openinverter forum

Hello forum, my first post.

Have anyone had any luck with this board in a Gen 1 inverter?

Johannes: Do you plan on making one for the Gen 1?

If you are interested in help to try out the board in a working car please tell me because I have a VW Beetle with everything working but with a different replacement card right now. I'm looking for a card that's working with Field-weakening and active development

The car at a big exhibition this Eastern here in Sweden.

Nice!
Well if you can help out with pin mappings etc. it should be quite easy to make a replacement card. I will publish the Gen2 files, they are done in a program called FreePCB. Maybe you can even make a design yourself. The adapter boards only route the various signals to the headers. All the logic stuff is handled on the V3 board: https://openinverter.org/shop/index.php ... duct_id=58

I have a Gen1 inverter so might be able to assist.

johu wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2019 6:47 pm Nice!
Well if you can help out with pin mappings etc. it should be quite easy to make a replacement card. I will publish the Gen2 files, they are done in a program called FreePCB. Maybe you can even make a design yourself. The adapter boards only route the various signals to the headers. All the logic stuff is handled on the V3 board: https://openinverter.org/shop/index.php ... duct_id=58

I'll see what I can come up to regarding the pin out of the Gen 1 board and send it to you

I've released the design file for the Leaf Gen2 adapter board: https://github.com/jsphuebner/inverter- ... dapter.fpc
It is made with FreeePCB: https://www.freepcb.com/
If anyone feels like porting it to a more standard tool (that also shows a schematic), please do. Maybe it also helps doing other adapter boards like the Gen1 Leaf.

It'd be nice if everyone in the OSHW world could standardise on something like KiCad (my favourite). Huge bonus is that it runs on any OS.

Even Dave Jones likes it:


I know it can be a pain to re-learn something, but I've looked at Designspark (which I believe Damian uses, as does Paul Holmes) and it's horrible in comparison. I started using Eagle, but needed to do some 4 layer boards which free-version Eagle didn't support, which is why I switched. It's well worth a look at least.

Well freePCB runs under wine.

Looking at IC1 which I'm assuming is something like this http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1498981.pdf pin14 which should be Vcc isn't connected? TI Sn74f00 also shows pin14 as Vcc.

Yes it's connected to the top copper pour. Likewise pin7 to bottom copper. It's only denoted by a little cross

Thanks - got more of a handle on it now

OK I've got a schematic, could you confirm the values of r1 and r9? There are no units in the fpc file.

Nice, where is it?
R1=120R
R10=1k2

I've attached a pdf. It's not beautifully laid out I'm afraid. The pin numbering on the leaf connector (CN001) on the fpc was a major pain. I'd recommend having a check over it to make sure I've not cocked anything up.

I still need to do the pcb layout. When that's done I'll zip up the KiCad project for you to do with what you will.

Still tinkering with the schematic.

Board outline ,all connector positions and mechanical holes are from the gerbers I generated from the other tool and imported into KiCad. Holes are sized for m3 and m5 fasteners.

Beauty That should be a good base for creating other adapter boards.
Are you sure the screw holes for the connector are correct? I think one is missing and the others look out of place.
EDIT: yes there must be one between the two pin groups
EDIT2: on the original design I tried to minimize connections on the bottom layer to make the ground plane as solid as possible, maybe you should consider that.

Good spot on that hole, I'd completely missed it. There's not much on the back, I've re-routed one track. None of the mechanical mounts are connected to ground, but I could change that?

I think on the original board the top right hole (front view) might be grounded.

Cool. I've connected it to ground. I wasn't sure on the original as it appears to be just a drill with a cutout in the 5V plane. Ground connections go out through the various external connectors too - but you already know that .

I've attached a zip of the kicad project. If you open the project in kicad it'll ask you if you want to recover the schematic/pcb layout when you open the relevant editors. Say yes. I've tested that this works in a different OS VM.

I might setup a github to host it and the various footprints (including the proprietary leaf connector) if I have the time and/or inclination.

Edit: re-uploaded the zipped file including generated gerbers and with zero-length tracks removed.

Now I have an original board in front of me I can tell that some of the mechanical mountings are a fraction out so I'm going to redo the proprietary connector footprint to get it more accurate.

I've gotten round to creating a git repo. https://github.com/doobedoobedo

The connector footprints are there along with the adapter board itself. I've done two different layouts - one through hole as per Johannes and a surface mount one using 0603 passives. I've ordered a couple of the surface mount ones and have already got a couple of through hole ones which lead to a little more tweaking of some of the mechanical mounting holes.

Just gotten around to look at this, very cool.
Unfortunately the KiCAD version that comes with Ubuntu is too old and it doesn't load. Gotta change to another Distro, I frequently run into really outdated software

Really? I'm on ubuntu

I think I might be using kicad's own repository: http://kicad-pcb.org/download/ubuntu/

Yes, I had version 4.something

Not wishing to go off topic but the problem for me in switching pcb cad is I have nearly 20 years worth of components defined in designspark. I would love to move to kicad as it would be the final nail in the coffin for needing dual boot windows / linux.

Back on topic I'll be putting power to my gen 1 system in the e46 touring today so nearly ready for a a board:)