Hey all,
After a long silence I can now report a bit of progress. I have built in the newly built PCB. Everything fits mechanically, so that is already a big relief.
I have flashed the microcontroller, and now I hope I can set up the WiFi transmitter as well. Also the connector to the control board ...

Hey all,

I have contacted JLCPCB about this: they say this chip is temporarily out. Apparently, ST components have been in shortage lately. If they have it back in stock, they will add it to their library again. They could not give me an estimation of when that will happen. I have asked them if it ...

Hey all,

I have now placed the order at JLCPCB. The files are also placed on GitHub for anyone to use. Note that this project is now converted to KiCAD, which means I had to make some adjustments to the component positioning and adding the JLCPCB (LCSC) codes to components in the schematic. I have ...

Hey Zilion,

Thanks for your interest. I haven't done much hacking on it yet. I did realize that splitting the pack in two (2x50s instead of 1x100s) would be best for my setup, and I don't know how the current electronics in it will deal with that. I am anticipating building replacement boards for ...

Hey everyone,

I have now finished a draft version for the Siemens replacement board. I have made it by shamelessly stealing the drawings from Johannes (thanks for sharing), and adding the footprints and additional parts around it. Since I am not a master in handling microcontrollers, I have added ...

For future reference, these are the 40 pins connectors/receptacles/flat cables used for the communication from logic board to gate driver board:

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/2-111196-0/A31861-ND/807108?itemSeq=349559234
https://www.digikey.nl/products/nl?keywords=A31868-ND
https://www ...

Hey,
Happy new year everyone, hopefully a better one than the past one. That was a while ago, I didn't have time for too long, but now I could do some things during holidays... I have built a small 'intermediate' board to make a connection between the Siemens driver board and logic board. In the end ...

Thanks Joromy and Johannes!

I have been trying to improve the amplitude of the PWM signals, but to no avail. For now, I don't see a real danger with using the system as is (the switching is on time, as well), but it doesn't feel quite right, especially considering disturbing electromagnetic noise ...

Thanks for all the replies! I will come back with answers after I can have a look at the battery this weekend.

EDIT:
- I have weighed the battery modules, and these blocks weigh 11kg per block. So, I guess the entire pack might weigh about 120-130 kg.
- The total pack size is about 115x65x21 cm ...

Hej all,

I recently bought a Volvo V60 hybrid battery pack, and since I did not find any info online, I decided to share some pictures and basic findings:

- The Li-ion battery pack is advertised as a 12 kWh pack, and estimating from my first charge, it seems to hold about 10-11 kWh (pack is from ...

Hej,
It has been a while, so sorry for my late reply, but I have made some progress. I have now run the motor in manual mode for the first time, that was a very cool thing to see!

There are still a few things I would like to work on:
- The PWM outputs (inverted logic) are clean when coming out of ...

Hey Lumax,

I am also quite new to this, but I had a similar problem a while ago. Could you try and see what happens to 'opmode' when you start in manual mode? You could for example type 'start 2', and then 'get opmode'.
At the end, it turned out I was too enthusiastic and connected 'IN_START' to ...

The full pack is quite big (about 152*75 cm), and about 20 cm high (with a bulge in the middle of the lid), and therefore I could not fit into my small Peugeot 106 electrique as is. The lid is made of plastic, and thus hard to reshape to make it fit.
The entire battery capacity is rated 12kWh. There ...

Just posting this here for people interested in buying a battery pack of Mitshubishi Outlander:

I have bought such a (lithium ion) battery pack recently. To my surprise, all cells in the pack held a voltage below 0.5 Volts, so they are probably unsaveable.
The car part shop was very nice to have me ...

Thanks for the quick reply Joromy!


I would not use the magnetic field sensor, they are not very reliable.
If you do a DC amp test, with 10 winding's (or more) and run 0-50 amps trough it you will probably get a nice linear 0-500A curve.

I would certainly prefer to use the existing current ...

Thanks Isaac for the confirmation, and additional info! I got to upload the 'sine' version successfully, that was a lot easier than I feared :).

I have now run the inverter in manual mode, and got some PWMs out of it. All good on the main board right now :).

There is also some progress on the ...

Thanks Joromy!

I have been experimenting a bit more now. The quadrature encoder is now read correctly by the software, although I don't know what has changed. I suspect the software only starts reading the speed (RPM) when the inverter has been 'started' (opmode=1).

I have simulated the current ...

Thanks for the advice, now it works! I think I made the mistake of slowly increasing the voltage of my power supply, which made the ESP8266 already start (at 3.3V), while the processor was still off? Anyway, now it works every time I reboot/power up, it is great to be able to change parameters ...

Have you considered to use it as it is?
The setup looks quite easy.....


Hey Joromy,
thanks for the post. Yes, the setup looks easy, but that schematic is not from the Think version, which has its own software (Siadis) version on it and different hardware it connects to. I have spent months ...

Thank you for the help!
I have now received the main board (Rev 3, community edition), and started playing with it. It is really a great thing to work on something that is not designed to keep me out, but designed to help me get into the wondrous eV world :).

I have powered it up, managed to ...

Thanks!

I did not know that the Ford ranger EV also uses a Siemens motor and inverter. They seem to have quite some power, more than I expected.
About the encoder: do you know the amount of block signal periods per engine revolution in your motor? It might also be the same for both motors, and at ...

Hey,
Sorry for the delay, I just started a new job, so had only few opportunities to work on the project.
I have now verified that the six channels are indeed connected to the six IGBTs, and they all work. I have also found the voltage sensing channel. I find it hard to find the current sensing ...

Thanks again for the fast reply!
About the 0-5V: I should have figured that out from the latch, that was my mistake. Ok, I will try applying 0V to each of those channels one by one and observe whether an IGBT responds to it.
Ok, thanks about the tip on inrush current! I will see whether a higher ...

Thank you for the very quick and useful reply! And it sounds very promising :). The low idle drivers would become active when a pin is set to ground, or something else like -5V? Can I test the closing of IGBTs by a simple resistor check across battery bus bars and L1/2/3?
You say there is a resistor ...

Dear everyone,

I am quite new to the EV-world, and have recently bought my first EV project. It contains a Siemens Simotion controller from the 90's-2000's that was built in the Think City (or Think Classic) cars.

Does anyone have experience in working with this type of controllers? I know they ...