[DRIVING] Peugeot 406 coupe Pininfarina with Leaf motor and Ampera inverter [FINISHED]

[arber333]

My lathe broke the belt drive spindle. Of course its chineese and everything important is made from plastic .
I will have to replace the spindle and the belt. Luckily i was almost finished with coolant hose adapters. I will have to take the last one to a friend with a beer.
I decided to not waste 18mm coolant hoses and reduce supply hoses to 10mm. They only bring coolant to the loop and are not needed in normal action. I couldnt get reducers anywhere so i made my own.

Two are for supply of the coolant loop and two to supply webasto heater loop. The last one will be attached to T piece in Webasto loop.

I will use the steering pump oil tank, the one with red cover, as webasto fluid supply.
In the empty space below i will put a fuel tank with filling neck and cover. It will be made from welded stainless steel sheets. Filler neck i will make from 38mm steel pipe, so it will fit the fuel handle on the petrol station.
Webasto heater will get its 6L fuel supply there. It should last a week i think.

Of course webasto is installed and working. All i need is some plastic fuel line and rubber hose to fit it to the fuel tank.
https://leafdriveblog.wordpress.com/tag/heater/

[arber333]

Milestone!
I returned the rear seats back in the car. After some repositioning of cables and routing of signal cables through the carpet i have everything i want in the back. This means i am left with ONLY wiring this thing back so motor can spin. YAY!

[arber333]

I managed to get a quick test drive up and down the driveway to test Drive/Reverse signaling.
I had everything connected in my relay circuit so that EHPAS and vacuum pump worked. Since i had brakes and steering i told myself; now or never!
And i drove down the street and turned at intersection and drove back. I didnt have 12V DCDC converter active at the time so i was a bit afraid not to drain small AGM battery too much. It is only 35Ah.

However test drive was a success! The car shoot down the road and i had a great control of throttle and steering wheel.
I just love the ride quality. I never thought it would be that smooth. It is like riding a magic carpet. I am pretty sure i went at or above 100km/h on normal road and car wanted to pull more! Sadly i cant yet see speedo .

I also managed to get DCDC and charger working off a single Arduino DUE. DUE senses presence of Enable 12V signal and starts DCDC.
Also when Cp signal from EVSE is present DUE will switch on relay and 1K3 resistor to signal charging to EVSE and pull EMGCY button relay to GND so car is disabled during charging.
Charging will also turn on 12V coolant pump, which will run water for charger even if car is not started.

I have charged up to 395Vdc and cells are beautifully level at 4.10V per cell.

I am now battling with speedo signal. I cant get it to work propperly with Arduino divider. Sure it wakes up, but it also jumps all around... I will have to find some solution for speed sensor...

[EVs4Coluche]

Congrats, and thanks for providing the details.
Given the Webasto heater preference but somewhat lower ground clearance of the car do you plan to use it in snowy winter time as well or more like spring-fall season kind of coupe?

[arber333]

No ground clearance is about the same as stock, which is surprisingly more than my Mazda MX3 or Honda Civic I had before. I don't think this will be a problem. I will use it as daily driver to work and home.
I even added some sheet metal protection under rear battery just in case I catch a sidewalk...

You all probably figured I have a thing for coupes.

[arber333]

Well i managed to move along with speedo. The real problem was not my car that was the first suspect, but rather the shady chinese Arduino socket.
I managed to find that there was a cut trace on my socket and it prevented it from sending correct pulses to transistor.

This is my first iteration of speedo sim. I use an alu collar around the drive shaft. It is tightened to the shaft by two bolts and it has slots for two magnets end to end. I needed to fit it where the shaft runs in paralell with motor so there would be no lateral movement. This gives me 2 pulses per turn of the shaft. I take those pulses and divide them in Arduino to get correct pulsetrain to run the speedo. I had to built in a DCDC to lower the supply voltage and make a step down on the signals from 13V to managable 5V. Then i added one darlington transistor to amplify the signal from 5V to 12V that the speedo is familliar with.

Software was written by Ron AKA doobedoobedo here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=52
I can now get normal pulse distribution for the speedo to show fairly accurate Km/h on. I will still have to time this to a GPS meter.

My plan is to make a propper interface board to use with Arduino NANO (or two if applicable ) to give a real time speedo signal with optional RPM signal. That is still under development now, but the part under the car will remain the same. I expect enable signal from the key to start RPM signal at steady 600RPM. This should make the ABS system work as before and maybe shut the engine light.

EDIT: I added the BSI and BSM files for future Peugeot conversions. This is Xantia BSM and it is used in lots of Peugeot/Citroen cars. It is in french, but data is easily readable

[Isaac96]

Very nice!
Just an idea for your consideration:
Have you thought about using the ABS sensors for vehicle speed? As far as I know they use a toothed wheel and Hall sensor or coil... It might provide faster response time, maybe also avoid imbalance on the driveshaft. If you're lucky the data will be on CAN buss...

-Isaac

[arber333]

That was my first thought yes. However this particular 406c model does not have CAN. It uses VAN bus which is proprietary... And I don't want to mess with safety systems.

[Isaac96]

That was my first thought yes. However this particular 406c model does not have CAN. It uses VAN bus which is proprietary... And I don't want to mess with safety systems.

Well if I look up VAN bus that is definitely not going to give any useful responses....
Quite sensible though, never want to disable your brakes.
I must say your vehicle is very nicely styled.

[Boxster EV]

Enjoying following this thread, Arber. Keep up the inspirational work!

I'm interested exactly how you integrate the volt cabin heater. I need to do that on my car before long.

[arber333]

I'm interested exactly how you integrate the volt cabin heater. I need to do that on my car before long.

Well the truth is I had too much to do and not enough of SWCAN knowledge. So I still have the heater on hold for now. I use webasto as primary heater and heated seats. It can get down to -20deg in winter here. I will probably add a 12V VW PTC heater in my air channel for autumn days.
Since I use Volt batteries I intend to use liquid cooling/heating for my battery. I will see how the cooling behaves for motor. Maybe I will just make a separate loop with one thermostat valve. TBD.

[arber333]

Dang! Speedo is still jumping all over. I guess I will need to put phase cables in socks and use lycy cable for signals...

I managed to wire coolant pump relay so that it starts when vehicle is charging. So I can use the same pump for everything. Also I start DCDC directly when charging. This leaves me with full 12V battery every charge.

EVdisplay is also acting up under high load. I really need to shield my phase cables.

[damian.lo]

Hi,

This is what I had doubt also - to run DCDC with charger or not. My cooling pump starts with charger, because after 15minutes it's hot at 10A/300V. For now I leave DCDC off, but maybe will be better like You did - also charge 12V battery during normal charging.

[arber333]

Hi,

This is what I had doubt also - to run DCDC with charger or not. My cooling pump starts with charger, because after 15minutes it's hot at 10A/300V. For now I leave DCDC off, but maybe will be better like You did - also charge 12V battery during normal charging.

I am thinking of finding an automatic 5A 14V AC/DC PSU. This mother of DCDCs has really low efficiency at low load. My water pump only consumes 1A or so. I just figured out when running with charger 12V fans are not working and DCDC gets really hot DOH! I need to turn it around and use better fans.

[arber333]

Today was a good day! I got my Pug rolling with all support elements operational. I still see DCDC is overheating and i need to turn it around and provide some better 12V cooling fans. Maybe i will also need to provide fresh air to inside of trunk.

We got liftoff and i tried various throttle pedal settings with and without regen.


Also i still need to get a driveshaft bearing retainer to fix driveshaft in place. There is some wobbling in driveshaft when accelerating and regen and i am cautious because the bearing can be moved by hand.
I found online Nissan declares the retainer part 39776JD000 a consumable and to be replaced everytime driveshafts are taken off.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NISSAN-OEM-11- ... 2784598170

[Kevin Sharpe]

Today was a good day! I got my Pug rolling with all support elements operational.

Congratulations

[mdrobnak]

Looking good!
-Matt

[arber333]

I got the speedo working as well. And yesterday i managed to get RPM to 850turns. ABS and some other relays under the hood started clicking. I get functioning brake system and i think my AC will start working now... I hope.
https://leafdriveblog.wordpress.com/202 ... edo-works/
https://leafdriveblog.wordpress.com/202 ... r-working/

Say, does anyone know the pot values for the throttle body? Or where to get the corrrect idle values? The only errors now on ECU remain two for the throttle body. I suspect this is the only cause for the engine warning light to stay lit.
If some of you know the throttle values maybe i can set it up to convince ECU to clear the errors.

My Pug was 406c 3.0L ES9J4S - XFX engine and auto transmission.

[damian.lo]

Congratulations !

Looks very good and most important - it works
Another thing: I like Slovenian weather and view on second plane.

[arber333]

Congratulations !

Looks very good and most important - it works
Another thing: I like Slovenian weather and view on second plane.

Hah! Weather just got better this weekend. It gave me an oppurtunity to take that video and test my RPM/speedo circuit.
What second plane did you have in mind? Do you mean the neighberhood ?
You are invited for a beer if you travel to Croatia for vacation. You will pass just 2km from here on A2 highway... I even have an EVSE available....

[damian.lo]

Second plane means exactly weather, sky, nice green trees - it's really nice neighborhood, I'm not joking.
Ok, thank You for invitation. I hope it will be possible to use EVSE after week of travel TO Croatia , then 2 days at Croatia and week to return with my BMW E87 I'm really curious about my range. Like You saw - Johannes did 80km and rest 25% of battery. I was hoping to have about 120-150km range on my battery (80 Leaf cells/about 320V max).
Today I measured insulation resistance of HV lines/batteries to electrical protocol - was excelent - more than 1GOhm, so I can go with rest of documentation.
I have to look at Your arduino code. I don't know why if I want to send speedo value from v3 board to instrument cluster, sometimes needle is working well, then goes down, waits and goes back. Probably refresh time should be shorter than 10ms, otherwise ECU overwrites this value by 0 rpm, I think.
Second - I have to somehow put 800rpm at idle, but only to 3 and 4 byte and don't touch second byte, because here is throttle value read by v3 board.
Any idea?

[arber333]

Ah you are using CAN bus to transmitt RPM and speedo. I havent had that luxury since my Pug is not CAN connected. At least i think not? I see no twisted wires anywhere!

I have put some Arduino PCBs to manufacture according to my protoboard. I posted it on my Github. I have made a 12V to 5V converter and used transistors to transmitt signal.
On RPM pins i put one pin to GND and the second one i output signal with a twist. Like Ron suggested i use inline ceramic 105 cap. This creates pulses that go below the GND plane and my RPM indicator reads them as reluctance wheel signals.

There will also be some signal inputs on the board. For example ENABLE signal for the RPM to start with engine start not at the turn of the key. Now i get some noises when RPM dial starts to work even before i apply engine on signal from alternator. Maybe it just confuses the BSM.

Also i will have two additional signal outputs with transistor to signal 12V (pullup or open collector) if i need to start a cooling fan relay or something.
https://github.com/arber333/Arduino-Nano-RPM-Speedo

[arber333]

For now i only have one Ampera battery inside. That will do for TUV. After that i will add a second one to extend my range hopefully to 160Km of highway driving. I see that possible with my Mazda now. Its a smaller car though and now power steering consumes some energy...
I also intend to add chademo port and Johannes circuit.
I will probably have a switch to select between single phase 3kW Eltek and 3phase fast 20kW Prius gen3 charger. EVSE port will remain the same.

[arber333]

I am getting closer now...

I got the bearing retainer and installed it. Bearing is supported from all sides now.
I ordered speedo PCB boards from manufacture and they should arrive next week.
I have SimpBMS Wiring in and connected now.
Later today if weather permit i will try some test runs.

I still need to do:
to calibrate current sensor.
to think on the underside cover now. Do you think 1.5mm alu sheet will be sufficient? I would like to get lexan sheet, but it is a bit pricey.
to sort out the wiring in front and add some original sensors. There are some strange errors on the dash now that ECU gets "engine" RPM.
I need to connect oit temp sensor and maybe some other analog sensors too.

[arber333]

Damn! I am so dissapointed by our regulators attitude...
I guess Slovenia shifted everything about development to Germany. They just say to go there and dont even want to listen and argue the points of ECE R100. They dont want to have anything to do with 360Vdc systems in my car. I dont know if it is fear or ignorance. When i tried to explain how it goes, they are just not interested.
But when i asked them if i returned with German TUV will they take it, they said yes without blinking. What a bunch of sheep!
This is what happens if you give up development. You become consumer society. This doesnt produce anything of value. Also when you hinder interested people instead of guiding them you will loose their trust and it will take generations to get that back.
At least in UK and DE you have procesess and procedures. I couldnt get anything from my regulators. I even got idea from one of them to go for 60Vdc system. That in a highway vehicke!

I dont know if i want to even live here anymore.
I will probably go to Munchen for TUV.