openinverter forum

I installed my Zombieverter and checked four times - still the wifi module keeps blinking and distributing it's wifi, although the ignition is off. Is it supposed to be like this?

I have +12v on pin 56
Ignition +12v on pin 15
Ground on pin 55

Zapatero wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:45 pm I installed my Zombieverter and checked four times - still the wifi module keeps blinking and distributing it's wifi, although the ignition is off. Is it supposed to be like this?

Yes that's the way it works, once you have +12V at pin 56 the activity LED flashes, power LED is on, and wifi is on. This is the powered state you would upload new firmware over wifi for example, without ignition on power.

I am curious about installations where the +12V power on pin 56 is turned off (every time car is turned off, or over long periods without use). I am seeing an interesting issue with powering up the car after shut down but currently putting this down to my HV test battery (4x12V batteries in series).

When I power up the system and run the transmissions, all is ok. Turn ignition off and contactors (+, -, prec) all open. With a meter on the inverter side of the positive and negative contactor I can watch the HV lower as the inverter discharges it (HV = 49V, Udcsw = 35V). If I turn ignition on before the voltage at the inverter side of the contactors lowers below Udcdw, the system will power up and can be run again ok.

If i wait until the HV at the inverter side of the contactors lowers below Udcsw and turn on ignition (a normal use case), it seems the negative and prec contactors click on, voltage reading at the meter suddenly drops to 1V to 2V (for example it might have been approx 20V as it dropped after ignition off but suddenly drops to a couple of volts), and after a few seconds they click open again and system won't start. I need to power down the zombie completely, reapply power, and then it will start up again as normal. If this continued even with the higher HV, it might cause damage, and it prevents me from keeping Zombie constantly powered as it is.

Not exactly sure yet why, but trying to figure it out before applying higher HV. May just be the low HV I'm testing with and the lead acid batteies

So if i park the car for 2 Months this will drain my Battery???
Can there be a software implementation that shuts the Zombieverter down to a minimal use of power after 6 hours of no driving?

nkiernan wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:14 am [...] before applying higher HV. May just be the low HV I'm testing with and the lead acid batteies

Sounds like a serious issue - should that be a seperate threat then?

Personally I'd wire up ZombieVerter in a way that shuts it off when not charging or driving. I don't see an issue cold booting it.

Of course then you need to find a way to turn on power when a charge plug is inserted.

Low power modes don't really help as the voltage regulators and peripherals can't be shut down by software.

johu wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:31 am Low power modes don't really help as the voltage regulators and peripherals can't be shut down by software.

It's a shame that the STM32 on the zombie doesn't have the ability to power down the other peripherals on the board, but there are a couple of problems with this approach, in particular, the fact that waking up on CAN is complicated, and would need to work with different kinds of chargers and wakeup signals.

With that in mind, the simple approach works well, but waking up the board for charging is left as an exercise for the integrator

I'm running a leaf stack Gen 3 and the PDM regardless if the switched 12 volt is on or off still pull 0.5 amp, so I plan to have the PDM. INV, Zombieverter, and Shunt switch off when not in use. I plan to have a Power management board that monitors the doors, charge flag, and T15 to switch on the system and delay the switch off.

The only downside is the calculation of usage and SOC reset each time it's switched on, but I plan to use the BMS for calculating the SOC.

I suppose I'm always looking for the simplest/crudest solution, but could you just have a manual switch in the car to control power to the VCU? Then you can turn it on when you're about to drive or charge, and turn it off when you're leaving the car out of use to save battery drain. Alternatively have the VCU powered by the ignition for driving but have a separate VCU power switch activated by the charging port door or something similar?

JamesA wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:56 pm I suppose I'm always looking for the simplest/crudest solution, but could you just have a manual switch in the car to control power to the VCU? Then you can turn it on when you're about to drive or charge, and turn it off when you're leaving the car out of use to save battery drain. Alternatively have the VCU powered by the ignition for driving but have a separate VCU power switch activated by the charging port door or something similar?

Yep, you could. I stand corrected, but i believe you need to ensure the motor is not spinning and you have no throttle as the contactor would drop out and this may damage the invertor.

I was not happy with the "standby" power consumption of the Zombie either and also figured the manual switch would be the simplest solution. It, however, leaves a bit too much room for the infamous human factor. This is why I opted to include a delay relay to the system. If I recall right, the delay time of my particular relay is 5 minutes. When the car has been sitting for an extended period, the relay has swithed off the T30 supply from the Zombie. As soon as I turn the ignition switch, the T15 is supplied to the input side of the relay. When I switch off, I have 5 minutes to step out of the car and plug in the charging cable. Works like a charm!

Had a similar setup in Polo when it was still using a BeagleBone. I think it stayed active for an hour because it always took 30s to boot and thus 30s to get a fuel gauge Opening the door started it up. The shutdown was triggered by the BeagleBone itself.

One of the Zombie pins could be used to cut its own power after a configurable timeout.

That is a good approach. Using one of the Zombie's output pins to keep the relay conducting, you can skip the "fancy" delay relay and just use any old relay that you can find.
Also, you could make the delay time a configurable parameter on the web interface if you like.

Ok now this is getting good! I'm keen on this setup for controlling a "standard relay" with a configurable delay time till Zombie verter shutdown after ignition power-down/last-door-closed and charge flap closed.

I guess this just requires then the Zombie VCU to be parallel powered (via a diode for each switching source) when the car door or charge flap and of course ignition on.

Am I over complicating or over simplifying it?