openinverter forum

This project is lasting for too long already. It was named "Zero Emissions Frankenstein" because it was built a little bit from everything. Main goal however was to make myself busy and to fight boredom.
Frame was designed as so called "backbone chassis" and central tunnel was supposed to contain battery pack of 22 100Ah LiFePo4 tall cells.
Suspension and drivetrain was from BMW E30 because I always wanted to create a RWD car, to have drift fun sometimes =) It was made of sheet metal because at the moment I was working as a bender, and looking at that decision from now, I realised how wrong I was.
DISCLAMER: FROM NOW ON THIS FRAME IS GOING TO SCRAPYARD, PROJECT WILL CONTINUE WITH NORMAL TUBE WELDED FRAME.
As powertrain, I chose ACIM custom made motor with combind windings(and that was a mistake, as I learned later),
copper rotor from kienle-spiess.de, custom made schaft and AMT 102-V encoder.
To power it I chose Curtis 1236-6301 inverter. Curtis inverter provides a torque control mode, which is incampatible with combined windings.
It also was a hell of a fun to somehow tune inverter, because no way I'll pay same price for a programmer as I paid for inverter itself.
In conclusion I've bought cheap laptop with COM port and used software from the internet... So voltage of the system was supposed to be around 80 volts, to charge battery I've bought three Eltec SMPS1000 power supplies to work in series.
I've also purchased PowerWatcher2 and Smart BMS from Yury Logvin, I bet some of locals know him ...Long story short: Belarussian currency dropped hard in 2014 and project was on hold for a better times, which I hope come soon.
For now to tune inverter I've bought six simple cheap car batteries, and managed to test drive the car only this year:

It also can drift.... ofcourse it can, it is BMW-based


.... and then I bumped into this forum
And from now, this project will become "open inverter" and with all new components, new tube welded frame included.
For now, I've bought Prius Gen 2 inverter, Gen 3 inverter, Lexus RX400h MGR, Damine's gen 2 board and Johu's gen 3 board. Currently I'm experimenting with Damien's board as it is the simpiest one for pairing it with gen2 inverter and ACIM motor.
I believe for now I'm the only one who actually drove a vehicle, powered by Damien's gen2 board.


So here I am, continue to fight with issues here and there and thinking which way to choose, cheap inverter, or cheap control board...

Thats one hilarious vehicle
Please don't kill yourself, crumple zone seems limited

Way to go! That's where most projects start. And first Gen 2 project turning wheels!

johu wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:52 am Thats one hilarious vehicle
Please don't kill yourself, crumple zone seems limited

If only that was a problem - there is no seat belt as well

So today I've fixed an issue with "din_forward" stuck on high. It was dead capacitor C9. Voltage didn't dropped when forward pin was switched off. Still don't know why main contactor isn't closing, when precharge is deactivated... Might be issue with BTS117, both of which I've populeted myself. Web inteface shows no "stop" errors, only "warn" ones, as il1 and il2 are not connected.
For a good tuning process I need a water pump, because powerstage overheats instantly, as it's almost 30*C every day Nnfortunately, I'm under quarantine, and can't go and buy one. Need to wait one week....

AWESOME! Big milestone! I'm sure my Russian wife will be super excited to translate the video text for me lol

I'm following along, hopefully in a couple months be close to running mine...hopefully!

TheSilverBuick wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 4:40 pm I'm sure my Russian wife will be super excited to translate the video text for me lol

In case she won't be able to understand some engineer folklore, I've added English subs to video with writings in Russian.

Hey Konstantine,

I find your project interesting.

Could you confirm, if you are still using the custom ACIM motor for this project or you have switched to a OEM motor from Lexus/Prius?

Thanks.

sam_albuquerque wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:00 pm Hey Konstantine,

I find your project interesting.

Could you confirm, if you are still using the custom ACIM motor for this project or you have switched to a OEM motor from Lexus/Prius?

Thanks.

I still use it. It will be used with Curtis controller in buggy, which I'm going to build, but from now, as I've bought Damien's prius gen3 board, I'm going to use it with Lexus MGR. In future I want to make a AWD car with two of them

konstantin8818 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 28, 2020 6:47 pm It was made of sheet metal because at the moment I was working as a bender, and looking at that decision from now, I realised how wrong I was.

Are you sure, Tesla Cybertruck ahead of time

joromy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:18 am Are you sure, Tesla Cybertruck ahead of time

If only it was stainless steel It is zync coated, never the less it started to corrode in some places...

In other threads, you mention you use the Kilovac EV200 contactors, and a Prius relay. Is there a reason the whole Prius contactor/precharge module didn't work? The conversation immediately after your post below goes into talks about economizers, but nothing specifically about it in regard to the Prius module.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=335&start=80

konstantin8818 wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2020 5:59 am Are this contactor assemblys from Toyota HV battery of any good use?
Two contactors at both positive and negative lines, precharge relay with resistor and as far as I can say - with built in current sensor.
20200522_083815.jpg
20200521_204034.jpg
Why I'm asking? There is a guy, who sell toyota HV cells, and those assemblys are "leftovers no one needs" and he sell them for ~30 euro, and as he says, he have got "many of those".
I've bought one and tested - it works.

TheSilverBuick wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:45 pm In other threads, you mention you use the Kilovac EV200 contactors, and a Prius relay. Is there a reason the whole Prius contactor/precharge module didn't work? The conversation immediately after your post below goes into talks about economizers, but nothing specifically about it in regard to the Prius module.

The whole prius unit could be used, only for its contactors we need economizers or to emulate them with code. Unfortunately I don't know how BTS117 transistors will handle pwm signal coming from STM32. For now I'm testing Damien's board for traction, but as soon as gen3 board arrives I'll try to control prius contactors with that special code, and we'll see what happen.

So you determined they warm up when left on? The thread just immediately jumped to economizer talk after your post. You get why I'm asking

TheSilverBuick wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 10:16 pm So you determined they warm up when left on? The thread just immediately jumped to economizer talk after your post. You get why I'm asking

I haven't tested them on warm up because I have nothing to measure temperature except my fingers don't want to damage them and contactors

Okay. I ordered one for $30 and should be here next week. I have a laser temp gun and can power it on from my Bolt's 12v battery for a while. Its DC-DC converter is supposed to output 14 volts when the car is on.

Little update:
My MGR, powered by Gen3 inverter and v1c board now spins good in both directions.
I've tried to design adapter plates to connect unmodified BMW driveschafts directly to MGR's outputs, but for this to happen, they need to be 10cm in length, which is unacceptable. So i'll go the same way as Damien - cuttting and welding driveschafts.
Video is in russian, but nothing new is said there.

Now I'm on my way to local used parts dealer fot Lexus driveschafts.

When I've watched Damien installed MGR into BMW subframe I desided to go same way: to cut my BMW driveschafts and Lexus driveschafts and weld them together.... and then I've found out how much E30 parts cost here in Belarus I desided to leave them as is and sell later.
Insteard I've bought the whole Lexus RX400h rear subframe with another pair of driveschafts and hubs. It cost me 50 euro - dirt cheap even for my country I must say I also found out that Toyota Camry 40 (4x4) and Lexus RX400h are technically the same car: same schock absorvers, same hubs, same subframes, same steering rack etc... Some parts for Camry cost cheaper, some parts for RX cost theaper. So I've bought front hubs as well, will buy front subframe eventually and need to somehow connect MGR with front hubs for a AWD. Number of splines is the same, but diameter is different. At the same time nut diameter and thread are the same Need to work that out.
In other news: Soon my project will get a new home, where I hope it will go much faster.

Holy smokes! Nice score!

All of a sudden: Hello everyone!
I've redone my project.
Now It is a frame buggy driven by MGR, powered by Prius 30 inverter and a pack of 28 Leaf cells.
Today it drove, I've tested it even with a passenger, we drove a little uphill and back without any cooling and it didn't even heated up.
I still need to clear all the power noodles mess and redone some suspension components and the most important part - I need to make a charger for 234 Volts battery. But atleast I can now ride fast and long. During 30 minutes tests voltage dropped only by 2 volts, which is great.

Currently my buggy runs on 5.20 firmware. And it behaves strangly: in forward it self limits at certain speed, but can go faster under load, if going uphill for example. In reverce it rips like crazy and has no limit of speed like in forward.
I tried to tune sincofs for a few times, but the result is always the same.
Currently I have 230 volts and possibility of 150 Amps to take from Leaf cells.
I tried to update to 5.35 firmware, but ran into a problem with accelerator pedal. like it cant properly read pot gain. Perhaps it is something new in firmware I missed while I was abscent. Anyway, I returned back to 5.20, atleast there it runs. And I can ride with a passenger for an hour without any cooling installed and both motor and invertor are barely warm. But I definitely need a little bit more torque.

5.35 no longer accepts pedals that max out the ADC dynamic range. So you have to put a 3-10k resistor inline with the pedal and recalibrate.

Asymmetric behaviour is usually down to wrong pinswap: viewtopic.php?p=63807#p63807

johu wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 8:45 pm 5.35 no longer accepts pedals that max out the ADC dynamic range. So you have to put a 3-10k resistor inline with the pedal and recalibrate.

Asymmetric behaviour is usually down to wrong pinswap: viewtopic.php?p=63807#p63807

Thank you! I was thinking in that direction. So latest fimware that makes friends with my pedal is 5.32?

konstantin8818 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 8:55 pm So latest fimware that makes friends with my pedal is 5.32?

yes