[DRIVING] The Audi 8e - Powered by Leaf

[Cookie6000]

Welcome back! Good to see this moving again.

Thanks Tom

In fairness, it has been your recent videos that has kicked me up the arse to get this moving again. #Hackerspaceultimatum

[kevpatts]

Good to see it up and moving again man, let me know if there's anything I can help with, just up the road.

Would love to make that event but I'll be away.

[Cookie6000]

Good bit of forward movement this week. The mess that was in the boot has finally been banished! The first step was to make things just simpler, cleaner and functional. With limited space to play with and many many drafts scribbled, I finally got my hands on a 330x140x120 oblong box that fit my plan, rear pack + and - in from the left and exiting out the right with a contactor and the msd in there for good measure.

Once I knew everything fitted, it was time to install the bits and bobs including some 16sq to the other side of the charge contactor and back to B+ of the Tesla HVJB. The B- connected to the most negative of the pack, back down in the front HVJB.

The penultimate step was then to hook up the + and - to the right hand side back up to the front of the Audi, button everything up and install the charger.

All that's left in the rear apart from buttoning up the rear pack and installing that is to wire up the SimpCharge when it arrives, hook it up to CP, PP, new contactor, charger and pump. Reckon I'll have the rear all done by the end of next week... few steps closer to the deadline

[Cookie6000]

And the revival goes on...

More stuff has arrived. The OBD port arrived as did the reader, ready for inclusion into the updated system. Added to this was some home made twisted pair for front to rear vehicle and the cheapo Android 10, 7" single DIN head unit which I fired up last night and seems like an ok purchase for the price! More on that in another post.

Last Saturday was spent getting back to cardboard-aided-design again... Oh, I missed it so... I first off had to put back in place the old 'face' of the rear pack, cutting out a slightly larger section on the Pos side of the pack to allow ample room for the new (old) HV connector taken from the old box of Leaf bits and bobs I have hoarded since the early days. Quite handy removing and replacing the main pins with ones more suitable length and orientation from other Leaf HV connectors.

After a couple of hours mixed with cutting and deft alu bending on the bench vice, I was actually pretty happy with the result. I then made up a front face for the new box with a good tight fit so it could be tapped into place.

Access panel added in the top to enable hooking up the +and - terminals, we were sorted. The lathering all the joints and interfaces with layers of eastern European automotive seam sealant, it looked a mess but was perfect

The time had come to offer up the battery again, months later. Delighted. Fits really well and the HV connector worked a treat. Once I had the lengths where I wanted them, I then was able to terminate the ends in the new HVJB in the boot and pop the lid on. Another job finished as time ticks on towards the deadline... Very much more positive now.

Next up, sort out the main Neg contactor control to work in tandem with the new rear Neg charge contactor so only the front main Neg and Shunt come on and nothing else during the charge cycle... at the mo, they all get Ign 12v. The plan is to put in a drive relay to power the main neg & shunt to make it independent from the rest of the power circuitry.

While I'm at that, I'll run the CAN from rear to front and back again, install the new 7" screen, hook up the OBD and at some point.... connect the BMS... the one thing I most fear even though I have checked it more times than I have had Covid tests.

5 Days to go....

[rstevens81]

Whats the double din Ali radio you used? thinking one of those probably easiest way for me to get battery data available in my conversion

[Cookie6000]

Whats the double din Ali radio you used? thinking one of those probably easiest way for me to get battery data available in my conversion

It's a single din unit, but I think they sent me one with a double din bracket. Easy to modify. It's the same as the Aliexpress ones, but I managed to get it from a German reseller on ebay.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144934483171

[Cookie6000]

Following on from my last post, we ploughed on and got everything buttoned up, CAN bus run, charge circuit hooked up, HV lit up and wheels rolling.

Really good feeling when it all comes together and copper fastens the idea of documenting everything, and triple checking your work, especially when long days and nights are part of the build. Little mistakes can wreck your head and create noises you didn't want!

Here's the latest update of how I got on.



The last piece of this puzzle was on the SimpCharge and it's something I'm going to isolate over in another specific thread Tom has fed back into based on his work to figure out how best to get things running reliably with the 'workaround' when using the unit in tandem with a Tesla Gen 2 charger.

[Boxster EV]

Great update. Shame about the charger but interested to hear how you resolve it.

I’m leaving my Tesla gen 2 charger permanently powered on (LV) but it’ll kill the battery if not driven for a week. Need to find a solution to send it to sleep when not charging.

[JaniK]

Nice to see how this comes along. I might copy something too

[Cookie6000]

Great update. Shame about the charger but interested to hear how you resolve it.

I’m leaving my Tesla gen 2 charger permanently powered on (LV) but it’ll kill the battery if not driven for a week. Need to find a solution to send it to sleep when not charging.

Before I fitted the charge session controller, I just had a simple switch in the boot -flick it to turn on pump and charger, then plug in the evse. Worked fine but was just a bit manual. the simp charge automates life a little. Just need a bit of workaround to spoof the PP. Tom explains it here for anyone lie us using a Gen2 charger.
viewtopic.php?p=21435#p21435

Heading out to the workshop now to see if I can get this working...

[Cookie6000]

Jaysus lads

It's an embarrassing reason but, she's working

I came home with an adjustable resister, ready to play with where the sweet spot was for the PP from the charger to ground, took a punt at 680ohm and tried it... nothing. Right, off came the lid. Plug in the EVSE... nothing, no life. Head scratch. I took out one of the Molex MX150's I had been working on (the one that gives it power and has CAN) and which I had placed CAN onto... and there it was. The bloody pin lock hadn't been clicked back into position (facepalm city)

Clicked back into place, connector in, charge plug in and VOOM! Away we go. Absolutely delighted. Charging away at 3.3kW, SimpCharge doing what it should. I knew it had to be something simple.

Hope to get out for a spin tomorrow, if the weather isn't too woeful. Lesson for the week.... don't fret, it usually something simple.

[Cookie6000]

Quick update

Been driving the Audi a lot lately. Well, about 100km so far but, it's a lot for it since it hit the road first. Getting used to it's range capability and from a few back and forth to work, it looks to have an approximate range of 80km. Further testing - taking it to 0% SOC, charging to the top and doing the calcs - are to be done next.

All of this of course to be done with the Leaf BMS in place which, as any of you following this build since it's inception, has been the monkey on my back. Well, after multiple changes, tap checks and wiring, it finally went in... without any drama

Pretty happy tbh. Was dreading it but I had triple checked all the taps again and was fairly confident all was well. I spliced in the connector from the PackSniffer 2 also to aid preliminary tests while I wait for another obd adapter that I am promised will work with the unbranded android head unit. Long term plan is to root the unit and put a custom ROM on there, this removing any of this proprietary adapter crap. I can use to connector to hook up to via a can shield to see what's going on via the laptop.

So, there you go... It's really becoming the daily driver I set out to make it. Already thinking about a battery upgrade

Oh yeah, don't mind the 511A... there's a glitch in my wiring to that Leaf current sensor I reckon

[Alibro]

Quick update

Been driving the Audi a lot lately. Well, about 100km so far but, it's a lot for it since it hit the road first. Getting used to it's range capability and from a few back and forth to work, it looks to have an approximate range of 80km. Further testing - taking it to 0% SOC, charging to the top and doing the calcs - are to be done next.

All of this of course to be done with the Leaf BMS in place which, as any of you following this build since it's inception, has been the monkey on my back. Well, after multiple changes, tap checks and wiring, it finally went in... without any drama

Pretty happy tbh. Was dreading it but I had triple checked all the taps again and was fairly confident all was well. I spliced in the connector from the PackSniffer 2 also to aid preliminary tests while I wait for another obd adapter that I am promised will work with the unbranded android head unit. Long term plan is to root the unit and put a custom ROM on there, this removing any of this proprietary adapter crap. I can use to connector to hook up to via a can shield to see what's going on via the laptop.

So, there you go... It's really becoming the daily driver I set out to make it. Already thinking about a battery upgrade

Oh yeah, don't mind the 511A... there's a glitch in my wiring to that Leaf current sensor I reckon

PXL_20230429_115306365.jpg

Was it squeaky bum time when you plugged in the BMS?
I'd be very interested to hear how you get on with the Android head unit as that's something I want to try too.

[Cookie6000]

Was it squeaky bum time when you plugged in the BMS?
I'd be very interested to hear how you get on with the Android head unit as that's something I want to try too.

Hands were a bit twitchy yes but, I had cross checked it so many times, it had to be right by now!

Yep, the android hu is good but, still yet to have it doing what I want it to do.

Question to the members - anyone recommend a good custom ROM out there for the head unit when time comes to root it?

[Mhs]

Question to the members - anyone recommend a good custom ROM out there for the head unit when time comes to root it?

To my knowledge, you will need to find a specific custom ROM to your specific HU, I suggest you start searching for possible ROMs

[Alibro]

Hands were a bit twitchy yes but, I had cross checked it so many times, it had to be right by now!

Yep, the android hu is good but, still yet to have it doing what I want it to do.

Question to the members - anyone recommend a good custom ROM out there for the head unit when time comes to root it?

Probably a bit late and you may already have something similar but I made up a spreadsheet to show the voltages at every pin on the BMS connectors.
You can change the individual cell voltage to better reflect your battery but it means you can go through every pin checking the voltage is as expected.
Maybe best check I didn't cock something up because it was a long time ago I created this and it's a bit messy but hopefully it is helpful.
I checked mine at the time by taping a sewing needle to the positive lead on my multimeter.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[arber333]

Great update. Shame about the charger but interested to hear how you resolve it.

I’m leaving my Tesla gen 2 charger permanently powered on (LV) but it’ll kill the battery if not driven for a week. Need to find a solution to send it to sleep when not charging.

Hm.. i ddont know why i only see this statement now, but better late...

I am currently connecting charger to aux voltage directly so it does drain 12V battery. However my idea is to use my VCU to sense PP pin (or a start charge pin) to trip a relay which would start the process for the charger.
Innitially i found some trouble with the way charger will sense PP pin. So use of two PP inputs in parallel is not advisable. This is why i intend to manually start the charging session. But coolant pump and the rest of support systems will be turned on by the charger itself. Also DCDC controler so it is able to sustain long charging sessions.

[Cookie6000]

Probably a bit late and you may already have something similar but I made up a spreadsheet to show the voltages at every pin on the BMS connectors.

Thanks Ali. I did the same and have a record of every time I did a pin by pin while I was doing the cell balancing the time I had both packs open to the world so I could check the pins and cell taps. I did some conditional formatting in there too, to give a good visual representation of what's high and what's low. Think all the cross checking this time resulted in the success when plug in time came.

[Cookie6000]

To my knowledge, you will need to find a specific custom ROM to your specific HU, I suggest you start searching for possible ROMs

Part of the problem is, its a non branded unit but, I can access the system settings and find out what MCU and CPU types are in there plus all other build specifics... might be a long road but, I'll start with an info gathering process before I start into it

[marcexec]

Part of the problem is, its a non branded unit but, I can access the system settings and find out what MCU and CPU types are in there plus all other build specifics... might be a long road but, I'll start with an info gathering process before I start into it

Depending on the extent of what you want to do, the likes of Fully Kiosk or Android Wallpanel might be enough to customise the experience without too much fuss. I have the latter on my KitKat'd HP Touchpad for Home Assistant as it's too slow for the native app.

[kevpatts]

I have the latter on my KitKat'd HP Touchpad for Home Assistant as it's too slow for the native app.

I've been thinking about this recently since I looked into Home Assistant more. It would be a great project to get this integrated to the ZombieVerter. This is a project I'll be looking to start if I ever get my project started.

[Alibro]

Forgive me if you've answered this before but have you tried using Leafspy to monitor the BMS?