openinverter forum

In the final stretch of this now. Kind of rushing it because I want to make a start on the tractor and I have made myself stick to one EV project at a time. The insurance is also running on it now so I need to make the most of that.

The last few weeks have been working on putting all the car bits back together again. Having the car lift was invaluable to drop the front subframe one more time in order to replace the spare tyre compartment. I won't be putting any photos of the car lift wiring up, probably best that stays offline!
There is one more car part left to go on and that is to make up a splash guard on the rear nearside wheel arch. Since that side now has the VCU and inverter controller it's a bit more important to try and keep dry.
Oh and bumpers of course.
Today I added the last module to make up the whole battery and wired in the Tesla BMS slave boards to the cells. Tomorrow's job will probably be wiring the slaves together and to the ghetto SIMP BMS unit I have made up.
After that there is an ever decreasing list of things to do:
Junction box and service fuse
VCU and inverter control install
Charger install and cooling line setup
Bumpers

I am aiming for movement by the end of next weekend.

Love it mate, great to see it coming together.
BTW how are your headlights? I had to replace mine as they had tarnished so badly.

Alibro wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 12:08 am BTW how are your headlights? I had to replace mine as they had tarnished so badly.

I'm not sure actually. I don't think I've ever driven this car at night even before the conversion. It's fine though I had the Defender over winter so I am used to driving by candle light!

LRBen wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 8:26 am

Alibro wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 12:08 am BTW how are your headlights? I had to replace mine as they had tarnished so badly.

I'm not sure actually. I don't think I've ever driven this car at night even before the conversion. It's fine though I had the Defender over winter so I am used to driving by candle light!

LOL, I know what you mean but MGF's were notorious for the silver reflective coating in the headlights dulling so badly they failed MOT.

It spins! Finally got some spinning wheels on a full voltage battery. Had some delay as one of my BMS slave boards was showing some wrong voltages. Luckily Marty helped me out with another board shipped in quick time.



Still a few niggles to work out. For some reason the inverter control board isn't recognising the 12v start signal, so I have gotten past that using CanIO to send the start signal. It also doesn't send out the signal to close the main contactor. I think there might have been some damage from the charging experiments. I can get around that with my VCU as that handles contactor control anyway, I will just have it monitor the battery voltage and HVBUS voltage then close the main contactor when the difference is minimal.

I also need to get SIMP BMS reading the isa shunt, at the moment the is no communication but I haven't had time to look into that any further. My speedo is also not working annoyingly, will have to look into that before getting it on the road.

I plan to get most of that sorted next week, possibly have it driving around the yard by the end of next weekend. Then MOT shortly after that!

Got it driving around the yard!


Also installed the charger/DCDC into the front of the car and bodged up a cooling system for it. Unfortunately I ran into the same FOC tuning issues as others have had when driving. After much thought and research I came to the realisation that it was probably above my head to get into.

So the new plan is to replace the Prius inverter with an Outlander Rear inverter and run it via canbus. While I do this I will also move the Outlander charger/DC-DC to the engine bay, this way I can use the much better cooling loop that is installed there and also use the original fuel filler cap that I had originally planned to use.

Is the rear inverter from the same vehicle as the motor? Or do you have to match them?

LRBen wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:19 pm Got it driving around the yard!

Also installed the charger/DCDC into the front of the car and bodged up a cooling system for it.
PXL_20220806_113827652.jpg

Unfortunately I ran into the same FOC tuning issues as others have had when driving. After much thought and research I came to the realisation that it was probably above my head to get into.

So the new plan is to replace the Prius inverter with an Outlander Rear inverter and run it via canbus. While I do this I will also move the Outlander charger/DC-DC to the engine bay, this way I can use the much better cooling loop that is installed there and also use the original fuel filler cap that I had originally planned to use.

I was struggling to see the charger at first it's so well hidden.
Well done on your first drive.

LRBen wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:19 pmUnfortunately I ran into the same FOC tuning issues as others have had when driving

You're aware of Damien's tutorial on finding the correct offset, yes?

It can be determined experimentally.

I don't think you're limited by power.

I think the Prius will serve you, if you put time into the FOC tuning. Also, then everyone else will know how to do it.

[/quote]

marcexec wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 7:16 am Is the rear inverter from the same vehicle as the motor? Or do you have to match them?

Not from the same motor, research on here suggests they don't need to be matched. I'll know for certain soon enough! Inverter is coming on Monday at the latest.

MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 8:58 am You're aware of Damien's tutorial on finding the correct offset, yes?

It can be determined experimentally.

I don't think you're limited by power.

I think the Prius will serve you, if you put time into the FOC tuning. Also, then everyone else will know how to do it.

I might have phrased it wrong when I talked about tuning. The FOC tuning in terms of Syncoffs was pretty easy. On this motor it was pretty much 0.

The issue is power delivery with FOC. From what I can see on here others have had to do some diving into the firmware past changing parameters on the web interface in order to get decent power and performance from the motor. That is far beyond my abilities and I have another project waiting to get started. Using an Outlander inverter simplifies things somewhat, and will feed into the next project as well.

LRBen wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 3:58 pmThe issue is power delivery with FOC. From what I can see on here others have had to do some diving into the firmware past changing parameters on the web interface in order to get decent power and performance from the motor. That is far beyond my abilities and I have another project waiting to get started.

Ahh, I didn't even know that was a thing, so it's definitely over my head too.

Is this to do with field weakening? Or is this something many others struggle with?

MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: ↑Wed Aug 17, 2022 6:42 pm Ahh, I didn't even know that was a thing, so it's definitely over my head too.

Is this to do with field weakening? Or is this something many others struggle with?

It doesn't look like many people are using FOC motors with OI firmware yet. I haven't read enough about it to properly explain, but enough to know I don't want to dive into it! There seems to be issues with torque at low rpm to start, that's certainly where I am having initial troubles. Then some other issues with high regen coming off the throttle at higher speeds.

I'm sure the right person can overcome these issues. But it's not me. So I'm going to take the easy way out and just write some canbus control code for the Outlander inverter.

I'm in the same boat as you. Just swapped the Outlander front motor out for a rear to get some more power and early tests suggest near zero improvement. OI + Gen 3 inverter don't seem to be able to get the best from these motors at the moment.

I have a rear inverter/MCU so going to get that cleaned up (looks like it was in a fire but fine on the inside and powers up) and sort out a VCU so I can test that.

Made some good progress on the inverter swap. I think I have most of the coding done on my VCU to accommodate the change of inverter. Luckily I was able to repurpose several inputs and outputs so now my VCU reads the throttle and send the correct canbus commands to the inverter(in theory).

Inverter is mounted and subframe is back in the car. Used the mounts I made for the Prius inverter so it's a bit janky, but it works. Even more space than before. Should be quite easy to fit the water heater at a later date. Didn't do it this time around as I want in on the road asap. Next is to install the VCU back into the car and test all the functions again from the ground up. Hopefully get to see some spinning wheels by the end of the weekend.

Finally have wheels spinning the correct direction, with power and no juddering. Many Thanks to Tom91 and Aot93 for helping to eliminate possible issues.

Turns out all three resolver wire pairs in the outlander motor have a correct polarity and an incorrect one. In addition two pairs have very similar resistances. Which makes for some 72 combinations of resolver pinout. I am now very skilled at depinning the resolver connectors to say the least



Just a few little bits to do then it's time to book the MOT.

Making good progress, the inverter and motor combo are quite easy to get working if you use OEM parts.
However you cannot get new connectors, something which I hope to offer a solution for soon.

Hopefully your MOT goes smoothly. It be cool to do some sort of meet up around the Bristol/Bath area of DIY EVs/Open Inverter people.

tom91 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 9:11 pm Making good progress, the inverter and motor combo are quite easy to get working if you use OEM parts.
However you cannot get new connectors, something which I hope to offer a solution for soon.

Hopefully your MOT goes smoothly. It be cool to do some sort of meet up around the Bristol/Bath area of DIY EVs/Open Inverter people.

Your 3d printed connectors with dupont housings work pretty well so far.

A Bristol area meetup would be great. There are a fair few of us in this area.
I have thought about doing a small DIY EV meet in one of the fields at the farm here, bring along projects and drink cider in a field for half a weekend or so. Maybe next summer for that one.

LRBen wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:50 pmTurns out all three resolver wire pairs in the outlander motor have a correct polarity and an incorrect one. In addition two pairs have very similar resistances. Which makes for some 72 combinations of resolver pinout. I am now very skilled at depinning the resolver connectors to say the least

Have you added this to the wiki?

MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 11:47 pm Have you added this to the wiki?

I have now.

Great progress.

Snuck down the lanes last night for a quick test drive at more than farmyard speeds. Super smooth and I'm much more confident with it now.

Did some silliness today in first gear.

LRBen wrote: ↑Sun Sep 18, 2022 4:51 pm Snuck down the lanes last night for a quick test drive at more than farmyard speeds. Super smooth and I'm much more confident with it now.

Did some silliness today in first gear.

Silliness is compulsory in an F.

Brilliant. Looking good! Be really interesting to compare performance of the Outlander inverter side by side with the Gen 3 once I've got it fully tuned and back on the road.

MOT passed and road tax grudgingly paid for. It's on the road! Three years and two months from the first post. Hopefully the tractor is quicker to do!

Congratulations!