openinverter forum

I'm pretty sure I had the phev charger working on the bench reliably but maybe it wasn't fully sorted.

Now I've transferred the charger and socket etc to the car I'm battling to get the charge of the main batteries to start properly. I have the DCDC piece working OK and the can communications all looks good.

Am i right in thinking the pilot signal from the charge sockets goes to pin 9 on the charger (charge pilot). For some reason i had this connection also wired to an analogue port on my Teensy though nothing was done with it in code, not even the pin configured.

My issue i think revolves around the pilot signal from the charger socket. With a granny charger plugged in I get a pilot signal reported of 17 by the charger via CAN message. When i press the button to start charging the pilot signal drops to zero and the charging doesn't start. The charger doesn't click either even though i'm sending it 'pull in b6 messages'.

If i disconnect the Arduino from the pilot connection, and press the start button, and then reconnect my arduino the charger clicks, and on some occasions this has been enough to start charging at my requested 1amp.

So the questions:-

1) do i need to connect pilot to arduino, and if so what should i do with it ? If not does the pilot from the socket simply connect to pin 9 ?
2) what interval should i set between 285 & 286 messages I send and is this critical. it's current 200ms for 285 record and 1000ms for 286 (set charge current) record,
3) some sample code i found stepped though a few values of byte 2 in the 285 record but in testing i think i went straight to 0xb6 and it seemed to work ok
4) what is it that causes the charger to click and start charging ?

it's almost there.

Please post this in the relevant thread where you found the arduino info.

The Pilot should not be to the Arduino.

viewtopic.php?t=628

tom91 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 9:12 pm Please post this in the relevant thread where you found the arduino info.

The Pilot should not be to the Arduino.

viewtopic.php?t=628

thanks for that, just need to work out why it doesn't want to start the charge.

Does anyone step through values on 285, or just send that with 0xb6 and it pulls in ?

FFMan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 9:21 pm thanks for that, just need to work out why it doesn't want to start the charge.

Does anyone step through values on 285, or just send that with 0xb6 and it pulls in ?

If you go through charger thread you will notice we use 0x285 as a heartbeat for ac compressor heater and inverter in its "drive" version of byte2 14. When PP pin is pulled to GND by evse cable uC will change byte2 to b6 and 0x286 will request charging process.
You do not connect CP signal to uC but rather PP will trigger charging msg.

Some EVSEs will want to do to state B first, if you plugin when already sending the byte to pull in for example. That was an issue I was having early on with public chargers.

PP pin you should use in you controller to know you're plugged in.
CP goes to the outlander charger, be sure you're not requesting more than 12 amps.

1000ms could be too long. I send them both at 100ms intervals.

got this working thanks =- removing pilot from arduino and increasing frequency of sent 285 & 286 messages seemed to do the trick..

Of the 4 temperatures the charger sends, which have people used, and what is a practical limit ?

Is cooling required of the charger ?

FFMan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:43 pm got this working thanks =- removing pilot from arduino and increasing frequency of sent 285 & 286 messages seemed to do the trick..

Of the 4 temperatures the charger sends, which have people used, and what is a practical limit ?

Is cooling required of the charger ?

The hottest one.

Yes it is designed with coolant flowing, due to there not being any mass under the switching mosfets/igbts.