Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Topics concerning the Tesla front and rear drive unit drop-in board
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by johu »

nilsvr wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:25 am Does that mean some hardware (IGBT or IGBT Driver) is dead?
Tesla aficionados need to jump in here.
There is some simple tests you can do on the IGBT phases, some on the forum which I can't find. Maybe this video helps

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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by nilsvr »

Thank you for the help, I will wait for one of the mentioned tesla aficionados before taking apart the inverter.
I find it weird that only one igbt driver would be in an error state without any of the driverboard leds lighting up.
The DU came from a salvage car with mechanical damage but the motor was stated to be still operational.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by nilsvr »

Ok so after not changing anything I today measured all my pins again and all of a sudden i can supply 12V on start and everything is fine (no error state of the highside IGBT A driver anymore).
If I now apply 96V with udcnom at 96V, udcmin at 80V and udcsw at 85V it still is able to "start" (main contactor closes) but as soon as I press the pedal I hear the main contactor open again.

I think while reading through almost all posts about LDU overcurrent issues in this forum I saw someone having the same problem.
I will search for their post and read up their story.

All help is still very welcome, I hope the new fault picture I encounter is solvable without having to switch out hardware.


EDIT: had it sit for a few hours and now it is behaving like before with an overcurrenterror as soon as i apply 12V to „start“…
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by jon volk »

If all of a sudden something responds, but you did not change the firmware, that would point me toward an intermittent connection somewhere. The wire to board connectors on the logic board can be temperamental to solder well, so it might be worth looking closely there. That’s probably a best case scenario. There’s also the possibility that something in the OE Tesla electronics could have been jarred in the wreck.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by canadasconvert »

I am about to upgrade my firmware from 4.85.R-sine to 5.13.R-sine. I have a hard copy of the existing settings that I know got the motor spinning. Is there anything else I should be aware of before upgrading the firmware? I am a little concerned because sometimes when I am working with the inverter wifi, I get the spinning circles to the left of the main headings (Parameters, Spot Values, Plot). Sometimes these go away and sometimes they stay there for a long time. If they don't go away, I have shut the inverter wifi down and restarted it. If the motor doesn't spin with the new firmware, can I download older firmware? I have a LDU from a 2015 Sport from a P85 model.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by nilsvr »

jon volk wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:18 pm If all of a sudden something responds, but you did not change the firmware, that would point me toward an intermittent connection somewhere.
That would indeed be the best case scenario and me probing around on all the pins might have temporarily fixed something until it got loose again. Have to check out the board in the evening.

@johu The boards are tested before shipping so it should not be one of the ic pins being loose am I right?


jon volk wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:18 pm There’s also the possibility that something in the OE Tesla electronics could have been jarred in the wreck.
That would suck since I did not plan on reverse engineering the whole tesla igbt driver and inverter tech for this project… (i was hoping to leave that to the pros)
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by Boxster EV »

nilsvr wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:15 pm Ok so after not changing anything I today measured all my pins again and all of a sudden i can supply 12V on start and everything is fine (no error state of the highside IGBT A driver anymore).
If I now apply 96V with udcnom at 96V, udcmin at 80V and udcsw at 85V it still is able to "start" (main contactor closes) but as soon as I press the pedal I hear the main contactor open again.

All help is still very welcome, I hope the new fault picture I encounter is solvable without having to switch out hardware.


EDIT: had it sit for a few hours and now it is behaving like before with an overcurrenterror as soon as i apply 12V to „start“…
I’m sorry to say that this all points towards a defective gate drive PCB.

Do you see din_ocur error in the spot values in waitstart status?

If you remove all HV power from the DC busbars and power up the LV side / close the contactor, select a direction and apply throttle, can you hear the inverter make a high pitch sound? At that point the red LED will usually reveal itself to highlight which board is a problem.

If you get to that point, all is not lost as it’s easy to change over the gate drive PCB.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by Boxster EV »

canadasconvert wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 6:14 pm I am about to upgrade my firmware from 4.85.R-sine to 5.13.R-sine. I have a hard copy of the existing settings that I know got the motor spinning. Is there anything else I should be aware of before upgrading the firmware? I am a little concerned because sometimes when I am working with the inverter wifi, I get the spinning circles to the left of the main headings (Parameters, Spot Values, Plot). Sometimes these go away and sometimes they stay there for a long time. If they don't go away, I have shut the inverter wifi down and restarted it. If the motor doesn't spin with the new firmware, can I download older firmware? I have a LDU from a 2015 Sport from a P85 model.
Yes, you can downgrade. However it’s important that you don’t change the file name IE the new file must be the same as old (stm32_sine.bin).

If it freezes, worst case scenario is that you’ll need to pull the motor and upgrade it manually.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by nilsvr »

Boxster EV wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:50 pm
Do you see din_ocur error in the spot values in waitstart status?
Yes it is constantly at OK (I guess that is not good?)


Boxster EV wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:50 pm
If you remove all HV power from the DC busbars and power up the LV side / close the contactor, select a direction and apply throttle, can you hear the inverter make a high pitch sound? At that point the red LED will usually reveal itself to highlight which board is a problem.
I did all of that but as soon as I apply throttle the main contactor just trips.
Am I supposed to manually „force“ close it to produce the whine?


Boxster EV wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:50 pm
If you get to that point, all is not lost as it’s easy to change over the gate drive PCB.
Where would one aquire such an exchange PCB? I have seen that some PCBs are green, mine are red. Does that make a difference?
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by Boxster EV »

nilsvr wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 7:14 am
Boxster EV wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:50 pm
Do you see din_ocur error in the spot values in waitstart status?
Yes it is constantly at OK (I guess that is not good?)


Boxster EV wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:50 pm
If you remove all HV power from the DC busbars and power up the LV side / close the contactor, select a direction and apply throttle, can you hear the inverter make a high pitch sound? At that point the red LED will usually reveal itself to highlight which board is a problem.
I did all of that but as soon as I apply throttle the main contactor just trips.
Am I supposed to manually „force“ close it to produce the whine?


Boxster EV wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:50 pm
If you get to that point, all is not lost as it’s easy to change over the gate drive PCB.
Where would one aquire such an exchange PCB? I have seen that some PCBs are green, mine are red. Does that make a difference?
The fact that din_ocur OK is good news. To start swaping PCBs, you'd of course require a parts bin inverter from a sport LDU.

Have you calibrated the throttle? Have you tried lowering your slipstart setting? Try it at 32 and boost at 1650
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by johu »

Boxster EV wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 1:09 pm Have you tried lowering your slipstart setting?
Uh, that's an odd one. Lowering slipstart means transition slipmin->slipmax happens earlier. So more aggressive.

Before randomly turning on and off I'd concentrate on the signal that should be high but is low.

din_ocur only displays the state of the current comparator, not the state of the gate drive fault signals.
nilsvr wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 7:14 am
Boxster EV wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:50 pm If you remove all HV power from the DC busbars and power up the LV side / close the contactor, select a direction and apply throttle, can you hear the inverter make a high pitch sound? At that point the red LED will usually reveal itself to highlight which board is a problem.
I did all of that but as soon as I apply throttle the main contactor just trips.
Am I supposed to manually „force“ close it to produce the whine?
So the fault is only revealed when PWM signals are sent. Did you see a LED light up? The contactor opening is just a consequence of the detected fault. If you force it closed the inverter will still exit run mode and no longer send PWM.
You could try forcing the faulting pin to 5V right at IC10. Then it will stay in run mode and you might see a LED...
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by nilsvr »

It is getting worse from time to time... I just measured everything again and now IC10 Pins 1,3 and 4 are all low...

I am using a crappy 12v power adapter said to deliver 3350mA. Under no load it delivers 12,4v and if the board is powered up (without the contactors) the voltage dips down to around 11,7v. Since the power supply for the board is supposed to be 5A fused anyways I thought 3,3A should be enough and I also expect the system to function with the "low" voltage. Just to be sure this powersupply should/can not be the problem am I right?

Still on powerup all IGBT pcb leds flash for a moment and then turn off again and stay off. I have never seen a single one of them on during operation (if what it does is allowed to be called operation...).

EDIT:
Randomly startet working again after a pause and got further than ever before:
No HV connected, udcnom, udcmin and udcsw at 0 selected forward and applied throttle. Everything without an oc error but I heard the whining noise that got mentioned.
Is that noise a good/normal sign or does that already point to broken hardware (no leds turned on during the process).

I have a sidequestion regarding the throttle settings.
I set potmin and potmax according to the seen values of pot during no throttle and max throttle. The value of potnom is confusing me. It is in % and I expected it to be between 0 and 100 (as % are kind of always) but it ramps from -55% to about 1% when I apply throttle. Is that normal? And if yes what does that value represent?
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by johu »

Yes, whining is good
Negative potnom means regen braking. Set brkmax=0 for testing then it will go away.
If you believe your power supply is dodgy, get a better one. Voltage dips are not good.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by EV_Builder »

Yeah a dodgy power supply isn't what you want in an timeing critical application like this. If the MCU reboots half way through the sines it definitely won't be beneficial...why not use a lead acid battery in between? Connect your power supply parallel to it. Now you have a big buffer and stable supply. If the system voltage drops over time you know your PS was to small in the first place.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by nilsvr »

Ok 2 (very embarassing) things changed:

Powersupply out of an mostly unused PC (dont have a spare car battery laying around and dont want to take the one out of my daily driver)
-> continous 12,1V and a permanent whining/humming sound when in run state (also in neutral). Normal/good?

And somebody (definitly not me…) didn‘t know that watersoluable solderflux is highly conductive and therefore never thoroughly cleaned their pcb after adding the connector sockets…

I now feel like the randomness of events is gone and the motor buckled for the first time.
From 0 to about 50% of the throttle I have the high whining sound and after that it starts to rattle.

Which are the parameters I have to play around with to get it to smooth running?
I plotted the angle and and it permanently jumps up and down without the motor moving is that normal?

Thank you so much for all the help until now and sorry for being such a dufus… I am 22 and still missing a lot of common experience.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by johu »

no worries, just been through that myself - plumbers flux eating away solder pads - who could have known. Is the encoder connected yet? If so A and B channels are probably swapped.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by nilsvr »

Swapping the encoder channels fixed it. Thank you for the help.
Is it normal that I have to press about 20 percent of the throttle before the motor starts to spin up? I am pretty sure I calibrated it correctly. Is the calculated throttle ramp one linear line between min and max or is there a deadband?
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by johu »

20% must be the regen travel. Configured by brknom up until 5.14.R and regentravel on later (unreleased) versions
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by canadasconvert »

Hi everyone. I have been driving my Boxster Tesla LDU conversion around the neighbourhood for the past couple of days and have put on about 10 miles (16KM). Everything is working well (so far). The car is using about 2-3 VDC per mile driven with starting and stopping at intersections. I have been watching the two motor temperatures indicators on the interface (TMPHS and TMPM). TMPHS never gets above 30 degrees C but TMPM got close to 40 degrees C today. Ambient temperature is about 25 degrees C. I am using one of the existing Boxster radiators and circulating fluid through the Motor & DC/DC Converter and Charger. The batteries are air cooled. For you guys that have been running their conversions for a couple of years, what is the optimal and maximum temperature you can run continuously? I think the LDU cut out is 80 degrees C.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by Romale »

johu wrote: Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:05 am .. just been through that myself - plumbers flux eating away solder pads - who could have known...
I always use a flux that does not require washing and calmly test all the boards on the table. they can be with flux for a couple of months and everything is ok. but before the final installation in the inverter and in the vehicle, I still wash everything with alcohol and a toothbrush)))
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by eGrandpa »

Does anyone have a recommended wiring diagram for providing Park, Reverse and Drive (Forward) as input to the LDU? Is Park just simply not providing 12v to either the Reverse or Forward pins 7 and 8?
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by jon volk »

Neutral would be a better term. No direction selected means no pwm generation. There is no “park” mechanism and the car will be happy to roll away if your hand brake is not up to task.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by eGrandpa »

Yes of course. Thx. I suspected that this is all that is necessary. I tested it this morning by just removing power to my Forward / Reverse selector switch. I haven't decided exactly yet, but probably a three position selector switch with indicator lights for Forward, Neutral and Reverse will work best for me.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by remy_martian »

^ You probably want an annoying alarm that goes off a few seconds after you go to "Park" (it's really neutral, but keep that among us girls) unless the park/e-brake is set.

Otherwise, I think you're setting yourself up for a disaster from a rogue rolling vehicle. Forgetful you, or a friend taking it around the block.
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Re: Tesla Large Drive Unit Support Thread

Post by nilsvr »

eGrandpa wrote: Tue Jul 26, 2022 12:55 pm Yes of course. Thx. I suspected that this is all that is necessary. I tested it this morning by just removing power to my Forward / Reverse selector switch. I haven't decided exactly yet, but probably a three position selector switch with indicator lights for Forward, Neutral and Reverse will work best for me.
I am using an E46 M3 SMG gear selector it is not the best solution since it has gear up, gear down and a toggle between automatic and semi automatic that slightly interfer with the drive mode but for me that is fine (maybe i will put a logic block in line that deletes this „problem“).
I personally like the look of an actual shiftknob a lot more than a button setup or turnable D N F selector.
I paid 25€ for mine and can provide my findings on pin in and out if someone wants/needs that (very easy to measure though).
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