Chademo charging with a Zombie VCU Topic is solved

[Alibro]

I have had my Freelander EV conversion running successfully for a couple of years now but I never had fast charging.
I'm using an Outlander charger/DC to DC converter so the best I can manage atm is 3kW which works out as approx 8 or 9 miles per hour and my range is max 100 miles so in I'm kinda restricted to journeys under 50 miles. This was one of the biggest reasons for me changing from my old Leaf VCU based on an Arduino Due to a Zombieverter VCU.
So now I've rebuilt the HV junction box with a second pair of contactors as well as the LV junction box, installed the Zombie and confirmed the car is still working it's time to go for Chademo charging.

This is Damiens video showing how to do it.


I tried to follow this but of course it's only after trying and failing that questions start to appear in my tiny brain.
To give me half a chance at fault finding I'm going to try and spell out what should happen so please correct me if I'm wrong here.

1. We plug in the charge cable and initiate charging with an app or whatever.
2. The charger sees it's plugged in and negotiates over CAN with the VCU.
3. Once communication is established the Charger sends 12V to enable the contactors and at the same time we see 12V on pin 50 GP_12V_input.
4. When the VCU sees 12V at GP_12V_Input it turns on Precharge, neg contactor etc so the Chademo charger can now start charging.

Just while typing this it occurred that the main neg contactor is not required, is this correct? If so I will need to change some connections as I currently use the negative contactor output to power (via a relay) the contactors in the boot battery box. Without these powered I don't have HV.
But how would it precharge if the negative contactor did not activate? Does it need to precharge for Chademo charging? Damien does mention precharge in his video. Mmmmmmm?

What happened earlier today was I plugged in and the charger saw it was connected to something but couldn't establish communication so nothing more happened. It's hard to say if the Chademo contactors were enabled as the area was noisy but I couldn't hear them.

I'll do some more testing tomorrow but if anyone has any suggestions please share.

Thanks

[Bigpie]

https://openinverter.org/wiki/Chademo_with_Zombieverter

[Alibro]

https://openinverter.org/wiki/Chademo_with_Zombieverter

Thanks mate, I should have quoted this wiki too but forgot.
I followed it as best I could but like I said my boot battery contactors need to be activated for charging. ATM I use the negative contactor output to enable them so does the Zombie VCU enable the negative contactor for Chademo charging?

[tom91]

You need to check spot values.

Things like was charging enabled, did the zombie enter charge mode.

Zombie, will precharge/do contactors when going into charge or drive.

so if you have 12V going into DCFCREQUEST and you allow charging (not selected time based charging and have enabled charging) then you should enter charge mode. You can easily test this at home.

[Alibro]

You need to check spot values.

Things like was charging enabled, did the zombie enter charge mode.

Zombie, will precharge/do contactors when going into charge or drive.

so if you have 12V going into DCFCREQUEST and you allow charging (not selected time based charging and have enabled charging) then you should enter charge mode. You can easily test this at home.

Thanks Tom
I'll hook a 12V battery (fused) into the Chademo socket to mimic what happens when the charge plug is pushed in and confirm all this works and also check for CAN from the Zombie at the socket.
I wasn't sure if Charge mode for Chademo was the same as charge mode for ac charging. Thinking about it now there were things I should have checked but I'm having intermittent communication issues with the zombie interface and of course it was playing up as I was testing.

[Alibro]

I've been working on this for a few hours and this is what I've found.

I applied 12V to pin 2 and Gnd to pin 10 (chademo socket), and the contactors activated but I got no voltage at the VCU GP12V Input.
After a few minutes head scratching I realised there was no common ground so I linked pin 10 to chassis ground.
Will this be different with a Chademo plug pushed? I'm assuming it will so won't leave the link wire to pin 10.

Anyway with pin 10 grounded I now have 12V at 'GP12V Input' and spot value "din_12Vgp" changes to "on" but the VCU didn't go into charge mode.

After another hour or more of head scratching it dawned on me I still had GPA2Func set to 'Proximity Pilot'. I changed this to 'None' and immediately the VCU went into charge mode.

These are the parameters I've set for Chademo charging.

04. Interface - Chademo
05. Charge Modes - EXT DIGI
55. CAN3 speed - k500
60. CCS_ICmd - 7 (I couldn't see what Damien was setting it to in the video but he said it needs to be more than 0)
64. Chgctrl - Enable
92. Out3func - ChaDeMoAlw
98. GP12VInFunc - DCFCRequest

So it looks like to change from ac to Chademo charging I need to change 'GPA2Func' and 'Chargemodes' in parameters.
I plan to try Chademo charging again this afternoon and will report back.

[tom91]

Charge Modes is not what needs changing. Leave it set to what you had it to and it should allow Chademo.

[Alibro]

Charge Modes is not what needs changing. Leave it set to what you had it to and it should allow Chademo.

If I can I'll try that this afternoon. It would be nice to set and forget the VCU and hook up a button to start ac charging.

[tom91]

Zombie can do Chademo alongside AC charging. Everything should be handled automatically.

Possiblity somethings may have gotten unstuck with all the recent code changes, but nothing we cannot get back to working as it should.

What SW version is on your zombie?

[Alibro]

It's just as well none of you guys were near me today or you'd have got a great big slobbery kiss!

IT WORKED!!!

I didn't have time to make any changes or tweaks but it worked so I was thrilled to see a positive result for so much work.
I'm running version 2.22 and will need to do more testing to see what works and what doesn't so I'll report back.

Just in case anyone else is following this same path here is a photo of the Chademo charger socket looking at the front. If you are trying to meter out the connections it's much easier with this view as most images on the internet are from behind or are just plain labelled wrong.

[tom91]

Okay so now you know you can get it working.

Rest of testing can be done at home with the 12V on the pins to simulate wanting to Chademo charge. Atleast you now have some confidence things should be able to work.

[Bigpie]

Awesome. I still get a thrill every time DC charging works.

[Alibro]

Okay so now you know you can get it working.

Rest of testing can be done at home with the 12V on the pins to simulate wanting to Chademo charge. Atleast you now have some confidence things should be able to work.

Thanks for your help mate, I can't do any more testing today but one thing I noticed was with Charge Modes set to Outlander I was able to charge the car on AC but when I pulled the plug the VCU stayed in charging mode and I had to change back to EXT Digi fuse to stop it.
Not sure why it did this but I have a voltage divider circuit on the PP which drives a relay. It's a hangover from my previous setup so I may need to strip back to basics.

[tom91]

I would recommend doing one thing at a time. Please get it charging with the outlander charger, post your params and explain what it does.

I can then go through the logic and check where it falls over or hangs like you mention.

[Alibro]

I just upgraded my Zombie to 2.30 and can confirm in my Gen 1 Nissan Leaf Inverter the throttle is MUCH smoother at low inputs so thank you guys for this. I would have done it sooner but having never done a firmware upgrade before I was scared of bricking the Zombie before my big road trip.
Pre update if throtramp was set to 1 the car felt a little sluggish and at 3 it was a little rough so 2 was a decent compromise. If I set throtramp any higher than 3 and revved the motor while out of gear it was horribly jittery but not now.
Now changing the throtramp doesn't seem to do much. I tried everything from 1 to 10 and didn't notice much difference. Is this normal?
It's not an issue though as it feels great at any setting.
Also the regenbrake feels a little different so I turned it up from -10 to -14. I still need to test more to confirm If I'm happy with this but it feels good and is working well.
Had I known how quick and simple it is to upgrade I would have done it last week.

Also apologies Tom for not getting back regarding Chademo and Outlander charging. Family stuff, a holiday and sheer panic over the impending road trip meant I was scared to touch anything before leaving. I'll try to get some more data tomorrow.

[Alibro]

OK so the car is charging on the Outlander OBC. Here are the parameters That I think are relevant but I uploaded the json as well.

To enable Chademo I change Chargemode to ext digi and GPA2 to none

Note I haven't tried Chademo since upgrading to 2.30 and will not be able to do much more until tomorrow so I'll test more then and get back.

[tom91]

So chademo works with outlander charger setup?

So you can chademo charge or AC charge and not need to change params between the two?

[Bratitude]

I just upgraded my Zombie to 2.30 and can confirm in my Gen 1 Nissan Leaf Inverter the throttle is MUCH smoother at low inputs so thank you guys for this. I would have done it sooner but having never done a firmware upgrade before I was scared of bricking the Zombie before my big road trip.
Pre update if throtramp was set to 1 the car felt a little sluggish and at 3 it was a little rough so 2 was a decent compromise. If I set throtramp any higher than 3 and revved the motor while out of gear it was horribly jittery but not now.
Now changing the throtramp doesn't seem to do much. I tried everything from 1 to 10 and didn't notice much difference. Is this normal?
It's not an issue though as it feels great at any setting.
Also the regenbrake feels a little different so I turned it up from -10 to -14. I still need to test more to confirm If I'm happy with this but it feels good and is working well.

i noticed that aswell with my 2021 110kw leaf motor in my datsun. smoother, but power felt down a bit in the mid range, had to turn throtramp up a bit

Also apologies Tom for not getting back regarding Chademo and Outlander charging. Family stuff, a holiday and sheer panic over the impending road trip meant I was scared to touch anything before leaving. I'll try to get some more data tomorrow.

ill be able to tag along here as well, just in the middle of a battery upgrade then ill throw chademo back in with leaf motor and outlander obc. would like to get to seamless chademo/ac charging with out any pram changes(note its been about 6months since i pulled chademo out of orange truck)

[Alibro]

Sorry I had to rush off and only able to get back today.

So with Chargemodes set to Outlander as it is here, if I connect 12V to GP12VInput I see din_12Vgp change to on, but the Zombie does not go into charge mode. I need to change Chargemodes to EXT_DIGI for that to happen.

If I set Chargemodes to EXT_DIGI (with or without 12V on GP12VInput) the Zombie will go into charge mode immediately. I need to change GPA2Func to 'none' to stop it.

So to switch from outlander obc to chademo I have to change both Chargemodes and GP12VInput.

[tom91]

So with the params you provided you can: AC charge by plugging in the AC Type 2 charge lead?

[tom91]

Ah shit some outlanderchanges got forgetten in the larger changes in the release so never made it to the master branch. also think no-one is testing this functionality right now.

Edit,

My quick review of code does not show why you need to do this. Will bench test.

[Alibro]

So with the params you provided you can: AC charge by plugging in the AC Type 2 charge lead?

Yes mate. It's charging now

[Alibro]

It's actually type 1 charge connection but I don't suppose that makes any difference.

[tom91]

It's actually type 1 charge connection but I don't suppose that makes any difference.

You could be manually connecting a resistor to your GPA2Fun input and it would work.

I think that may be the clue here as I said I have my bench setup pulled out of the box

[Alibro]

You could be manually connecting a resistor to your GPA2Fun input and it would work.

I think that may be the clue here as I said I have my bench setup pulled out of the box

I have the PP threshold set to 250 now as with a lower 12v battery it was approaching 290 with the plug 3/4 in but the button still opened.

With no plug in I see PP at around 400
With it in 3/4 it's around 300
With it fully in and the button on the handle closed it's around 150

I already have a voltage divider circuit that powers a relay when it sees the type one connector fully plugged in.
I just haven't figured out a way to use it.