

Serial.print("CAN1 ");
Serial.print(" ID: 0x");
}



digitalWrite(ledPin, !digitalRead(ledPin));

}

[Gregski]

well it's been forever and a day since I played with this stuff, but I am finally ready to hook up the DC DC converter on my truck and was wondering if anyone has gotten it to work with a Teensy in a real world example, and since so much time has passed did they ever come out with a Teensy with a built in CAN Bus transceiver on it for compactability

and I know I have been out of the Teesnyduino game for a minute, but tell me this is wrong and they just forgot a decimal

[Zieg]

Has anyone had issues with the output from these things fluctuating? I have the later version of the gen 1 and noticed the other day that my headlights and tail lights are flickering while it's running. No flicker when they're just running off the 12v battery. Wondering if mine is defective and I should go search for another, or maybe slap a big capacitor on the output and hope for the best?

Also if it has gone bad, I wonder why. I have it mounted in my transmission tunnel so it does see airflow from the bottom of the car, but probably not a ton, and not necessarily over the fins. Might be prudent to build a little scoop and duct some air to it..