Gen 3 Prius Inverter Features Simple Walk Around

[Gregski]

not sure where to drop this, but newbs like me may find this helpful

[Gregski]

Damien Maguire: Toyota Prius Gen 3 Inverter Converter

[Gregski]

Toyota Prius Inverter Teardown!!! [Japanese amazing technology]

[Gregski]

Video highlights:

• EV BMW internal Logic Board

• over the air firmware upgrade

[Woodfie]

This can be operated on sync serial as the GS450H does,
Early test days, and performance still WIP
Not sure about ANY, but has bench run 300h L210, Q211, and 6.5kw estima starter / generator,
Also road test in a Bmwagon with 300h L210 at up to 65pkh on 280v . Appears to be back emf constrained.

[Woodfie]

Test set up and vehicle running trial
Under TOYOTA ; L210 23 November

[Gregski]

This can be operated on sync serial as the GS450H does,
Early test days, and performance still WIP
Not sure about ANY, but has bench run 300h L210, Q211, and 6.5kw estima starter / generator,
Also road test in a Bmwagon with 300h L210 at up to 65pkh on 280v . Appears to be back emf constrained.

thank you very much for sharing, would love to hear more detail / see pics of how you gutted the buck boost converter please if possible, I will explore your YouTube channel in the meantime

[Woodfie]

The gutting, was done in 2 steps, by a few folks.
As the boost converter was Toast, likely the IGBTs failed in the large black monolith.
Some pairing of the Capacitor bank leads and chopping, was done, Will get the details from the surgeon.
The voltage sense lead or similar was piggybacked to another position, to spoof it to think the "boost" circuit was alive and well. The 12V DCDC converter can stay.

On the Gutted inverter ,the Second step, the 12V DCDC was also removed,to reduce its size to about that of the Large 12V battery space, as the aim was to use it in a Soarer hybrid project at that time, ( recent road tests have stymied that)
Normally (Hmmm not much normal here) The 12V could remain in tack, and be utilized if the way to activate it was sorted.. So only the Boost circuit connection needs attacking.
This was done last year as preparation for some real Road proof testing., and the subsequent disappointing speed limits , and high current draw in the Bmwagon found . More exploring Required.

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

would love to hear more detail / see pics of how you gutted the buck boost converter please if possible

Just FYI, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's a need to remove the Buck/Boost converter. You just don't use it. Just that in his specific case, it was blown, so, had to be removed.

There was, for a time, some conversation about needing to remove it, or bypass it, or have power added somewhere other than the standard location on one of the Prius inverters (Damien even made/sold brass standoffs so that you could access a different point inside the inverter and connect to those instead0. But, I think that was a red herring and not the actual explanation for why that inverter failed/had trouble. Perhaps it was that Damien reverse engineered the Gen2 inverter first which auto-mirrors one half of the waveform and sets the deadtime between transistors on/off internally, and didn't double-check that on the Gen3 it does not do that, and if you fail to program dead-time it will fry. He later discovered this.

I know each of those pieces of the story individually, but I'm not sure I'm putting them together correctly. I don't think Damien ever went back and said "You don't need to do this anymore", you would need to have deeper understanding of the impact of that later discovery to glean that context. I recall someone else made this summary but, that's just one person and I didn't see anyone else confirm it, so, don't hold it as gospel, I'm a mixture of a parrot and a game of telephone.

[Gregski]

Just FYI, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's a need to remove the Buck/Boost converter. You just don't use it. Just that in his specific case, it was blown, so, had to be removed.

Thanks Matt, I agree, there is no need to remove the Buck/Boost converter from the operational perspective, I was considering it just from the point of view of reducing clutter and opening up some space inside the box to bridge/reroute the stock OEM battery connector to the proper bus bars where we need to inject the battery pack voltage to.


Where to connect the battery to the Prius Gen 3 Inverter (circa June 2020):

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

I was considering it just from the point of view of reducing clutter and opening up some space inside the box to bridge/reroute the stock OEM battery connector to the proper bus bars where we need to inject the battery pack voltage to.

So, as far as I understand, that's the part you don't need to do. You can just connect it normally at the normal terminals. That was the red herring, Damien was mistaken about why he blew up the cap. It was because of the lack of dead time in his programming because he assumed the Gen3 was the same as the Gen2.

[Gregski]

So, as far as I understand, that's the part you don't need to do. You can just connect it normally at the normal terminals. That was the red herring, Damien was mistaken about why he blew up the cap. It was because of the lack of dead time in his programming because he assumed the Gen3 was the same as the Gen2.

the video above is queued exactly to where he explains where to connect the traction battery, it is my understanding that we could only connect the negative DC lead to the stock OEM factory place, however the positive DC lead needs to bypass the buck/boost converter and or some other jazz and tap in to the output of the half bridge [yes that is all Greek to me], so please watch it and see if you agree

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

so please watch it and see if you agree

I did earlier, watched the whole thing.

Yes, he explains where to connect power to instead.

My point is, I think this video was during an interim stage where Damien mis-attributed the reason for the failure to not bypassing the boost converter. He later discovered that the Gen3 needs you to program deadtime to the transistors between switching and that was the reason for its failure. I don't think he ever says it, but the secondary conclusion is "that whole connecting the positive rail to a different places isn't useful/necessary."

At least, this is the summary that someone else wrote a month or two ago.

[Bigpie]

The buck boost absolutely needs to be bypassed, you'll blow stuff up if you don't at higher speeds. Your HV needs connecting directly to the DC bus. If using a replacement logic board, for the gen 3 a dead time is absolutely required also.

[Gregski]

a very thorough video series on installing the EVBMW single motor internal logic board into a 2012 Toyota Prius Gen 3 Inverter which points out slight fitment differences between the 2010-11 models and the 2012-15, the 2010-11 being a direct bolt it, where as the latter require slight modifications to the EVBMW logic board


EVBMW Gen3 Prius Logic Board Swap (part 1)

[Gregski]

no idea what this man is saying, but thought perhaps our Slavic/Korean viewers would appreciate it:

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

no idea what this man is saying, but thought perhaps our Slavic/Korean viewers would appreciate it:

0:00
Hello friends from the YouTube channel, I am Ángel Unda. Here is a video of the hybrid system from hybrid vehicles.
0:10
In this case we are going to talk about the inverter-converter. Here we have a couple of Toyota inverter-converters.
0:16
As you see here, this would be the part that we have on the table.
0:21
We are going to describe its parts and functioning. It’s going to be brief, obviously, this is complex.
0:29
This is the power electronics that allows the hybrid and electric vehicles to run.
0:35
This inverter-converter is the one receiving, through this connection over here, the voltage of the high voltage battery,
0:44
positive and negative poles,
0:46
and here they are connected in 3 phase, the 3 cables of the motor-generators, MG1 and MG2.
0:55
You have seen this part, the high voltage battery system, in another video of our channel.
1:01
If battery voltage is applied here, the inverter-converter will make different functions.
1:08
One of the functions is converting, which consists of modifying the voltage values.
1:14
On the one hand, it has the booster function, which is amplifying the battery voltage.
1:19
Recall that the battery has 200V (actually 201.6V, but we talk about 200V to make it easier).
1:27
Those 200V are elevated to around 700-750V with the booster function. To do so, several part inside here are needed.
1:36
This would be one of the converting functions.
1:39
On the other hand, we have the lower or buck converting, which is the reduction of the voltage,
1:45
to go from 200V to this little screw that you can see here, which is the 14V connection, this is, from 200V to 14.4V.
1:56
The voltage regulating function that would be done by any alternator is here made by the lower or buck component,
2:06
which is on the bottom part of the inverter-converter.
2:11
So we have those 2 functions as converter: elevate (booster function) and reduce (lower or buck function).
2:17
The booster function is for feeding the motor-generators with higher voltage
2:25
and the lower function is for feeding the battery of the 14V by means of the connection to the fuse box.
2:34
Note that if we have a 200V battery, we can always go to 14V with the right component.
2:40
Besides, we have the inverting function, which is in charge of converting the direct current (DC) to alternate current (AC) for the motor-generator;
2:49
and from AC, generated by the motors, to DC, this is, it allows to make motor function, motor-generator MG, and generation function.
3:00
So the inverter is the brain of this system, it’s very interesting.
3:07
Here we have another inverter, which we opened (a special tool is needed) just to show you how it’s inside, how complex it seems to be.
3:21
The battery voltage would be connected here. Here we have an output towards the compressor of the air conditioning system.
3:28
These would be the 3 phase connections for the motor-generators, and down here we have the connection for the 14V.
3:36
Remember that we need to make the booster function, and to do so we need a reactive coil, which is on the bottom part of the inverter,
3:45
and some power capacitors that you can see here on the cover. For the lower function, it’s all below the inverter, on the metallic pan.
3:55
And for the inverting fuction we have a set of IGBTs with diodes, which are down here.
4:03
Here is the parts that are refrigerated by water, because they generate much heat.
4:10
Here we can see the current clamps to know the phases intensities.
4:14
We can also see the connection of the inverter control unit.
4:21
And some connections for filter type capacitors.
4:25
So this inverter is the most interesting part of the hybrid and electric vehicles,
4:32
because it’s the key for this vehicle to run and especially to make the regeneration or the regenerative breaking,
4:42
this is, when the motor-generators generate current, the inverter is the one rectifying it and sending it at the corresponding voltage to charge the high voltage battery.
4:55
As you can see inside here are the capacitors set.
5:02
This goes this way, as a cover.
5:05
If anyone wants more information, in our on-site Toyota hybrid courses we disassemble all in detail, we explain all the functioning of the components, etc.
5:17
(not only the inverter but also the battery and transaxle).
5:22
This little cover over here is the one to be removed to access the connections.
5:28
Here you can see, for example, that the connection for the compressor comes this way, is has a protection fuse.
5:37
This would be the protection fuse for the compressor.
5:41
When removing this cover, we can find here 2 pins for a micro, see here the connections, for a pilot circuit,
5:52
which informs the unit if someone has opened the cover and, therefore, disconnects the high voltage system.
6:01
In our courses we also explain how to safely handle this vehicles, very important, because we already know that the battery is a 200V high voltage system.
6:13
We need to know how to handle it and know the safety measures to prevent an accident. But inside here we also have high voltage that is accumulated in the capacitors.
6:23
So once we disconnect the battery we also have to make sure the capacitors are discharged.
6:28
That was a quick description of the inverter. As you can see, there are many parts inside.
6:39
We explain each of those parts in our Toyota expert courses. Visit our website to check the next date of these courses.
6:52
This inverter, from my point of view, is the most interesting part of the hybrid vehicles and also the most complex to understand, actually.
7:00
Shortly we will record another video explaining the motor-generators to complete the hybrid system,
7:09
and finally understand the battery, inverter and motor-generator.
7:13
See you soon in the next video, thank you very much for following us.

[Gregski]

DTC p0a94 inside the Toyota hybrid inverter converter assembly ( blown IGBT )