Orion BMS and CCS

[MoonUnit]

I would love to hear from anyone who's integrated an Orion BMS with CCS.

I'm looking at a solution for low voltage packs (sub 200V), and my plan is to boost said volage to the c. 400V for a CCS EVSE to work with.

I run an Orion to handle my normal on board charger, and I need to talk to someone who has experience of interfacing the Orion with both an onboard charger (with normal CP/PP J1772 protocol) but also allowing for a second, CCS-type charge (to be handled by a CCS solution like BMW LIM, Uhi22 etc.)

Thanks in advance.

[tom91]

Run the Zero-EV/Fellten CCS controller profile. It will then allow the Orion to recieve the CP limits over CAN and thus control the onboard charger.

You will need to sort the waking of the BMS when you want to charge as the PP wake up is no longer done via the Orion.

You cannot have more the one device on the CP and PP line of the charge port really.

[MoonUnit]

Thanks for the suggestion. Do you know where I can find out what the Zero-EV /Fellten CCS profile actually does, in terms of logic, process and CAN message structure? I haven't asked them yet as they have no incentive to get into the weeds with me on this. I haven't asked Orion either just yet.

My initial plan was to use a man-in-the-middle board, to take BMS limits from the Orion and send them to Uhi22's board and vice-versa. But that would mean the Orion would not know it's in 'charge' mode - as far as it was concerned it would be in normal 'ready' mode and any current coming into the pack would just need to obey its various safety limits (which my MINTM would translate into instructions for Uhi22's board). It would help if I knew what Zero's CCS profile actually did, perhaps it's a similar approach.

Also, I will be having two charge ports in this solution - one for the old J1772 and one for the new CCS and you are correct, I'd need to work out how to switch over the CP/PP lines if the Orion were to be dealing with both protocols for the charging process.

[tom91]

It is literally in the CAN message screen of the Orion. It auto populates.

Attached the DBC with the CAN info pulled out of the Orion software.

[MoonUnit]

Magic, thank you, I will mull that over.

[tom91]

Way the Orion 2 interprets it is AC current limit is 0xFF means it is not AC charging. If the current limit is anything else it takes the AC current limit and uses it for its own onboard logic to control the AC Onboard charger.

Ofcourse you still need to power the Orion with Ready or Charge 12V power based on what you are trying to do to it.

[MoonUnit]

If I understand then (guessing):

a Fellten hardware module detects the user plugging a charge cable into the car. This hardware recognises a plug is present (maybe it provides the 12V to the Orion to go into charge mode).

The hardware interrogates the CP to decide whether it's a CCS EVSE or type2 AC one, and sends a CAN message to the Orion, saying either 0xFF or some lower number. If 0xFF the Orion sees this as DC charging and presumably responds with its internal charging logic alorithm using the Zero-EV CCS controller profile messages back to the Fellten hardware and EVSE.

If less than 0xFF it follows its J772 process and whatever internal charging logic it would use normally for that, and communicates with the onboard charger using whatever profile set up for it - in my case I have the Elcon/TC profile.

The Orion therefore has two profiles set up - the Fellten one and (for me) the Elcon one, and no physical CP/PP connection to it. By using the Fellten profile, the ORion is now no longer expecting to get CP/PP physically, it gets woken up by the the Fellten box and given the CP aka avaliable current value over CAN.

When using the Fellten system, I think you are saying there is no CP from the charge port to the Orion, it is decided by the Fellten hardware and sent to the Orion via CANbus and that 0xFF basically sets it.

Does this sound right?

[tom91]

Yes like I said.

Charging - 12V into charge power from whatever detects the plug and decides that charging is going to happen. Orion configured for the Felten CCS is looking for the CAN message to determine if it is AC or DC charge. You need the Elcon CAN profile also active if the Orion then needs to control the charger based on the recieved AC current limit.

Orion is not physically connected to CP or PP.

[MoonUnit]

Thanks, super helpful, much obliged to you.

[PoloLbricolo]

Digging up a relatively old thread but, i'm in the same situation. How did you send 0xFF from foccci to your orion bms ?
i wasn't able to understand what's the special can sauce that enables the orion bms to not have the cp and pp connected to it.

i have a foccci and orion bms 2 wired up and working on CCS2, just remains to make ac charge work.

[MoonUnit]

My use case is a bit different and I'm still in development, but I have a 'man in the middle' board which I use to send and receive messages from FOCCI and my BMS (the Orion), so I can use that to send the 0xFF value to the Orion. There is a dbc file posted above, I think it's message ID 0x327 0x357 that you need. But it also needs the Zero-EV CCS profile to be enabled on the Orion in their third-party hardware list. As I understand it, Zero Ev's hardware acts as a charge controller so it takes the CP and PP lines from the charge port and does not connect them to the Orion. Instead, it sends the AC charge limit via that 0x327 0x357 message to the Orion. If you set it to xFF, the Orion takes that to mean it's DC charging. If you have (like I do) a second, type 2 only charge port which would normally be wired to the Orion, I believe you need to 'cut' them when you want to DC charge. As said though, my project's still a work in progress so I could easily be wrong ...

Update - you need at least firmware version 3.7.0.

[uhi22]

I'm looking at a solution for low voltage packs (sub 200V), and my plan is to boost said volage to the c. 400V for a CCS EVSE to work with.

Just as a side-idea: Charger models have different minimal voltages, so it could be acceptable to have a sub 200V battery, depending on the local charger situation. Collection in the wiki: https://openinverter.org/wiki/CCS_Fast_ ... um_Voltage

[MoonUnit]

Charging - 12V into charge power from whatever detects the plug and decides that charging is going to happen. Orion configured for the Felten CCS is looking for the CAN message to determine if it is AC or DC charge

and

Way the Orion 2 interprets it is AC current limit is 0xFF means it is not AC charging.

I cannot get this to work with my Orion. I have upgraded the firmware to v3.8.0 since 3.7.0 appears to have this functionality, and I've upgraded to the latest beta release of the software to try to find some options or details in the help files, but no joy.

According to the dbc file when the Fellten CCS profile is enabled, the AC Current Limit is bytes 1 and 2 in message 0x357 (set to be little endian) in the Can editor screen so I send xFF 00. I can see the message in the live traffic screen, and I can see the message count incrementing, and the message is getting cleared from the transmit mailbox in the software I am using (Flexcan_T4) so I think it's being ACK'd correctly and received correctly.

However it doesn't seem to affect anything - I was hoping it would set the Orion into 'Charge Mode = DC' as per pic below.

Secondly, my Orion is configured to use J1772 for type 2 charging. I want to keep this, and have a second charge port for CCS, hence the above. However as soon as I put the Orion into Charge mode by supplying 12V, it immediately reduces the CCL to 6A and reports 'CCL reduced due to J1772' (or similar) regardless of the x357 message. (The 6A is just the value set in the next screenshot - I could set it higher (say 100A), but I have a max DC current when charging of 60A for 6.6kW charging, and the Orion then takes that as absolute max value).

So it looks like supplying 12V to charge mode simply puts the Orion into either J1772 if CP/PP is correct, or, a CCL limited state. Clearly the 0x357 message isn't being accepted to put the Orion into Charge Mode = DC (nor AC - it says 'not available' in the screen shot).

Any ideas gratefully received, I've tried everything I can think of.

[tom91]

Secondly, my Orion is configured to use J1772 for type 2 charging.

This cannot be done with the using of the Fellten CCS setup. Most likely changes things in the background to allow this to work.

[MoonUnit]

This cannot be done with the using of the Fellten CCS setup. Most likely changes things in the background to allow this to work.

Thanks for that. I'll need to think of another solution.

[MoonUnit]

I don't suppose anyone knows if the Orion can have the J1772 protocol and the Chademo protocol enabled at the same time?

[deadsled]

I don't suppose anyone knows if the Orion can have the J1772 protocol and the Chademo protocol enabled at the same time?

I have Orion with a J1772 and CHAdeMO plug that both work... but I'm not much of an expert so if you need any more info you'll probably need to spell out exactly what you want.

[MoonUnit]

Thanks for the confirmation that both can co-exist. I was fairly sure they could, but I'm struggling to find out how the Orion should be configured to have them both enabled.

Do you know what the Max Amperage When Charging is set to (in the Charge Limits tab)?
Do you know what the Max allowable DC current when not using the J1772 inlet is set to (in the J1772 Charge Control tab)?

If not, no worries, thanks anyhow.

[deadsled]

Thanks for the confirmation that both can co-exist. I was fairly sure they could, but I'm struggling to find out how the Orion should be configured to have them both enabled.

Do you know what the Max Amperage When Charging is set to (in the Charge Limits tab)?
Do you know what the Max allowable DC current when not using the J1772 inlet is set to (in the J1772 Charge Control tab)?

If not, no worries, thanks anyhow.

125A

127A

125A was chosen as it matches the output current of the 50kW public chargers CHAdeMO output that I use this car with. BTW this is with a 110V nominal setup (Hyper9 and 5 x Tesla modules). The CHAdeMO only works on certain make/model of DC chargers that go down to 50V, the most common being the Tritium RT50.

[MoonUnit]

Magic, thank you very much.