[DRIVING] leaf powered 1983 Subaru BRAT (dual outlander WIP)

[Bratitude]

Any one else finding their breaks seizing, from so little use….?


mine are put through the worst environment(mud, salt, dirt, rocks) which doesn’t help.

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

Any one else finding their breaks seizing, from so little use….?

I do find mine start to squeak/chirp while driving after a while, especially with only lightly using them. Once I give them a good stomp it goes away for a while.

[Bratitude]

few updates, lots has happened.

installed a model s dcdc, mounted on the side of the leaf motor. cleans up the engine bay nicely, and shaves some weight.

but now i have noise(?) jittery throttle. and overcurrent errors often. in start and stop traffic overcurrent's all the time.

i put a ground strap from the dcdc to the resolver ground screw, didnt really seem to help much. maybe i have a loose hv connection?

another note

i crashed the brat.

but driving again and back on the road a day later....

taking a back road detour on the island. before i set off, i was looking at the logging road maps, and it looked like there might be a short cut through a mountain pass that would cut out 40km, but there was 1km of a deactivated road. i gave it a shot...the 1km was washed out and impassable so turned around and charged up again to take the normal rout. by this time it was 1:30 in the morning....next thing i know im driving in a ditch and hit a culvert.... blowing out the front suspension.

through friends of friends, budy from a remote town on this side of the coast towed me out and we rebuilt the suspension. back to hooning a day later.

soon after that i got a call to help with a massive off grid solar system. so 300km drive up the island! no rest for the wicked...

[Bratitude]

little bit of maintenance;
took my pack apart and wired all 3 m3 modules in parallel and let them sit for a few hours. 2 packs were 90v and one was 86, so now pack to pack they are balanced.

* note with anyone looking todo the same:
be warry, i did this when the packs where at a low state of charge, and used a resistive load between each pack ( a incandescent lightbulb works great because you'll know when the packs are balanced) to limit current inrush.

my cell delta looks stable across the charge curve of about 60mv now. big improvement. more range!

cleaned up some 12v wiring and bracketry.

did some rough weight calculations.

the 4mt weighs about 135lbs + drive shaft(30lbs)+ rear diff/ r160 (52lbs)+ leaf motor/inverter roughly (150lbs)=372lbs

brats current 4wd drive train weighs about 367lbs.

outlander drive unit (135lbs)+ a tesla sdu unit (192lbs)= 330lbs.....almost 40lbs lighter but 400kw, empty engine bay, torque vectoring, better clearance(no drive shaft!)




adjusted some of my parameters: smoother now and feels a bit peppier. jitters seems to been gone, still looking for more torque at a lower state of charger.as at about 3.5v brat runs out of torque to move. if any one has any suggestions ! (72s battery)

[Bratitude]

Some updates:

Over 1 year on the road! Over 20000km travelled
what a wild ride!
some photos of cool places it’s been

Lots of updates and changes (as always)

while doing some maintenance in the rear, I took the time to see how a outlander drive unit would fit.

fits perfectly! some very minimal bracketry needed to hold it in place.

I’ll be slowly switching that brat over to dual outlander units. as this is my daily driver I’ll do it in parts.

First get the outlander motor mounted (no car mods must be bolt in!) and the zombieverter wired up and running.

This way I can swap in and out the outlander and subie rear diff easily. Can also just drive in fwd with no rear end. So I can still pickup supplies

Once outlander du is moving the brat, the leaf motor and e rest of the Subaru drivetrain(transmission) will be pulled.
then can start fitting a outlander du in the front.

Then the question will be dual motor control via zombie @johu how much was the zombie dual motor code done? I’m interested in supporting development!

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

I love seeing the adventures you've taken in this!

[Scrappyjoe]

I bought Zapatero’s Subaru kit to support my attempt to convert a VW T3 Syncro to electric- it actually arrived yesterday.

I’m currently trying to eyeball my front diff (it’s rear engined) to see if I can bolt one of the outlander motors in there. I think I’ll definitely lose some clearance.

Anyhow, he also sold me his Zombieverter. I have no idea how to power it up, but if it’s possible to dump files I could share them with you.

[Bratitude]

I’m currently trying to eyeball my front diff (it’s rear engined) to see if I can bolt one of the outlander motors in there. I think I’ll definitely lose some clearance.

The Outlander du sits at an angle and the diff hangs down, so should be able to maintain your ground clearance!

Also have the drive shaft adapters for the outlander du, the t3 axles will Bolt right up

Anyhow, he also sold me his Zombieverter. I have no idea how to power it up, but if it’s possible to dump files I could share them with you.

slowly building out the zombie wikis so it’ll be straight forward but it’s pretty simple.
Yeah I’m not sure what exactly was done for the dual motor control so I’m interested in seeing what was cooked up!

[Bratitude]

Some updates.

Sudo temporary battery install:

4th model 3 module mounted in a rifle case strapped in the bed.

Now running full 96s 400v

Drive over 200km At 85km/h pretty happy upgrade!

Picked up a few model3 bmb boards and salvaged as many bat man’s as I could. Will be testing out Damien’s latest update on m3 bms controller, and will have Batman chips available for sale aswell

[Steamboater]

I love this build and am inspired by the iterations of electrification you have taken your BRAT through. I bought my now-daily driver last February: an '85 BRAT, and have pondered how I could electrify it ever sense. That you have already done it to yours, and maintained it as your daily driver makes me jealous. My mechanical knowhow stops at nuts and bolts so getting into the electronics necessary for this type of conversion is daunting but now I have a model to follow so thanks for sharing your build! I'm excited to see how the dual motor setup turns out. Highlander hybrids are common here, which I believe are similar to the Outlander. If I ever take on a similar project I think they would be a good option.

[Bratitude]

pulled the wiring harness, and rewiring the brat..... temporary was starting to become permeant. too many splices, and junctions.

integrating zombiverter as the main vcu.

current hardware in the brat:
-leaf motor with OI replacement board
-tesla model s DCDC converter
-tesla model s gen2 OBC with OI replacement board
-ISA shunt
-chademo port
-ibooster

i have another trip up north coming up quick and mainly want to get chademo working. but first gettin it driving again under zoimbie.

what i have set up with the zombie so far:

zombie wired as:
permanent 12v
contactors (neg, pos, pre)
throttle dual channel
ignition + start
CAN
forward/rev

OI board wired as:
12v switched on via zombie "inverter power LS switch"
can to CAN1 on zombie
??

shunt wired:
12v
can to CAN2 on zombie

dcdc wired as:
12v enable to ??
can to CAN2 on zombie



OI board setting:

- Throttle
potmode
CANDual

- Communication
canspeed
500k

canperiod
10ms

nodeid
1

controlid
63

controlcheck
StmCrc8


ZOMBIE settings:

- general setup
inverter
openI

inverterCAN
CAN1

-DC-DC converter
DCdc_type
teslaG2

shunt, throttle, and contactors are working on the zombie. no motor spinning
what am i missing?

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

Is the inverter seeing the direction command from the Zombie?

[Aragorn]

Are you running the new OI code which expects the CAN counters and checksumming?

Does Zombie generate the can counters/checksums that the OI board wants?

[Bratitude]

Is the inverter seeing the direction command from the Zombie?

no

Are you running the new OI code which expects the CAN counters and checksumming?

yes updated to the latest, in "last error" it read CANCOUNTER on the oi interface

Does Zombie generate the can counters/checksums that the OI board wants?

supposedly yes, V2.04A zombie firmware has the OI can class

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

no

So isn't that (part of) the problem? It looks like in your list the zombie is the only thing getting the direction, so if the OI board isn't getting that from the Zombie, then it would stay in neutral and not spin. Is the Zombie set up to transmit the direction over CAN and the OI board to receive it?

[Bratitude]

So isn't that (part of) the problem?

of course!

the OI board isnt going into start mode via zombie can also.

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

of course!

the OI board isnt going into start mode via zombie can also.

Then to step back, is the OI board responding to any of the Zombie's CAN instructions? Have you logged to confirm the Zombie is sending over CAN? Any chance it's some small mistake like CAN speed mismatch or termination issues?

I haven't played with Zombie yet (it's on this spring's project list) so I'm just trying to think of the mistakes I would make.

[Bratitude]

is the OI board responding to any of the Zombie's CAN instructions? Have you logged to confirm the Zombie is sending over CAN? Any chance it's some small mistake like CAN speed mismatch or termination issues?

okay so if i powerup the inverter (oi board):
lasterr: PRECHARGE
status: UdcbelowUdcsw|BrakeCheack

then when i power up the zombie, the inverter:
lasterr: CANCOUNTER
satus: UdcbelowUdcsw|brakeCheak

then do ign and start on the zombie

the inverter:
lasterr: CANCOUNTER
status: BrakeCheck.

from my understanding the zombie can speed is 500k?

if i change the can speed to anything else (from 500k) in the oi interface the CANCOUNTER error is gone.

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

the inverter:
lasterr: CANCOUNTER
status: BrakeCheck.

I think I saw that the new Zombie-don't-kill-people code requires the brake pedal be applied at start up to verify that it is getting brake signal (and thus things like cruise can be canceled) and I don't see a brake pedal signal in your wiring list. Maybe it's that?

I'm not sure about the CANCOUNTER error, I know its part of the same FW update but I haven't dived too deeply into it.

[Bratitude]

Zombie-don't-kill-people code requires the brake pedal be applied at start up to verify that it is getting brake signal

yup, thats it. progress.

inverter side pulled brake to 12v, then start to 12v now in run mode on the inverter.

selecting drive via zombie sends forward/rev to inverter. and ill hear the inverter wine, but no movement. now getting throttle2 error. okay progress!

okay so ill need to set up the can throttle on the inverter the same as the zombie. right as its just mapping the throttle vaules, not torque requests i assume.

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

okay so ill need to set up the can throttle on the inverter the same as the zombie. right as its just mapping the throttle vaules, not torque requests i assume.

I think so? I haven't dug too far into the 5.32 firmware with the new throttle via CAN configuration, I'm still running an earlier FW.

[Bratitude]

we have a driver!

mapped the throttle (pot min/max) on the inverter.

selected drive via zombie,
pressed throttle via zombie,
motor spin!

wiring is kind of funky then, should i wire the inverter start input to the zombie "inverter power" output?

as zombie will take care of the start up sequence.

[johu]

Very good.

I noticed on another build that CANCOUNTER comes up a bit too quickly. Has no practical consequence though.
In Touran it isn't thrown, weird

[Bratitude]

Very good.

I noticed on another build that CANCOUNTER comes up a bit too quickly. Has no practical consequence though.
In Touran it isn't thrown, weird

strange.

i put the shunt and inverter on can1

as i had the shunt on can2 and inverter on can1, now the inverter shows CANTIMEOUT so there must be some interfering messages?

[P.S.Mangelsdorf]

I believe the shunt messages are all in the 500s, so I don't think there would be interference at the default CAN control IDs.

Are your shunt and inverter both terminated? perhaps too many termination resistors?