openinverter forum

Isaac96 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 5:31 am Rocky Mountain Race Week -- isn't that the one where you drive hundreds of miles between drag races? How will you manage that with this car?

Yes, both Drag Week and RMRW are drag-and-drive events, meaning make a pass, drive to the next track, make a pass, drive, etc. Usually 200-300 miles per day.

Once I get it working, the car will have CHADEMO charging, and I'd like to add CCS in the future. There does appear to be enough charging infrastructure to support it, I'll just need to stop often. The events do have defined routes and check points, but you can leave the route provided you return to the exact point you left it, so a detour to charge is possible.

Especially on Drag Week, once you've made a pass you can turn in the timeslip, get the route, and leave for the next day. So the plan is to be in the staging lanes when they open, make a pass first thing, and then leave so I can drive (and charge) all day. RMRW is more difficult for me because the racing is in the evening rather than the morning, but it still leaves a decent chunk of time to cover the distance.

She's finally moving under her own power.

There is still a ton to do. This was using one battery, with relatively low SOC. I did drive around the neighborhood, and apart from some suspension issues (V8 springs with no shocks in the front, plus no weight in the front, equals bouncy), I had a ton of fun.

Some quick updates while I eat my lunch and try to catch a breath at work:
- the Chevy Volt charger has me stumped. I've tried controlling with both the SimpBMS and a CANDue with a modified version of Damien's code. In short, it's getting above my head, and given that a) I got the charger for a steal b) its relatively low power and c) I'm sick of beating my head against a wall, I'm going to stop throwing good money and time after bad. New Plan! Model 3 PCS. That should solve my charging and DC-DC problems all at once, and it just barely fits where I want to put it, assuming the measurements I've seen are correct. Now just to have the money for the PCS and Damien's controller

- Even though I missed the two drag and drive events this fall, there is a new one in February that has just been announced. So that is the new goal.

- The CHADEMO controller booted up and let me adjust parameters over Wifi, so once I solve my J1772 charging problems (so I can actually make it to a CHADEMO station) I should be ready to test that out.

- Having the car on the ground and semi-functional gives me a smile every time I go out to the garage. I cannot wait to be able to take it out of the neighborhood.

I figured it was time to post some more images of the car.

Also, I've decided to move to a Model 3 charger to solve my charging and DC-DC issues. It's physically mounted in the car, still working on connections.

Edit: not sure why the images rotated, but if you click on them they are correct.

A brief update:

The PCS is installed, wired, and communicating with the control board. However, it appears there is some sort of firmware issue limiting communication, and the PCS is failing to actually start the DC-DC or charger. I'll be trying a new firmware this week, to see if that helps.

I need to have the car fully/mostly functional by the first full week of February, when I'll be headed to Florida to compete in the inaugural Sick Week, put on by Tom Bailey's Sick the Mag. Assuming my range guess-timations are right, based on the routes provided I should have just enough range to make it work.

Lots to update:

I didn't get the car done for Sick Week, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

I'm still struggling with the PCS control, and the CHAdeMO implementation also is just shy of functional. I added a Thunderstruck EV 2500 to level 1 charge just to keep the project moving, but that'll get removed when the PCS is functional.

All of that kept me from finishing the roll cage and firewall, so I missed the event. I did have a nice relaxing week at home playing with the car and doing some work, but as I began tweaking settings, I began to slam into an overcurrent on full throttle. Long story short, I believe that I partially broke an axle, continued to push the car with the broken axle, and then finally destroyed the axle this past weekend. I'll take the axle apart to verify this coming weekend, but hopefully this means I don't have a weird/bad inverter.

I had a plan ready for upgrading the axles, now I just have to implement it..... except my daily has been in need of suspension maintenance for about 2 months, so that's got to come first.

Broken Axle My favorite picture of the car, about 12 hours before the broken axle

Since my daily decided to need a bunch of work, and has thus eaten up most of my car-money, I have not yet been able to buy the parts I need to replace the axles.

While the car is down, I took the opportunity to rebuild the safety junction box and move the ISA shunt over to the negative side, which hopefully will help cure the CHAdeMO charging issues. Had the side benefit of a much neater box than my original design.

This is very cool.

Tremelune wrote: ↑Mon May 09, 2022 9:25 pm This is very cool.

Thanks!

After way too many months, the car has new axles, and I believe the second PCS is the charm. I have a few things to button up this weekend, and then I should be back on the road and back to fast charging testing.

If all goes well, photos and video coming soon!

After some rewiring, the PCS is alive and working in both charge and drive modes. Next weekend I have to button up cooling and re-install the firewall, then some street driving and testing. In the time the car has been off the road, a new DC fast charger was built that is half the distance I was driving to test previously, so I'm hoping to test that out soon.

After 11 months off the road, I finally was able to driver her again this weekend. I spent nearly the entire time chasing old and new gremlins, including tune issues, axle boots, parking brake and dumb wiring issues.

I learned that some of my over current trips were due to idclim being set lower than recommended. Not sure when that change occured, but may have been impacted by fixing the scaling issues.

Also, I finally discovered the cause of my strangest issue. I kept having a problem where, after an over current trip in traffic, upon restart I would only get a weird lunging from the motor. Essentially the car acted like it had a blown big block with a ton of blower surge, but would never accelerate past it. Turns out, the answer was exceptionally dumb. The 1940 chevy does not have a 3rd brake light, so I used that wire to provide the LDU with brake signal. It so happens that the wiring harness I used flashes the 3rd brake light when the hazards are turned on. So when it over current tripped in traffic, and I threw on the hazards, the LDU was then seeing a pulsed brake light signal, hence the weird lunging/surging. Solution: Masking tape on the dash with a note written in sharpie "No Hazards in Motion" (there's probably a good Dukes of Hazzard joke in there, but I haven't found it yet)

I'm still seeing issues with a low speed oscillation, even with r5.14 of the firmware and fweakstart turned up. Around 5-10 mph there is a violent oscillation from the LDU, and I can't seem to find the right settings to eliminate it. I've posted my params below and will likely post to the tuning thread as well.

Well I can finally cross one of my planned tests off the list as Passed! I was able to successfully charge with a public J1772 charge station today, which while small, is definitely a win.

Unfortunately, I continue to have issues with CHAdeMO charging. The charger I was able to test at today is brand new, but Plugshare does have several reports of it failing to CHAdeMO charge for OEM EVs, so I don't know if this is a continued issue on my side or the charger. My plan is that the next warm and clear weekend, I will test and CAN log at 3+ CHAdeMO chargers that are near-ish to each other, and see if its the car or the stations.

I've also been working on the tune, and have sorted some gremlins out, but lost some performance. Hoping to do more work over the next month or two. The first test-and-tune sessions at my local drag strips are in early March, and the racing season begins the first weekend in April, so I'm hoping to have street driving sorted out before then, so I can focus on performance.

Hey Paul

I've been quietly watching this build progress in the background for the last couple of years. Amazing work!

With the 2 Chevy volt packs, what range are you expecting?

Evkiwi wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 7:21 pm Hey Paul

I've been quietly watching this build progress in the background for the last couple of years. Amazing work!

With the 2 Chevy volt packs, what range are you expecting?

My exceedingly rough guestimate is 80-90 miles when its warm. So far I've only been able to test in the winter months and I don't yet have battery thermal management. Also, I still don't have door windows so drag is all over the place.

Once I have CHAdeMO functional (and windows installed), the next test is figuring out real world range.

A quick update:

I'm still fighting CHAdeMO, but over on that development thread I think we're making progress, big thanks to royhen99 for the coding help.

I'm also fighting tune issues. With much "softer" parameters than JonVolk or BoxsterEV, I'm still hitting an OC trip at WOT with a fully charged pack. I've been playing around when I can, but I'm not quite there yet.

I have made progress with other parts of the car. The roll cage is almost complete (hoping to finish this weekend), and I have almost finished putting the door windows together.

The weather is getting really nice so I've taken almost any chance I get to drive it.

Time to celebrate! Thanks to an immense amount of help from royen99, CHAdeMO fast charging is working at most stations!

I have laid out a testing regimen to make sure that I have the range and charger compatibility to compete on events like Drag Week and Sick Week, so that's the next big street test. If anyone lives between Raleigh and Charlotte and is willing to be a backup in-case-of-emergency charging location, please let me know. I'm also hoping to get on track later this month to start laying down some times and to sort out my WOT tune issues.
(also had a cool experience this morning: rolled up to a new cars & coffee event, and apparently they were talking about the car before I even arrived.)

P.S.Mangelsdorf wrote: ↑Fri Apr 07, 2023 12:44 pm
I'm also fighting tune issues. With much "softer" parameters than JonVolk or BoxsterEV, I'm still hitting an OC trip at WOT with a fully charged pack. I've been playing around when I can, but I'm not quite there yet.

Could you post another parameter dump to look at?

Also, are you having issues with the inverter temperature derating? Mine seems to run warmer that it did in the previous Spring/Summer seasons. Not sure if it's coolant flow related or perhaps even firmware. I'll continue to monitor.

Boxster EV wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 12:07 pm Could you post another parameter dump to look at?

Yes, attached. This set drives really well around town, and under 90% SOC, it will pull fine with no OC trips. Over 90% SOC it will hit an OC trip whenever I got WOT, whether from a standstill or while already moving.

Boxster EV wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 12:07 pm Also, are you having issues with the inverter temperature derating? Mine seems to run warmer that it did in the previous Spring/Summer seasons. Not sure if it's coolant flow related or perhaps even firmware. I'll continue to monitor.

I have been seeing some temperature issues, but so far I think they're my own fault.

At first, I addressed by plugging the electric fan on my radiator back in (I had unplugged it last year when I didn't have DC-DC as it was draining the battery and not needed in February). That solved the heat issue around town, but this past weekend while doing more CHAdeMO testing, I was running longer distances at moderate highway speeds, and when I got home I realized that it was running hot.

Part of my issue is that my radiator is smaller diameter than my coolant hoses, so its speeding up the flow and therefore insufficiently cooling. I'm planning on finding a larger radiator this weekend or the next. Fortunately there is a local pick-your-own junkyard that routinely takes in hybrids, so I'm hoping to find something suitable. I'm still deciding if I'm fixing that this weekend or taking the car to a fairly large rod and custom show nearby (and just being careful about heat).

I did do several modifications to the cooling system a few weeks back, where I added a coolant tank after the radiator and before the pump on both the inverter cooling circuit and the PCS cooling circuit (they're completely separate). This addressed one possible cause that I was worried about, air in the lines.

Generally speaking, I need to add gauges. I've been irresponsible and run around with only a battery gauge. I'm planning on using Speedhut's new EV gauges when I have the cash. Unfortunately, because the entire battery and it's heavy duty enclosure sits between the drivers compartment and the LDU, my phone won't stay connected to use it as a dashboard while driving.

This weekend's (mis)adventure:

Friday evening and this morning, I installed a Prius inverter cooler after my existing cooler in an effort to improve cooling. Seems to be a bit better but I need to test more.

I intended to perform a true range test today, but things went sideways. The original plan was to test at several chargers enroute to a charger almost exactly 50 miles from my house. Then I would charge to 100% and attempt to drive home. Once home I'd plug in and use the kWh supplied by my charger and the shown battery percentage when I arrive to determine wH/mile, estimated range, shown %/mile, and so forth to get a real understanding of range.

The first part of this went well, the chargers worked flawlessly, were open when I got to them, the weather was nice, all good. Then, I went to leave the last "test" charger before getting to the final one. I made a stupid error, and tried to unplug before ending the charge session. Should have been no big deal, end the session on the charger, then come back and unplug, and be on my way. However, when I attempted to unplug, the button on the charge handle stuck in, and no amount of messing with it by hand (after ending the session) would get it to release. Several (quite frustrating) calls with EVGo later, and they decided to send out a tech. ETA: 2-4 hours later. After stopping in a nearby grocery store to cool off, get a phone charging cable, and use wifi to ask the forum if I could do anything else carside (answer: no, the station has the lock), I waited by the car. And waited. and waited. and waited. After 3.5 hours, I was frustrated, tired, and just wanted to go home (still 38 miles away).

By this point, the other charging stations had cleared out. I finally turned on my engineering/hotrodder brain, and started examining the other CHAdeMO plugs, and realized the lock was just the part on top, which meant I could sort of get to it. I also played around with the button and realized that it didn't seem like it should be stuck in like it was. I remembered that my emergency kit had a flathead screw driver, and I then used the first to attempt to push the latch down (no luck) then tired to free the stuck button. It popped free with barely any effort applied.

I was free, and could head home. I hadn't charged to full at that station, so I intended to stop on the way home (I did not want to stay there any longer). One station was packed, another was down, but I finally got one that had an empty stall, got a charge. Then it was smooth sailing home.

Lessons learned:
- I still love driving this car.
- Wing windows and cowl vents are great when you are moving, but a flat black car gets hot quickly when stuck in traffic.
- When something goes wrong at a charging station, don't panic, use your !@#$%ing brain.

P.S.Mangelsdorf wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 1:03 am
- When something goes wrong at a charging station, don't panic, use your !@#$%ing brain.

this! tryed to unplug after a charge, but the j1772 was "stuck" in my charge port. i though stuff had melted so in a panic started reefing on it to get it loose... destroyed my charge port. nothing melted... it was just a stupid broken latch

I love this project... if you ever get so adventurous as to drive it to Atlanta, let me know... I bet the car would get a lot of attention at Caffeine and Octane or even one of the drive electric week events we have here.

lsh3rd wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 3:54 pm I love this project... if you ever get so adventurous as to drive it to Atlanta, let me know... I bet the car would get a lot of attention at Caffeine and Octane or even one of the drive electric week events we have here.

Thank you!

I will be attempting Hot Rod Magazine Drag Week in September this year, and day 4 is Carolina Dragway near Augusta, which is the closest to Atlanta I'm currently planning on taking her. I may do Sick Week next February in Florida, and have considered stopping by Atlanta on the way.

I also am a partner in a business based in Atlanta, and long story short may need to spend more time there in the next few years, so it's not out of the question that I might bring her down that way; I agree that Caffeine and Octane would be fun.