EV Conversion using prius gen 2 inverter/transaxle

[voti]

Carefully flip the OI board over. CAREFULLY use a voltmeter or probe pin 28, 29, and 30 (small connector, the row closest to the edge of the board) when you think the inverter is on. See what you get for voltages and or waveforms. Don't slip and short something.

If you've got voltage on those pins, then it's a wiring problem. If you don't have voltage on those pins, then it's an OI hardware or software problem, or some other wires aren't hooked up correctly to allow the OI board to engage, and we'll chase those down next.

I flipped the board and tested like you said.what I did first was I set my Voltmeter to dc and and first tested pin 19 amd 20 which is "19 battery negative" and "20 battery positive" and I got 12v input and then I move my positive Voltmeter terminal to pins 28 29 amd 30 to see if I get any reading. Why negative terminal was still on pin q9 which is our battery nagative and on doing that, on pins 28,29 and 30 I didn't get any reading.

I also used the scope to check the waveform when I put in the normal settings on the vcu of boost 20000,default forward and manual start ON fslipspnt 1 and ampnom 70. The waveform didn't change, it showed the same waveform I got when I installed power the vcu.

If you can log in and get the OI interface to load, and it pulls up a list of parameters, then you have at least powered the OI controller properly.

I heard you mentioning logging in. Where do I log in for me to get this list of parameters that the OI will pull up a list of these, so I can be sure also if the OI controller is also powered correctly??

●●●●NOTE●●●●
When I flipped the board to do the tests at the back I noticed a sudden change in the "whine sound" made by the inverter and the power supply that powers the VCU showed an increase in amps drawn. It increased from 1.15A to 1.20A.

I remember Johu's Comment earlier when he asked me

"The cables you put into the white connector look like they are to thick for it. Are you sure they make good contact?
Have you pulled MSDN to 12V?
After starting the inverter and specifying fslipspnt and ampnom both >0 you should see an increase in current draw from your 12V supply by 200 mA or so. Otherwise there is no PWM going on.
Is the inverter still in some run mode after reloading?"

I changed the cables on the white connector which is the connector that connects to I9i presume.

I got lost when he asked me "have I pulled MSDN TO 12V"

DOES THE CHANGE IN WHINNG AND INCREASE IN AMPS DRAWN BY THE VCU INDICATE A FAULTY CONNECTION ON THE WIRES?

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

I heard you mentioning logging in. Where do I log in for me to get this list of parameters that the OI will pull up a list of these, so I can be sure also if the OI controller is also powered correctly??

Erm, just logged into the wifi that lets you pull up the OI webpage.

The parameters are on the OI interface there. If it creates that table with all the values, you've accessed it correctly and the wifi can communicate with the controller.

When I flipped the board to do the tests at the back I noticed a sudden change in the "whine sound" made by the inverter and the power supply that powers the VCU showed an increase in amps drawn. It increased from 1.15A to 1.20A.

Well, there's no reason flipping anything should cause any change in amps, so, something happened.

Faulty connection somewhere? Yeah maybe.

I got lost when he asked me "have I pulled MSDN TO 12V"

MSDN is "Motor Shutdown", if it's not connected, the inverter shuts down.

It's Pin 25 on the i10. You have to connect it to 12v+.

It's one of your instructions on the OI board's wiki: https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_Pr ... Controller

"Connect MSDN Pin#25 in inverter (not 25 on controller) permanently to 12V to enable the MG2 Inverter (can be tied to same 12v source as "I9") "

It's also part of Step 5: "Step 5 : Wire up 12 Pin SMD board connector to corresponding 32 Pin Inverter connector, permanent 12 volt supply to Pin #25 (MSDN) of Inverter, and 12V and Ground to 2-pole Inverter connector (next to main 32 pin white connector)"

...

It might be an additional problem, but I don't think it should prevent the OI board from sending a signal (it will prevent the Prius inverter from powering on, but the OI board should still be stuffing it with signals I presume, might be wrong about that).

DOES THE CHANGE IN WHINNG AND INCREASE IN AMPS DRAWN BY THE VCU INDICATE A FAULTY CONNECTION ON THE WIRES?

I mean, yeah, probably. Something changed. I don't know if it's the power wire, or you'd be having more problems, but, could be some other minor wire.

[johu]

just a side note: the PWM output is open collector. The inverter side logic pulls it up to 15V. If you don't measure 15V in idle on all 3 you either have a wire break or some inverter side issue

[voti]

So coming back to the three pins 28 29 30.
I didn't get any readings when I tested for voltage amd didn't see a change in waveform when using the oscilloscope.

I will recheck the wires since Johannes suspects a broken wire hence we are not getting15v reading on any of the pins 28, 28 and 30.

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

It 100% will not work if you have not connected MSDN to 12V+.

Also there's MFIV on pin 27 (coincidentally, on both boards). That's Motor Inverter Fail, it has to be connected properly or it won't work.

I don't think that one is on the procedure, but it's in the diagram.

[voti]

My MSDN is connected to the 12v power supply that also powers the the VCU. I remember connecting pin 27 on the inverter connector to pin 27 on pin 27 of the smaller connector.

I will recheck all the wires and connection so that I'm sure that all my wires are alright

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

On one hand it sucks that we have not found the origin of your problems.

On the other hand, we're running out of things that could be causing it, so, I mean, that's nice

I did get around to confirming that the exact parameters I exported to you resulted in my motor spinning (had to give it some fslipspnt and ampnom above 50, but, otherwise no problemo). So we can rule that out too. It might not make your motor move well, but it should definitely be firing on the PWM pins even if the inverter or motor get confused.

...

We've narrowed it down a lot. We know your controller is getting power, and we know it is communicating, or you wouldn't be able to load the parameters section in the interface. But, we don't get power on the PWM pins when you tell it to move, so I think we can rule out the inverter, and definitely the motor.

So, either you're not using the software correctly (would be difficult to screw up, you're taking my parameters and changing 2, then telling it to start)... or something is not wired correctly, or you have a faulty board.

...

In the instructions, it says: "Connect CPWM to 12V via a 470 Ohm resistor for charge mode.", my board doesn't have this option, and I think that would maybe force your board into some kind of charge mode rather than motor mode. Did you connect this? Just a random idea, maybe you NOT have it connected? (I don't think connecting it is essential, but, leaving it disconnected to get the motor to spin might be). Maybe at least try it with it disconnected?

...

We'll try a few more things, and then I think we should treat this setup like a toddler. Disconnect everything, and then literally one wire at a time, following the procedure, take a photo of exactly which wire you connected from what to what. And then we can confirm for you whether this was correct or a mistake. There's only some 10 or 15 wires connected, it won't take too long.

Keep at it, we're rounding the home stretch.

[voti]

On the manual that came with the inverter itt says 31 CPWM should be connected to pin 13 on the inverter. Is this the same CPWM that should be connected to 470 Ohms resistor.
And yeah I did disconnect it and test. Prior I had it connected to pin 13 but I didn't have a 470 Ohms resistor connected on it.


When testing should pins 1 to 5 and 13 to 18 on the car interface connector be connected or I can do without them?

I tested with your parameters again today with pin 31.CPWM disconnected, I double checked all the wires. No readings came out.

[voti]

You remember we checked if pins 28, 29 amd 30 are receiving any power

I flipped the board and tested like you said.what I did first was I set my Voltmeter to dc and and first tested pin 19 amd 20 which is "19 battery negative" and "20 battery positive" and I got 12v input and then I move my positive Voltmeter terminal to pins 28 29 amd 30 to see if I get any reading. Why negative terminal was still on pin q9 which is our battery nagative and on doing that, on pins 28,29 and 30 I didn't get any reading.

when I tested there wasn't any.

What could be the cause of that and how do we solve it?

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

At this point in my diagnosis, I think people had me check the input of the actual power transistors themselves (the output of the MCU), to see if they were firing. But, I'm not familiar enough with Johannes' design to do that. And that would be odd.

One of the only things I can think of is that you're probably running a different version of the firmware than I am, and maybe Johannes has made some changes that prevent the inverter from powering on. I know he made some changes that had something to do with cruise control or safety or something but I don't know what they were.

If he wants to pipe in about that, follow his lead.

Else...

I'm out of simple ideas.

The next thing I'd suggest doing is taking it apart, and, as I described above, we'll check every single part of the setup. Start over, and take a picture of every single wire as you add it to the setup. Both sides. It will be annoying to take and post that many photos, but, I will check one by one each wire and see if I can spot any problems. No guesswork as to what you might have done or what I might interpret about what you've done. I'll look at both sides of each wire one at a time.

At this point it's either blown transistors, a blown MCU, or a wiring problem. And it's almost a certainly not the first two. I don't know if Johannes even has a return or warranty policy, I've never heard of a board failing. Either way he'll have to be sure it's not you, so, let's go wire by wire.

Just to be clear, you don't have to wait for a response from me each time, go wire the whole thing up all at once. Just take a clear picture of where each wire starts and ends each time you connect one. Maybe go through the procedure on the wiki again so I can be an idiot and go "Yep, tab A into slot B" on every single wire.

We'll get there.

[voti]

It's starting to stress me out because I did my best to confirm that the wires are wired all in correctly. But I'll do like you just said. I'll do it again and take pictures or a short video for you to follow through and confirm my connections

[voti]

On the manual that came with the inverter itt says 31 CPWM should be connected to pin 13 on the inverter. Is this the same CPWM that should be connected to 470 Ohms resistor.
And yeah I did disconnect it and test. Prior I had it connected to pin 13 but I didn't have a 470 Ohms resistor connected on it.


When testing should pins 1 to 5 and 13 to 18 on the car interface connector be connected or I can do without them?

I tested with your parameters again today with pin 31.CPWM disconnected, I double checked all the wires. No readings came out.

Did you see this response?

[johu]

Ok, there needs to be more methodology here. I have attached the manual again.

Answer the questions asked here, do not test anything else. If any step fails you can stop there as it is pointless to continue. Fix the problem until the test succeeds, then continue.
When I say "inverter" I mean the Prius inverter. When I say "controller" I mean the openinverter controller

Three major things need to be done right for getting the inverter to pulse:
- The grounds of inverter and controller must be joined up
- MSDN must be pulled to 12V, verify this on the inverter side. That is pin 25 on the inverter connector
- All three PWM inputs must make contact to the controller. With the inverter turned on and the controller turned off make sure that Pin 28, 29 and 30 on the controller side read 15V

Good, so now we have the most important connections made. Time to power up the controller.
- Do not connect anything to the inverter phase outputs
- I suggest powering both controller, inverter logic and inverter HV DC with a current limited lab power supply (can be the same for all 3) without any fuses or resistors that can get in the way. Set the current limit to 3A, voltage to 15V
- Use most recent software 5.35 and set ocurlim to -1 (disabled)
- Put inverter in manual mode with fslipspnt=1, ampnom=1
- Verify that opmode reads ManualRun
- Connect your scope probe ground to ground of your lab supply and verify that Pin 28, 29 and 30 of the controller show a perfect rectangular wave form
- Now verify that you see the same perfect rectangular wave form on the 3 inverter phase outputs

[voti]

Three major things need to be done right for getting the inverter to pulse:
- The grounds of inverter and controller must be joined up
- MSDN must be pulled to 12V, verify this on the inverter side. That is pin 25 on the inverter connector
- All three PWM inputs must make contact to the controller. With the inverter turned on and the controller turned off make sure that Pin 28, 29 and 30 on the controller side read 15V

The inverters ground is the one on the i9 connector and the one for the MCU is pin 19?

Let me confirm if I read this right, "
With the inverter turned on and the controller turned off make sure that Pin 28, 29 and 30 on the controller side read 15V"

Does this mean that I should disconnect the car interface on the control board and only leave the inverter interface connected.
Next I should flip the board and check for 15v on Pins 28,29 and 30 ?

I did that and please see the attached pictures. I first tested the input voltage input on the i9 and it read 15 then I tested the pins 28 29 and 30 against the negative terminal of the i9 since I disconnected the car interface which has ground.
Please confirm if I did this corrct so I can move on

[johu]

The inverters ground is the one on the i9 connector and the one for the MCU is pin 19?

inverter pin 16, controller pin 32

With the inverter turned on and the controller turned off make sure that Pin 28, 29 and 30 on the controller side read 15V

yes

Does this mean that I should disconnect the car interface on the control board and only leave the inverter interface connected.
Next I should flip the board and check for 15v on Pins 28,29 and 30 ?

yes

[voti]

inverter pin 16, controller pin 32

My inverter pin 16 and 32 are both connected to controller pin 32 just like on the PDF that you sent me.

[voti]

Use most recent software 5.35 and set ocurlim to -1 (disabled)
- Put inverter in manual mode with fslipspnt=1, ampnom=1
- Verify that opmode reads ManualRun

Please help me locate ocurlim to -1 (disabled).
On Matt's parameters ocurlim appears to be under inverter options but when I check on my web Interface I can't find it. Check attached picture

And also where do I find opmode?

[johu]

Ok, so far it looks good. It seems I have hidden ocurlim. In "custom command" enter

Code: Select all

set ocurlim -1

To set it anyway

[voti]

Ok, so far it looks good. It seems I have hidden ocurlim. In "custom command" enter

Please guide as to what I should do next because at this stage I'm confused

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Please guide as to what I should do next because at this stage I'm confused

There is a place in the openinverter interface, near the top, to type in manual commands (and then hit enter). This is an alternative way to changing parameters or starting and stopping the inverter.

What Johannes is asking you to do is to type into that interface:

set ocurlim -1

And hit enter.

"set" is the command to change a parameter, "ocurlim" is the name of a parameter" and "-1" is a value that ocurlim can have that will disable it from limiting your current.

...

Also, this is the first time you've had voltage appear on 28, 29, and 30! I'm not sure how that happened, but, that's great news.

[voti]

There is a place in the openinverter interface, near the top, to type in manual commands (and then hit enter). This is an alternative way to changing parameters or starting and stopping the inverter

What about "opmode"?. Johannes said I should Verify that opmode reads ManualRun. Where do I find this one?

Also, this is the first time you've had voltage appear on 28, 29, and 30! I'm not sure how that happened, but, that's great news.

I was also excited when I got the readings. Like I said earlier, I tried to confirm all the wiring one by one like you said I should do. While I was confirming the wires, I cut small pieces of wires and put them in the cable connectors so that when i connect it to the board they make contact. I don't know if you geg it but yeah, I guess that is why when I flipped the board the first time you said i should test the Pwm pins, when I was testing the pins, I saw an increase in current draw due to some Cables making contact which were not.

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

What about "opmode"?. Johannes said I should Verify that opmode reads ManualRun. Where do I find this one?

I've never heard of that one.

*googles*


https://openinverter.org/wiki/Parameters

Okay, search for it there. It's not a parameter, it's a spot value (a measurement of something that the controller knows about).

"opmode Operating mode. 0=Off, 1=Run, 2=Manual_run, 3=Boost, 4=Buck, 5=Sine, 6=2 Phase sine"

Okay, I know how to verify what it is, but not what it is.

Johannes said: "- Put inverter in manual mode with fslipspnt=1, ampnom=1 - Verify that opmode reads ManualRun"

What does "put it in manual mode" mean? Is there a setting to tell it to be in a manual mode versus some other mode? Or is that just when you click the Start button and the inverter is now started? I'm presuming the latter, but I probably only get 4/5 presumptions right. Eventually the uncertainties stack against you and you don't have a clue how far back you might've made a mistake.

Try this. Have the inverter stopped. Check the spot values and see what OpMode says. Then tell it to start. Refresh maybe? See if OpMode has changed. If it says "ManualRun", I dunno, good enough move on. To some degree trying to understand everything is going to be crippling. Sometimes just accept a win and move through the process and hope that your non-grasp of it won't bite you later.

I tried to confirm all the wiring one by one like you said I should do. While I was confirming the wires, I cut small pieces of wires and put them in the cable connectors so that when i connect it to the board they make contact.

Honestly, if you're now getting voltage on those pins and you weren't before, I bet everything works now. You must've had a shitty wire somewhere. If I'm reading Johannes correctly, those pins are active whether you're shoving PWM through them or not I think. Just by the inverter being on.

Anyway, you could skip to the end, hook the rest of it back up and check for voltage on the motor wires, or you could follow through Johannes' procedure. Or do the latter and then jump backwards if it doesn't work.

[voti]

OK. I typed in "set ocurlim -1 " on the input field next to send custom command, And I hit enter. Then I put in your parameters and started the inverter in manual mode. I stopped it and checked spot values and I found opmode value to be Off. I started the inverter again but nothing changed.

I closed everything and reopened the web Interface. I first set the ocurlim -1 then on to fslipspnt to 1 and ampnom 1 like Johannes said.
I started the inverter in manual mode and checked the spot values. Opmode was off. Even when the inverter was started it was still off. Please see attached.

[johu]

Ill advise there. Don't hit enter but hit button "Send custom command"

Anyway, you could skip to the end

That's not a good idea

[voti]

Ill advise there. Don't hit enter but hit button "Send custom command"

And what about opmode. How do I turn it on ?