1st gen Tesla S OBC charger hacking ?

[Lee Malo]

Has anybody been able to hack the 1st gen Tesla S on board charger ? I have read on a few forums that people were working on hacking the charger but that was a few years ago and they never posted the results . Any info would be great

[Kevin Sharpe]

Any info would be great

Gen 1 chargers were very unreliable and many cars were upgraded to Gen 2 by Tesla. IMO it's not worth spending any time on Gen 1

[Lee Malo]

ok Thank you for saving me some time and the info

[asavage]

I have a 2014 Toyota RAV4 EV with an OEM installed Tesla drivetrain (basically a 2012 Tesla Model S). I'm kind of tied to the Gen1 OBC, and I'm looking for information about it. The usual: connector pinouts functions, and any info on signalling. My Google-Fu has not been good, I have found very little on these 2012-2013 Tesla OBCs (Gen2 came along very late 2013/very early 2014).

Does anyone have any pointers?

[asavage]

I've started an OI Wiki on this unit: https://openinverter.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S_GEN1_Charger

[asavage]

Now also a Wiki entry for Tesla Model S GEN1 Rear HVJB: https://openinverter.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S_GEN1_Rear_HVJB

At this point, I can talk GEN1 Model S HVIL in my sleep.

[Simotronic]

That's very interesting and helpful. I too have a 2014 Toyota RAV4 EV and I also have a spare OBC, programmed for the RAV (Firmware as far as I know).
I was contemplating if adding the HVJB would be beneficial in addition to adding the Tesla Charge port so that DC fast charging could be accomplished... Of course the car would need to be fully adopted by the Tesla mothership and I suspect some software would be needed to allow the onboard charger and HVJB to properly switch the main charge port conductors.
I'm investigating the CANBus and gathering some adapters so that I can use cab-utils etc.
I was also curious about the Charge Port CANBus X044 - Which connector on the Charge port is that? One of them must be for the motorized door flap?

Now also a Tesla Model S GEN1 Rear HVJB: https://openinverter.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S_GEN1_Rear_HVJB

At this point, I can talk GEN1 Model S HVIL in my sleep.

[asavage]

Simo, if you haven't already, read this post of mine where I summarize the decision points on modding my OEM EV. The MB B250e has the same infrastructure as our RAV4s.

Currently, I'm about USD $800 into adding CCS to my GEN2 RAV4 EV (I track expense and shipments with a spreadsheet per project) . . . thinking to:

• Replacing the Toyota charge port with BMW i3 CCS port (bought one with harness at a bargain price, couldn't resist)
• Install a Damien ZombieVerter to talk to and drive a BMW i3 LIM (speaks CCS to the EVSE)
• A pair of BMW i3 135A-class contactors (to switch in the charge port CCS DC to the car's existing HV bus, with the correct 15.3 ohm oil impedance to keep the LIM happy)
• An IVT-S shunt to provide current/voltage info to the ZV
• A voltage-to-current sensor board to make the LIM happy

I have all the above, except the ZV, which is pretty much the last big-ticket item; all the rest is fiddly-bits.

[if the AR7420-based CCS EVCC becomes more mature reasonably quickly, I may ditch the LIM and its voltage-sense board (and maybe its contactors), and the ZV, and go with that cleaner-sheet controller, but the LIM path is well-trod and repeatable.]

That, plus a bunch of HV wire, is the hardware end of things. Currently, I'm planning to tap the battery pack the same way that the CHAdeMO add-on kit does: at the front of the pack, install extension studs where the drive unit inverter cables connect to the pack. The easy-looking way to push CCS DC would be to connect to the existing OBC's output lines in the small HVJB that's bolted on the right side (left, as you look under the hood) of the OBC, but for 125A/50kw we require 2 AWG wires to the pack, minimum, and the existing wiring will not suffice, nor can where they connect to the pack be gracefully uprated for 125A. So, separate DCFC wiring and therefore its own HVJB. That HVJB would ideally be underhood or very close, but there's not a lot of room under there. The CHAdeMO got around that by fabricating a fairly elaborate support in place of the plastic "engine cover", quite a nice bit of work. I'm not above stealing a good idea, but I haven't decided on the HVJB location yet.

The CHAdeMO kit requires you put the car in "Ready" mode first, which has the HV rail hot -- the drive unit's inverter leads hot -- and then their box pushes current to the pack. I intend to try to do that a bit more elegantly -- that's the goal, anyway. But I do want to allow the Tesla bits to continue to run the BMS and AC charging show, which means I don't want to go full clean-sheet and take over control of everything, and thereby lose the Toyota integration features.

That's why I bought a spare OBC (and, later, a HVJB so I could confirm where some of the OBC's unused-in-the-RAV4 connections connected, and what they did, and it was cheap to buy and fun to trace) and just today got my second order of X042 (LV & Signals) harness parts from Mouser: I can now build the plug-in breakout harness for X042, and begin data collecting. Other people have this information already, but they're not sharing it publicly, so I'll do it the hard way. So . . . I created a Wiki article for each, and Johannes let me, even though it's unlikely that EV folk are going to repurpose these GEN1 Tesla parts, when the GEN2 & 3 are so much better.

Which leads me -- finally -- to this:

I was contemplating if adding the HVJB would be beneficial in addition to adding the Tesla Charge port . . .

The Tesla Model S GEN1 Rear HVJB is just too big. IMO. Yeah, I can cut off the mounting ears but it still is way too large for two contactors, two fuses, the IVT-S shunt and the voltage sense board. Its biggest issue (pun intended) is that it's not rectangular in height, which is a problem if you're trying to fit it under the hood in addition to what's already there.

Tesla Model S GEN1 Rear HVJB

Tesla Model S GEN1 Rear HVJB

Tesla Model S GEN1 Rear HVJB

Tesla Model S GEN1 Rear HVJB

Tesla Model S GEN1 Rear HVJB

I really think that making or buying a different box would be better than trying to rework this one. There's a lot going on in that space, Tesla did a masterful packaging job, but it doesn't adapt well. Maybe repurpose a GEN2 Front HVJB . . . I'll probably just roll my own.

I'm not interested in trying to make a Tesla charge port work. Supercharger stations are going public for all in the US (CCS adapters are built-in to the VC SCs) so I'm going CCS. The nozzle locking will work with the BMW i3 LIM and BMW charge port (or other CCS1 charge ports) and that's enough for me.

---

My new logic analyser won't arrive until next week -- no, I didn't buy a Salae, but I've got DueCAN parts all on my side workbench. My RAV4 got hit last month (only a front bumper, light RF fender scrape, and a small bump under the driver's door handle) and is STILL at the body shop -- they are short-handed. They have been doing bodywork for me for years and do the best work of any body shop I've used in my life, so I cut them some slack, but it means that there's not a rush for me to get these fiddly bits done right NOW, I can wait another week.

---

Sidebar: I've got a completely separate project on which I need to do week-long monitoring of DC low current using a clamp transducer -- datalogging. The Good Stuff is like Fluke 289, but we're talking well above USD$500, it'll only do ~900 events in memory, and requires another $200 for an IR<->USB cable and software to do data transfer and/or continuous logging to a PC using their software. Oh, and the clamp transducer. Ridiculous money for a one-time datalogging project.

I figured to cheap-out and tackle it piecemeal. I bought a VC8145 for $200 after tax, via Amazon. It's a cheap bench DMM but also 4.5 digits, 82000 count, and the supposed ability to datalog to a PC via an RS-232 interface.

Picked up a cheap low-current DC ma to mv transducer, too.

The VC8145 has been around for years and is a known animal. I thought I knew what I was buying. It showed up on my doorstep today, and within four hours, I packed it up and am mailing it back.

1) The RS-232 interface is opto-isolated (good!) which means it requires power from the RS-232 host (um . . . ) but most "serial hosts" these days are USB<->RS-232 dongles, and most of them also can't provide enough power to fire up the VC8145's client interface circuit. I tried three dongles I have around, ONE of them supplied enough current.

2) It has no internal storage, so all logging has to happen on the PC. OK, I knew that. But! you're supposed to use the included software, which is supplied on a mini-CD (remember those?) and which also is Rev. 1 and won't run on anything newer than WinXP. Ahhhh . . . OK . . . I have a WinXP VM handy, so I install the software . . . and . . . the display slowly, over the space of a minute, starts twitching, with various segments turning off & on, eventually culminating in the unit locking up.

VC8156 locked up

3) The WinXP software limitation is also well-known, so I tried two other apps that do work with the VC8145 (I liked "Test Controller", it works with a LOT of different multimeters), and . . . same.

So, I packed it back up in its cute box, printed off the Amazon return QR code, and I'll drop it at the local UPS Store tomorrow.

That was pretty much all day.

Then, I spent a couple hours looking for an alternative . . . and I'm right back to buying a Fluke 289 (or 287, 189, 187, or 87 IV), all of which can stream data to a PC . . . using a $80 IR<->USB cable and the aforementioned "Test Controller" software, bypassing the expensive FlukeView Forms version.

I think I found a local used one, two actually: one for $325 that looks pretty well used, and another that appears new for $400. Plus the IR cable. Ugh.

Still hoping that cheap Chinese low current transducer works . . . when it shows up next week.

---

Lots of time wasted on not-strictly-project-related work, just to get the bench ready. Sheesh. I don't know why I typed that all here, I guess I just wanted to vent.

[Simotronic]

Wow! that's a lot of work.
Yeah, the one reason for looking at the Tesla connector is it's small unlike it's chunky CCS version! And, as you rightly point out, Telsa and the magic Dock is springing up, so having a fully compliant CCS solution is a better way to go. So, where do you propose to mount the CCS connector? Without investigating fully, I can't see how that will fit in the existing 'refuelling' door space...
And I concur, doing a proper connection to the main pack with separate contactors would be preferable. As you say, shoehorning the HVJB into the front isn't realistic.
And not having the car fully Ready is a logical enhancement. If the CCS connector is inserted, presumably that would have the same effect as if you had the J1772 inserted provided you interrogated the PP CP pins as smather wrote.
Since my RAV is my daily I have to be a bit careful where I go with tearing it apart! I still have to be mindful of getting all the tools to drop the DU and the battery to do some preventative maintenance on them which will be an interesting project in it's own right as others have discovered!
So I'm venturing into the CANBus arena which is not a big step for me since I've been using other systems over the wire such as ModBus and passing traffic over the internet as part of a system I set up to remotely manage industrial installations. So the CANBus is interesting for the Tesla parts and there's quite a bit of traffic on that out there! I also have an Arduino Due with two CAN ports on it from Copperhill. So I was going to explore using that to interrogate the CAN bus. There are two pins on the rear OBDCII connector. I tried using another OBDCII device briefly yesterday. Once I added 12V to the connector I can see activity on the bus but using CAN utilities was a bit limited. The other avenue is to use the existing Ethernet connection there and gateway the CAN bus from there... The advantage of that is the whole mess can be remotely accessed over a suitably secure router.

I feel your pain using obsolete equipment forcing you to use windoze 95... In those cases I run the appropriate windows under a virtual box. So for data logging you need a reasonably accurate meter or data capture system. I'm guessing it's important to have accurate voltage measurements if you're trying to monitor cell packs and determine their SOC etc. I don't know if TI have development solutions to assist with that. I'll think about some solutions for acquiring voltages and current. Again, the current sensor has to be reasonably accurate, maybe using the better quality current loop devices?

Meanwhile, if it's warm enough out today I'll go and take another look at the CAN Bus solutions...

By the way, your Hillman Husky is a fond memory for me since I originate from UK and I even worked on one of those! I also had a Hillman Imp which would make a great EV conversion with some battery weight in the front to keep it under control!!!
More later...

[asavage]

I don't have my RAV4 EV back from the body shop yet, so I can't hold up my BMW i3 charge port next to the gas flap, but when I looked at it previously it looked like a good fit. Replacing the existing J-1772, I mean.

I don't think the Gateway's enet gains access to what we want, though I use it to run my pirated copy of Tesla Powertrain Diagostics The CAN there should be more interesting. I'm guessing that we have only one Tesla CAN bus on the RAV4 (Powertrain bus) as opposed to the early Model S' six (five, in 2012). I think I'll need to intercept non-CAN at the OBC, so I'm planning on my MItM box to be under-hood.

I'm off to pick up a near-new CraigsList Fluke 289 shortly, and if that goes well, I'll order the IR<->USB cable. I've already got "Test Controller" installed on my Ubuntu workstation, and working; I'll load it onto my "garage" laptop, probably under a W8.1 boot this time.

We could talk Hillman for quite a time; I run this never-updated manuals repository: https://rootes.dyndns.org/ which was something I threw together in-between jobs around 1999. And, I'm on the rootes group email list, which is primarily Australians these day

[Simotronic]

Well the Charge Port cables arrived today - If I want to connect the Tesla Charge Port to the RAV, maybe I could do that as a test to see if the Tesla Wall Connector will talk natively to the car or just revert to the standard J1772... But more important is getting CAN Bus up. I also need to get the power train diagnostics up. According to the limited documentation for the RAV there are several CAN buses in there but the only one at the back is the power train...

[Dennis]

Hi guys, is there a way to run a Tesla OBC gen 1 in an ev conversion?

[asavage]

Unlike the Tesla OBC GEN2, there's no replacement control PCB for the GEN1. You'd be facing a steep uphill battle, and the path/recipe to use a GEN2 OBC is well-trod.

[Dennis]

Thanks you

[Dennis]

Some bench tests with this charger are mentioned in this article. https://openinverter.org/wiki/Tesla_Mod ... 2_or_X043)
How is it possible to do a bench test and obtain a high voltage DC output with this charger? What about CAN and HVIL pins? Can anybody do a bench test without connecting those pins?

[asavage]

I wrote that Wiki article -- see the edit history. Any/all bench tests I've outlined are static/non-powered tests (eg. AC input lines resistance to check for open AC input fuse(s).)

The HVIL lines can be ignored; the OBC's HVIL circuit resistance is monitored by the Tesla BMS -- to verify that the covers are in place, for example -- but isn't used in the OBC itself.

As for the CAN . . . that's the largely undocumented part -- for now. Put another way, people know the CAN message IDs and some of the data payloads, but they're not sharing, so much is not public at this point.

The few of use who are locked into using the GEN1 OBC -- Toyota RAV4 EV, MB B250e -- have need of that info, but nobody else is really interested anymore, since from-scratch conversions can use the less-trouble-prone and better supported GEN2 OBC instead.

[Dennis]

Thank you very much for your help and explanation.