[Driving] Freelander EV With Gen1 Leaf electrics now using Zombieverter. [FINISHED]

[marcexec]

I'll probably regret the decision to build it from the most brittle material known to man.... acrylic

Don't, I'm about to rip mine out of the motorbike. I'd probably go with ABS or PVC sheets and pipe cement to make custom boxes.

[Alibro]

Don't, I'm about to rip mine out of the motorbike. I'd probably go with ABS or PVC sheets and pipe cement to make custom boxes.

Too late
I'm deliberately building it so that swapping it out will be relatively easy if I need to but so far it's OK.

I used ABS last time but didn't have any to hand so went with what I had.

[Alibro]

So after a stupid number of hours working on the new improved HV and LV junction boxes and doing a brain transplant by installing a new Zombie VCU I still have a load of work to do but today I finally was able to take it out for a test drive.
This is how it looks under the bonnet now.

If you look carefully you can see the box has already been wrapped in gaffer tape to stop it breaking or falling apart.

The to do list still contains
AC Charger
DC Charger
Heater
Coolant and heater pump control
Tidy the VCU which is lying on the passenger floor connected using umpteen Wago connectors.
Make a lid for the new LV box.
And probably 20 more things I've forgotten about.

I might even remove the smaller 6 way fuse box I thought I needed and only bought a couple of weeks ago. The new VCU is able to control many more aspects of the start up sequence than the old one could so I don't think I will need it. This fuse box is on ignition position one and previously I had several things like the boot battery box contactors turn on when the key was turned.
These are now being controlled by the VCU so this fuse box is just taking up space.

[ianlighting]

might even remove the smaller 6 way fuse box I thought I needed and only bought a couple of weeks ago

I discovered a new law of the universe in my build.

Whenever I tried to be more cost efficient by buying more of the things I anticipated needing in the future, I never ended up using them because plans changed. But whenever I only bought something 1 at a time, with a hefty postage cost overhead, I always needed to go buy another one, so paying postage twice.

Don’t know what you call that law, but I think buying shares in courier companies would be a good idea!

[Alibro]

I'm sure there is a law that applies here but the 50 50 90 law is close.
If you have a 50/50 chance of getting something right, 90% of the time you'll get it wrong.

[Alibro]

Sure enough when I checked what was powered by Ign pos1, everything is now controlled by the Zombie so the small fuse holder is out.
Hopefully I won't get too much stick for this but I plan to reuse the Arduino R4 WiFi. Reasons are I want a simple way to set overnight charging plus send 2hz PWM to the water pumps.
My EVSE is dumb so the car needs to control timed charging and the Bluetooth app I'm using makes this really easy. I've also added the PWM control for the pumps and as far as I know neither of these options is easy with the Zombie
Please tell me if I'm wrong here as reducing the number of Arduino's was one of my goals.

[Alibro]

After several more weeks of work I managed to tick off all the items in the list above and with a final push over the last few days I managed to get Chademo charging working well enough make the journey to the TOG Hackerspace in Dublin. This was for @marcexec annual get together of DIY EV Builders on Sat 16th Aug. My daughter Rachel surprised me the day before by offering to accompany me.

I wasn't working on Friday so spent the entire day sorting out a few last minute minor niggles and a major one that I only discovered after plugging in a BMS that Damien kindly sent me. My previous BMS had expired (or been murdered) just a few weeks ago but I usually saw a maximum cell discrepancy of 30 to 40mV however on Friday I found 2 cells were almost 200mV low. After many hours trickle charging them with a DC power supply I got them back to 80mV low which I figured was good enough for now. I don't understand why they were so low but maybe it is related to getting Regen and fast charging working. Or maybe the old BMS was faulty for a while, who knows, I'll have another go at bringing them into line today.
So we set off at mid day for the two hour (in a normal car) 100 mile journey hoping to arrive between 2:30 and 3 for the 3pm start. I had planned to stop at Castlebellingham services which is about half way for a top up charge as it is close enough to abort and return home should DC charging not work.

Charging enroute using the patented Gregpak 1001 bonnet/hood support

This was when I learned that Chademo chargers can be a little ........ mmmmm ....... iffy.
I tried the charger in the South bound service station nothing happened. Bare in mind this is only the second Chademo charger I have ever used and I had been working on the car the day before so it took a bit of faffing to confirm the issue was probably the charger.
This was now make or break time and we drove to the North bound services for a second attempt which thankfully worked. If it hadn't we probably would have gone home.
So with a mostly full tank we headed on to Dublin arriving at 3:45 and had a great time there meeting up with all the guys. A huge thanks to Marc for organising the event and all the guys in Dublin TOG for their friendly warm welcome.
Had I been on my own I would have stayed for the home made wood burning oven Pizza that was on offer but Rachel had promised to take me out for dinner to the Snailbox restaurant so very much torn, we made our farewells at 7pm and left.

We had a lovely meal at the Snailbox and headed for home, if you're ever in the area give it a try.

The journey home could probably have been done with one charging stop but I was being cautious and went for two. I figured we could do a short stop in Dublin to get us to Castlbellingham (which we now confirmed was working) where another short stop would get us home.
The plan was good but the chargers not so much, the first one in Dublin didn't work so after more faffing around we moved to a second beside it which worked well. My car is charging at 40kW so we stayed there for around 30 minutes leaving the battery approx 3/4 full and left. This was not enough to get home but plenty to reach Castlebellingham to use the services and recharge the battery at a known working charger.
So the charger in Castlebellingham was working right? Wrong! When I plugged it in a message appeared on the screen saying There is a fault!!!!! FFS!!!
A quick look at the Electroverse App (as Zapmap doesn't seem to show some Chademo chargers) and we headed off into Dundalk where there are a few Chademos. Once again the first we tried didn't work but the second did and after another 20 minutes or so we left for home arriving at 20 past midnight.
The total distance was 225 miles, so 23 more than it should have been, partly because of the restaurant stop, partly because of the scheduled charging stop in Dublin but mostly because we had to backtrack twice to find working chargers.
Charging time was around 60 to 70 minutes but we lost another hour because of faulty chargers.

So after our big day out I have a few thoughts.
I take my hat off to anyone who drives a Nissan Leaf, I had scheduled 3 charging stops and the first charger failed to work every time.
The car was brilliant, never missed a beat so I am really pleased with it.
When I first set out to convert the car I made several mistakes but the one thing I got right was the battery capacity. It may have caused a few headaches fitting so many modules but having a 100 mile/160km range makes the car viable for daily use and now I have DC charging it is also viable (with caveats) for road trips.

[marcexec]

Thanks for making the trip mate!
Huge thanks to Rachel and you and it was a pleasure to meet in person.

[Alibro]

So after the last road trip went okay ish of course I'm going to go for a bigger road trip.
This time to North Devon to meet up with some Landrover Freelander owners from Landyzone.
So far so good.
I stopped at Castlebellingham services and the charger that didn't work last time I drove to Dublin worked a treat. I spent longer talking to people about the conversion than charging.
Now sitting at Dublin Ferry port service station for a quick topup before boarding the Ferry to Wales.

[Jacobsmess]

Good luck on the trip and keep us updated!

[Alibro]

Good luck on the trip and keep us updated!

Thanks mate

[Alibro]

So with a full battery I set off around 6pm yesterday with a plan to stop at Billy Jeans Cafe near Holywell, about 70 miles from the ferry. It has loads of chargers in the cafe carpark and the charging session went without a hitch.
Next stop was half way between the Cafe and the travelodge at a McDonald's. At first I thought it wasn't going to work but after a couple of minutes it started charging. The battery had warmed up by now to 33 or 34C so set the charge current to 50A and went in for a burger. I know 34C is fine but I wanted to make sure it didn't rise any further and I didn't need a full charge to reach the hotel anyway.
Today I have another 150 miles so will be setting off shortly.

[Alibro]

I didn't like to mention it on Sat as I hadn't fully figured out what was happening but after the second charging stop I noticed a strange smell from the boot. Initially I feared it was the batteries overheating with all the stuff in the boot but the temps were only at 30C so I moved everything onto the back seat and lifted the boot battery box lid. Thankfully I had brought my thermal camera so was able check and the batteries were fine but two cables going to a contactor had got very hot. When I pointed the camera at it I could see the contactor was over 100C!
I was a tad confused as to why and I wasn't able to sort it at the time so propped open the battery box lid, let it cool for a while then drove very gently to the hotel. The next day I was driving to the meetup so I took it easy and charged at a lower current making sure the contactor didn't get as hot as it had been. When I arrived I reversed into a garage to have a proper look and we decided it was the contactor and not the cable crimps as I first feared, the entire contactor was sitting at 70C.
The contactor was on the negative side of the battery pack so I was comfortable to do without it and moved the two cables onto a single terminal. Just to be certain I gave the crimps a squish with a big pair of mole grips but I don't think this did anything. Removing the contactor is probably not ideal but OK as a temporary fix and after that there were no further issues.

So the charging stops were as below.

Friday
Castlebellingham half way to Dublin
Dublin port
Billy Jeans Cafe Holywell
I can't remember where the next stop was but it was a McDonalds near Oswestry
Final destination for Friday was a Travelodge in Hartlebury but no charging here.

Saturday
A car park in Worcestor
McDonalds near Bristol
Services near Taunton
The Landyzone meetup but no charging here
Services near Taunton
McDonalds near Bristol
Back to the Travelodge in Hartlebury

Sunday
Sainsbury in Kiddeminster
Travelodge Wrexham
Services near Bangor
Final top up before Ferry in Holyhead
And the last charging stop of the trip was a 15 minute splash and dash in Castlebellingham

So in Total I drove 860 miles and made 14 Chademo charging stops.
I found one charger that was vandalised but this was the only planned stop that failed.
I hadn't planned to stop at a Gridserve but spotted one and thought I'd give it a try. I don't know why but I tried two chargers and they didn't work. They looked like they were going to but failed to communicate.
All of the others worked great and if I hadn't had to lower the charge current for the batteries I could have knocked an hour or more off each day.
So the whole thing was a crazy adventure, kinda stressful, great fun, a huge achievement but never to be repeated.

I haven't worked out the miles per kWh exactly but I think it's a little under 3 when driving 55 to 60mph with usual 12V lights, wipers etc and a little heat in the evenings. For a car with the aerodynamics of a brick I don't think that's too bad.

[Alibro]

As mentioned earlier I had planned to reinstated the Arduino Uno R4 WiFi to control ac charging and today I got it working reliably (hopefully).
The Zombie has a timer built in but it doesn't keep great time and it's a bit awkward having to dig out the laptop every time I want to make changes so having a BT connection is handy. This is the output on the phone.

This was taken with the Charger plug pushed in but not charging and I was just about to set the start and stop times for overnight charging.
I also use this Uno to control the pumping speed of the Coolant and heater pumps so it has a dual purpose.
To change the pump speed I type "setpump coolant 75" or "setpump heater 55" or whatever.

The Uno is connected to a 4 x relay module and a RTC module.
I have a voltage divider circuit (Jamie sent me details of it) which powers the Uno R4 when the Type one plug is inserted.
When the Uno powers up it sits and waits until either I push a button or the timer initiates charging.
I have a 5V circuit connected to the PP input of the Zombie through the NC side of one relay so when the Uno relay activates it triggers the Zombie to go into charging mode.

Here it is built into an old PSU brick case.

I used a cheap Buck converter but put a couple of filters and a TVS Diode just like in this video.
BTW if anyone thinks doing it this way is dodgy please say and I'll make changes.
The Zombie is still controlling everything, this is just telling when to start and stop.

[jrbe]

I have a good R4 cape layout I could share for the R4 WiFi if you want to do a PC board in KiCad.
I also could share an R4 can bus reference and an untested pump pwm circuit if you or anyone wants it.

[Alibro]

I thought I had already posted this here a few weeks ago but must have forgotten. Anyway this is from before my road trip.


In preparation for the big road trip to North Devon I spent most of yesterday sorting out a Voltage, Current and Power display to make it easier to see the state of charge. It's kinda critical to know what the pack voltage is to avoid running out of electrons and the WiFi display can be a bit flaky.
I hope to make something a bit more professional in the future but for now I came up with this.

This photo was taken as the pack was being charged and just a few seconds before the charging stopped.

I cut a hole in an old PSU case with a dremel to hold the LCD display and used another Arduino to drive it. :rolleyes:
I didn't have a lot of time to mount it nicely so gaffer tape and Bluetac will have to do.
The round thing on the air vent is a magnetic mount for my phone but I had to use a small screw to stop it rotating down all the time. All of this is easily reversible when I sort out a nicer display but as a quick and dirty job I'm happy.
It is controlled by an Arduino R4 WiFi that is getting CAN from the ISA Shunt. It also sends the info via BT to my phone.
If anyone is interested in code for this or the charge controller here it is.

All usual "I'm not responsible if you burn your car down" caveats apply.

IVT_Voltage_and_Current_on_LCD_Display_and_BT_01.ino.ino

(4.52 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

Uno_R4_BT_RTC_4_Relays_Charge_Pump_Control_Ver_3.1.ino.ino

(22.14 KiB) Downloaded 7 times

[Alibro]

I have a good R4 cape layout I could share for the R4 WiFi if you want to do a PC board in KiCad.
I also could share an R4 can bus reference and an untested pump pwm circuit if you or anyone wants it.

I've never used Kicad and probably never will. My brain doesn't cope well with CAD unless it's the cardboard version.

The PWM portion of the charge control code above works well with Leaf/Tesla pumps