Prius Gen3 inverter pinout

Topics concerning the Toyota and Lexus inverter drop in boards
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Malvineous
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Prius Gen3 inverter pinout

Post by Malvineous »

Hi all,

I have gotten hold of a Gen3 inverter and I'm looking to try to interface with it. There seem to be a lot of projects around that do this, but unfortunately none of them have much in the way of documentation so I haven't been able to find out much about the inverter itself.

Does anyone know if there is documentation on the inverter pinout, what each signal is for and how it's used? I can see that some of this information can be gleaned from the Toyota wiring diagram and repair manual, but it's not exactly in an easy-to-follow format. I was thinking of starting a page on the OpenInverter wiki documenting what all the connectors and pins are for, but I didn't want to start this if someone already has this information hidden away somewhere and is willing to share.

I've looked in the following places:
  • Toyota Prius Gen3 Board page on the wiki - seems to be about a replacement board rather than the inverter itself. It contains a pinout but the connector shown doesn't match the inverter I have so it must be a connector specific to the replacement board and nothing to do with the inverter itself.
  • ZombieVerter VCU page on the wiki - claims it supports the Prius Gen3 inverter but has no information on how to connect it up
  • Toyota Inverters on the wiki - seems to contain what I'm after but the introduction promises "wiring and connector information" but this doesn't seem to have made it to the page yet. There is one image with pin descriptions for the Prius Gen3 inverter though which is a start for me. I'm not sure what the "Toyota Protocol" section is for as it sounds intriguing but doesn't really explain much.
  • Toyota Auris/Yaris Inverter page on the wiki - the above page links to this one claiming it has connector information, but it seems to be more about a replacement control board for the inverter rather than a page about the inverter itself
  • A bunch of forum threads but these are very difficult to use for reference information as the discussion topic varies wildly so you have to read through 10 pages of posts only to find the information you thought would be there isn't!
So I'm kind of going around in circles and coming to the conclusion that if this information is out there, it's not anywhere easily accessible. If anyone knows whether it exists please let me know, otherwise I'll start deciphering it from the Toyota diagrams and put it on a new wiki page.
MattsAwesomeStuff
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Re: Prius Gen3 inverter pinout

Post by MattsAwesomeStuff »

Malvineous wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:12 amThere seem to be a lot of projects around that do this, but unfortunately none of them have much in the way of documentation so I haven't been able to find out much about the inverter itself.
Hello, and welcome to Open Source projects. Where the documentation was never written!
Does anyone know if there is documentation on the inverter pinout, what each signal is for and how it's used?
Did you manage to scroll far enough down the Prius Gen 3 wiki page?:

https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_Pr ... _Connector

That or the next section perhaps what you're looking for?

The whole page is so content dense and developer-oriented, it's hard to use.
So I'm kind of going around in circles and coming to the conclusion that if this information is out there, it's not anywhere easily accessible. If anyone knows whether it exists please let me know, otherwise I'll start deciphering it from the Toyota diagrams and put it on a new wiki page.
Welcome to Open Source projects.

Anyone who could write the documentation wouldn't need it, and anyone who would need it can't write it.

In my opinion, the lack of documentation is holding back adoption of these projects 100-fold.

It's why people are still flocking to off-the-shelf Curtis kits and such.

For what it's worth, the Prius Gen 2 page is something I've tried to keep tidy (I don't know much about the Gen 3). You can perhaps follow design inspiration from that. On the sections I've done, I really did my best to be as beginner friendly as possible, showing pictures of everything and labelling everything and describing everything so that there's no guesswork as to what's going on or what's being referred to. The Gen 3 could mirror this. I chopped what used to all be one page (like the Gen 3 seems to be), into a page about the inverter, and then different pages about the boards that use it, so the information is more digestible and in the place you expect to find it.

https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_Pr ... 2_Inverter

https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_Pr ... hole_Board

Also note, that Damien no longer makes his Gen 2 throughhold board, but Johannes designed his own, for sale on the OpenInverter store, while Damien sells the Gen 3 control board replacement. So, the projects don't mimic each other as much as you might think.

Also, obviously, thank you for tackling it.
Malvineous
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Re: Prius Gen3 inverter pinout

Post by Malvineous »

Thanks for your reply!
MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:35 am Hello, and welcome to Open Source projects. Where the documentation was never written!
Tell me about it. I'm a long time open source developer myself, and I have found over the years that the more you document your project, the faster you make progress as new people joining can get up to speed much more quickly.
MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:35 am Did you manage to scroll far enough down the Prius Gen 3 wiki page?:

https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_Pr ... _Connector

That or the next section perhaps what you're looking for?
I did, but unfortunately that's the pinout for the custom logic board, not the original Toyota logic board. Likewise the pins in the following section don't match the inverter as it comes out of the vehicle.
MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:35 am Anyone who could write the documentation wouldn't need it, and anyone who would need it can't write it.

In my opinion, the lack of documentation is holding back adoption of these projects 100-fold.

It's why people are still flocking to off-the-shelf Curtis kits and such.

For what it's worth, the Prius Gen 2 page is something I've tried to keep tidy (I don't know much about the Gen 3). You can perhaps follow design inspiration from that. On the sections I've done, I really did my best to be as beginner friendly as possible, showing pictures of everything and labelling everything and describing everything so that there's no guesswork as to what's going on or what's being referred to. The Gen 3 could mirror this. I chopped what used to all be one page (like the Gen 3 seems to be), into a page about the inverter, and then different pages about the boards that use it, so the information is more digestible and in the place you expect to find it.
Can't argue with that! Well in that case I'll just dive in and start creating pages, and hopefully I won't tread on anyone's toes. I've started with the pinouts from the Gen3 inverter and will keep adding to that page as I find out more about it: https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_G9200_Inverter
MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:35 am Also note, that Damien no longer makes his Gen 2 throughhold board, but Johannes designed his own, for sale on the OpenInverter store, while Damien sells the Gen 3 control board replacement. So, the projects don't mimic each other as much as you might think.

Also, obviously, thank you for tackling it.
No worries, I hope I can contribute something useful!

I'm not so interested in the replacement logic boards at this stage, I'd like to try to interface with the inverter unmodified. At this point I'm not sure whether the ZombieVerter might work - it also looks like a custom PCB though - or whether I will have any luck reverse engineering the firmware on the factory logic boards, as reflashing custom firmware on the factory logic board is another avenue I'd like to explore. I'm not sure whether reverse engineering the factory firmware would be necessary if the ZombieVerter really does support this inverter, but briefly glancing through the code there are a lot of unknowns, so maybe being able to read the code on the other side of the fence might shed some light on things.
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Re: Prius Gen3 inverter pinout

Post by Bigpie »

Zombie doesn't use a custom PCB in the inverter, it communicates and controls the unmodified inverter as Toyota would.
It uses synchronous serial.
https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU not sure if anyone has used it with a Prius inverter yet and documented it.

Actually looks like it's here viewtopic.php?p=24941#p24941
Only on my mobile at the moment, if someone could add to wiki that would be good
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Malvineous
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Re: Prius Gen3 inverter pinout

Post by Malvineous »

Is synchronous serial documented anywhere? Like if I wanted to start dumping data and sending commands myself, where would I go to understand the protocol? I realise the actual data is still not fully understood, but it seems sending and receiving data is known? I saw some stuff about a CAN controller possibly being able to receive it but it's a bit hard to follow the forum discussion as you think it's sorted but the later on it gets corrected to something else, so it's a bit hard to get a complete picture.
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Re: Prius Gen3 inverter pinout

Post by Bigpie »

Sorry, can't help you there. I think a can transceiver can be used but not sure about the ins and outs of it.
Looking through the zombie thread will likely be your best bet for schematics and commands
VW Beetle 2003
Outlander front generator
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Chademo Charging
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