FOC tuning Prius Gen 2 Inverter with VCU V1.1-No Reverse and Throttle control

Topics concerning the Toyota and Lexus inverter drop in boards
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PaulUdrea
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FOC tuning Prius Gen 2 Inverter with VCU V1.1-No Reverse and Throttle control

Post by PaulUdrea »

Hello EV enthusiasts from all over the world,

First, I would like to thank Damien, Johannes and all other forum members for the information put together here. Without your contribution I wouldn’t have even dreamt to start an EV conversion with a relatively low budget.

As the title of this thread explains, when I switch into reverse (Inverter in manual mode) there is not even a hint of the motor trying to rotate. It behaves like the inverter is OFF. Also, there is no reaction pressing the throttle. The throttle has been calibrated; previous to connecting the throttle wires to VCU, I have connected them to 5V and checked the voltage variation on the signal wire.

Below is the setup when performed the FOC tuning which went well (thanks to Damien’s and Johannes video)
- Prius Gen 2 inverter / converter, Johannes’s VCU v1.1 with V5.14R firmware. I did not change any of the parameters of the firmware, except what the FOC video mentioned, i.e. udcsw = 0, udcmin =0. Confirmed that pinswap = 5.
- HV battery = 77 V
- 110V 60 W light bulb inline with the positive of HV, with the switch as per Damien’s setup
- 12V 55W light bulb inline with positive of the power supply for the inverter and VCU. Amperage drawn by both = 0.96 A

The FOC procedure went as per tutorial and found the syncofs. This was the second try. The first went well until reached the stage of finding the syncofs and entered manual id = 3A and nothing happened. To keep this thread short, I will not go through the first trial of FOC and the troubleshooting process.

After finding the syncofs, I did a “sanity” check and entered values for syncofs in increments of 3k until I came close to the second syncofs value, which roughly confirmed that syncofs2 = syncofs1 + 32768.
At this stage I checked the Reverse mode by entering manual iq = -3A, manualid=0.1A. No move.
Used parameters to switch to Reverse. Nothing.
Throttle input, nothing.
Below is what I found so far:
- The software will NOT switch to Run. Entered “start” in custom commands, no start. Spot Values showed inverter OFF. Tried set opmode=1, message returned: “Value out of range”. Tried set opmode=2, same message: “Value out of range”. With get opmode, it returned 0. Pressing “Start inverter in manual mode” the inverter starts.
- During the FOC procedure, I regularly kept checking for errors and there were no errors, with one exception when out of the blue came: DESAT. Had to turn the power off to be able to restart the inverter.
- the lab power supply was showing an amperage draw of 1.3 A when Inverter was running and the 12V 55W light bulb had very dim light. However, the Inverter was running ok and behaving exactly as in the FOC video.
- on one or two occasions, the Olimex board would have the Green LED flashing very fast, barely noticed that because of the speed of flashing. Cannot remember the trouble I had, probably slow refresh, but I remember that I either had to stop/start the inverter or even restart all.
I think I have covered most of the issues.
At this stage I should first download again the firmware.
Would appreciate your opinions.
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alehandro
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Re: FOC tuning Prius Gen 2 Inverter with VCU V1.1-No Reverse and Throttle control

Post by alehandro »

I had a similar behavior with the gen2 inverter and the foc5.14 firmware, the easiest thing is to try installing the firmware of earlier versions, for example foc5.11.
PaulUdrea
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Re: FOC tuning Prius Gen 2 Inverter with VCU V1.1-No Reverse and Throttle control

Post by PaulUdrea »

Thanks Alehandro, I couldn't find an earlier version. If I remember well, I accessed Johaness' github, but only found the latest version which was the same I had. I'll try again next week.
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