[Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Tell us about the project you do with the open inverter
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Re: MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Alibro »

Well done mate, now you'll have to get us some video footage to prove it. :D
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Re: MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Pete9008 »

Congratulations!

Looking forward to hearing what kind of performance you get out of the Outlander rear motor.
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Re: MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by LRBen »

So been driving this since September. Probably covered around 3,000 miles with no huge issues. Motor performance is really good, I just put it in second gear and treat it like an auto. I added a tiny bit of regen via the brake lights, feels a bit like engine braking so I can siphon off a little energy down hills if I want too.

Had a few niggles mostly to do with my rushed wiring and then also with my soldering of the cell taps on the tesla boards. Gone through about 6 slave boards, but now I use dupont connectors for the replacement boards that issues has gone away.
The other issues I have been having is with the kokam cells and the placement of the battery box in the cabin. A month or so ago I replaced a couple cells that had burst. Then on saturday I left the car all day at home in the sun, no windows down etc and it seems to have cooked the batteries a little bit. Smells like another burst cell, although capacity seems unaffected so far.

So that has brought on my decision to put it back on the ramps for a bit of an upgrade/reworking. The insurance runs out in two weeks so it seems an ideal time to pull it off the road for a little bit without having to rush worrying about insurance ticking away.

There are a number of things I plan to do:
  • Zombieverter: I was going to do a redesign of my VCU to fix some of the beginner mistakes I made. However it quickly started to look like a paired down clone of Zombie. So I might as well switch over properly. It also has native support for the rest of the work planned
  • BMW Hybrid batteries: I'm going to swap the batteries out for a 12kWh BMW hybrid pack. They should be smaller, which I, am hoping will mean I can get my passenger seat back. Either placing them in the engine bay, fuel tank area or front tyre compartment, or a combination of some kind. It should still give me the range for the driving that I do. Currently I don't use any more than 8kWh on any one trip.
    The kokam battery pack can then be used as a test battery pack for the tractor. BMW S box also frees up my contactor box for test bench purposes.
  • QoL upgrades:
    I would like to swap out my pedal input, currently using the TPS from the original ICE air intake, which is not amazing from a smoothness or safety perspective, as they are a single pot sensor and are known to fail open.
    Might look at cabin heating.
    I would like to redo the coolant loop.
    Wiring Clean up
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Re: [Driving/WIP] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by LRBen »

Upgrades are pretty much done now. BMW hybrid battery sitting nicely in the front subframe, freeing up space in the cabin for a passenger seat yet again.

Zombieverter is in running everything, had to make a few additions to the charger module to run stand alone but it's working great now. I'll submit those changes to the main Zombie release once I've had a chance to test it a few times.

Didn't end up making much in the way of QoL upgrades, wiring is still a mess, still no heating, still using the original throttle sensor for now. But I did redo the coolant loop which has made a noticeable difference to charging temperatures at least.

Just need to pump up the suspension and then it's road worthy. MOT booked for the 18th November which gives me some time to tidy it up a bit.
Here is it looking a bit dirty again after four months in the barn.
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Re: [Driving/WIP] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Alibro »

Good luck with the MOT.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by LRBen »

MOT passed, back on the road again! I'll try and get some video of it driving soon.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Alibro »

LRBen wrote: Sat Nov 18, 2023 12:07 pm MOT passed, back on the road again! I'll try and get some video of it driving soon.
Sweet! :D
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Aragorn »

I'm intrigued with the performance that this motor can provide, do you have any performance data? 0-60 time?

What sort of battery power does it pull when at full send?
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by LRBen »

Aragorn wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2023 11:14 am I'm intrigued with the performance that this motor can provide, do you have any performance data? 0-60 time?

What sort of battery power does it pull when at full send?
Just had a couple of goes. But I think the phone gps is a bit laggy, got pretty much bang on 11 seconds according to Torque pro.

In terms of battery draw, it seemed to pull a max of 225 amps from the BMW hybrid pack.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Aragorn »

Useful data, thanks. Comes a little way short of what i was hoping for given the "paper" specs.

The factory figures for a 1.6 MGF are ~9 seconds to 60. The outlander motor on paper at least has more torque at 195nm vs 145nm for the 1.6L engine.

Peak current of 225A at say 350v suggests a peak of around 80kw (again about the same as the 1.6L).

Its a little surprising that theres such a difference, the car cant be that much heavier i wouldnt have thought?

I wonder if the factory outlander inverter is limiting things here, perhaps not allowing full torque or otherwise restricting output?
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by marcexec »

LRBen wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2023 9:21 pm Just had a couple of goes. But I think the phone gps is a bit laggy, got pretty much bang on 11 seconds according to Torque pro.

In terms of battery draw, it seemed to pull a max of 225 amps from the BMW hybrid pack.
Awesome! I'd love to see a video of this. Gen 1 Leaf does 0-60 in 11 seconds, also with 80kW but higher reduction...
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by arber333 »

marcexec wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 10:09 am Awesome! I'd love to see a video of this. Gen 1 Leaf does 0-60 in 11 seconds, also with 80kW but higher reduction...
On a Leaf motor EM61 and Volt inverter 115kW my Pug consistently manage 8s 0 to 100km/h.
I would think the factor would be current ramp reaction as well.
Gearing is 8:1 so similar to outlander rear gearbox 7:1, as you would use 2nd gear all the time.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by LRBen »

Aragorn wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 9:56 am Useful data, thanks. Comes a little way short of what i was hoping for given the "paper" specs.

The factory figures for a 1.6 MGF are ~9 seconds to 60. The outlander motor on paper at least has more torque at 195nm vs 145nm for the 1.6L engine.

Peak current of 225A at say 350v suggests a peak of around 80kw (again about the same as the 1.6L).

Its a little surprising that theres such a difference, the car cant be that much heavier i wouldnt have thought?

I wonder if the factory outlander inverter is limiting things here, perhaps not allowing full torque or otherwise restricting output?
I think it is faster, the speed on the phone doesn't update all that fast. It was also not ideal conditions.

In terms of torque I think there may be some acceleration limiting happening when you pull away, you can really feel the torque pick up once you are moving.

It may also not be requesting maximum torque. I think I can log that data as well in the future.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Aragorn »

Good to know, most cellphone GPS units are only 1hz polling so not the best for that sort of stuff.

I have a SkyRC GSM020 which has a high refresh rate GPS chip and uses GNSS for additional accuracy. Quite a nice little unit for £45ish.

I guess you could also try logging on the Zombieverter?
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by tom91 »

Best to dump info on the CAN like speed, voltage, amps, and pedal positon then grab a CAN log. The outlander inverter already dumps alot of this on the CAN at a high frequency.

Almost got my Mini R56 with outlander rear motor driving so can also start looking at improvements for its control.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by LRBen »

Learnt a lesson in water proofing today.
Driving to work I noticed a slight cut out of power as I pulled onto the first fast road of my commute. Thought it was a maybe some issues with the throttle. A few more miles and it got allot worse, I checked throttle values in the web interface and it all seemed fine. Ran through amp and voltage min levels just in case those had changed for some reason.
Eventually realised my water pump was not pumping, checked the wiring as best as I could without a multimeter but it seemed ok. The pump was very hot so I figured it had failed, it was a cheapy pump anyway.

Manged to get 20 out of the 28 miles to work then had to get trailered the rest of the way. On hills it would cut out, after a few seconds I could move again a few feet before it cut out again. There were allot of quite fast hills in the remaining 8 miles so I had to throw the towel in.

Values in zombie for inverter and motor temperatures were well under the cut off values set, however I do have a resistor in place of one of the motor sensors and zombie takes an average of the two. So I expect I was hitting an internal cut off temperature and it was the inverter that was derating me.

Once I got to work I removed the pump to find water ingress in the connector. Which is where my issue lay. Replaced the pump with a Bosch pump and made sure this time to add lots of silicone around the connector and wires.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Alibro »

Bummer mate but at least you found it. ;)
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by FFMan »

those pumps are poor i found - i've had 2 fail. My spare in a roadside emergency is to pinch the one from the cabin heater loop.

You're running a similar setup to me Phev rear, phev inverter, BMW battery pack. I initially ran the Prius inverter with openinverter board, but switched to oem invert and home made vcu and its deffo quicker. Have yet to time 0-60. In first gear mine is proper quick. In second gear (which is my default) it feels like 11 sec 0-60. You can see my project E46 + prius + phev in projects section. For regen i put another brake light switch in and this activates on the lightest touch of the pedal before the mechanical brakes come in. I have different regen values depending what gear it is in.

i think the phev setup is a good combo for non-super car performance.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by LRBen »

FFMan wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:45 pm those pumps are poor i found - i've had 2 fail. My spare in a roadside emergency is to pinch the one from the cabin heater loop.
The Bosch pumps? I've always thought they were quite decent.

Had another little issue with water ingress today. Throttle died on the way to work, noticed in the web interface it was showing fwd and rev as both on. Switch the direction to default forward and I was away again, albeit with no reverse.

Looks like the engine bay where zombie is gets rather wet with water coming up from the tyres. That side of the engine bay has no splash guard and after a long drive in the rain it is soaking in there. I was always planning to make a splash guard, so I guess this weekend is when I actually get around to it. I think I'll also go through all the connectors with some silicone while I'm in there.
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Re: [Driving] MG F - Outlander Rear motor and inverter.

Post by Alibro »

LRBen wrote: Wed Feb 14, 2024 7:16 pm The Bosch pumps? I've always thought they were quite decent.
I'm using pumps pulled from a Nissan Leaf that work well. I believe some Tesla's use the same pumps.
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