openinverter forum

I'm wondering if the Yaris inverter is similar to the 3rd gen Prius inverter. The cases look externally identical which makes it tempting to assume the insides might also be very similar, or at least similar enough to implement the same or similar replacement brain control as the Prius inverter.
I'm also wondering if I'd be making a false economy getting a cheaper Yaris inverter to tinker about with over the more known 3rd gen Prius inverter.

My plan is to use it with a Lexus MGR unit in a lightweight vehicle and implement inverter charging.

Mouse wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 11:45 pm I'm also wondering if I'd be making a false economy getting a cheaper Yaris inverter to tinker about with over the more known 3rd gen Prius inverter.

Probably only one way to find out If you break the seals carefully you should be able to resell the part if it's no use to you.

The biggest risk about going it alone is the lack of support available. The community has very limited resources and if you want an easy solution then follow the path being trod by others.

So I had one of those 15% off offers because you've looked at an ebay listing and got a Yaris inverter.
Shame is it's been dropped in-between them photographing it for the listing and it arriving on my doorstep. The packaging was not damaged so I suspect it was dropped before it was sent. I'm waiting to hear back from them before taking the case apart.
If anyone can comment on the chance of the power stage being damaged it would be useful.

Mouse wrote: ↑Thu Dec 19, 2019 2:48 pm I'm waiting to hear back from them before taking the case apart.

It's probably worth negotiating a *big* discount and using this for experimental purposes

I've taken the plunge and opened the case and thought I'd share the insides.
It looks much the same as the other Toyota inverters which I know is nothing to go on for compatibility but it's a start.
The top control PCB is shorter than the board Damien designed. I'm trying to remember if this has been encountered in different versions on another thread about at Gen 3 inverters but don't have the time to go searching just at the moment.

For reference parts are marked,
Inverter G9200-52032
Brain PCB F1759-52010
IGBT PCB F1789-52010 The top brain PCB appears to be very similar to the other Toyota Gen 3 inverters however I don't have others to hand for a closer comparison. Top PCB removed. Printout of Damiens Gen 3 PCB (with very bad conversion to Kicad for printing!!) The PCB is 143mm wide... Which is clearly a bit shorter than the other models. Expecting to do a bit of tinkering I rolled my own breakout board in Kicad and sent it to be made before I noticed that Damiens GIT repository contains the gerbers along with the pinout. At least I enjoy that sort of thing and have a footprint for the 50 pin connector now.
(I'm also going to have to brush up on the etiquette of open source licensing etc before getting it wrong and annoying anyone.) As none of the usual suspects sell the 50 pin connector I filled in a sample request on the UK JST website and got a free one by return of post but also ordered a few on the slow boat from Aliexpress in China if I'm going to be tinkering with this beast. I guess it's going to be a couple of weeks before I can start squirting signals into the IGBT board to check if the pinout is actually the same as the Prius Gen3 pinout that has been published. I don't really have the resources to be more experimental than using the pinout signals for the Prius and checking for a PASS / FAIL result on the expected output and being sensible and buffering the input with resistors to avoid damaging anything. The only positive check I've been able to make is confirming all the GND pins match up.

Kevin Sharpe wrote: ↑Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:05 pm It's probably worth negotiating a *big* discount and using this for experimental purposes

I asked for %25 off so as not to to be taking the piss myself and got it There was some negotiation regarding to it still being useful but obviously not arriving in good condition.
So the bottom line is I obtained a Yaris inverter for £50 which includes the postage which is something I'm not grumbling at.

Mouse wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:43 pm

Kevin Sharpe wrote: ↑Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:05 pm It's probably worth negotiating a *big* discount and using this for experimental purposes

I asked for %25 off so as not to to be taking the piss myself and got it There was some negotiation regarding to it still being useful but obviously not arriving in good condition.
So the bottom line is I obtained a Yaris inverter for £50 which includes the postage which is something I'm not grumbling at.

Very cool, well done

If this inverter is going spare I suspect Damien could make good use of it for PCB design

Today's lesson is always listen to Arber:) Seems the pinouts for the 50 way igbt board connector on the Yaris inverter is the same as the Gen 3 prius. As are the current sensors.

Jack Bauer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 11:49 am Today's lesson is always listen to Arber:) Seems the pinouts for the 50 way igbt board connector on the Yaris inverter is the same as the Gen 3 prius. As are the current sensors.

That is good news

Very nice

Yaris inverters are quite cheap online.

From my own quick research, there seems to have been a variety of part numbers used across different "gen 3" models (Prius/Auris/CT200) over a period of years as the design was iterated very slightly.

Installed on cars
TOYOTA AQUA,
COROLLA AXIO,
COROLLA FIELDER,
prius C,
yaris

Dilbert wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 1:30 pm ...there seems to have been a variety of part numbers used across different "gen 3" models (Prius/Auris/CT200)

I've just put the details of the Yaris inverter I have in a table on the Gen 3 wiki page to hopefully help identifying which ones have the different sized PCBs in them.
https://openinverter.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_Gen3_Board

I've also been messing about with mine as a distraction to completing the dreaded tax return before the end of the month....

Nice work:) Yaris/Auris board in the works.

Jack Bauer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2020 4:36 pm Nice work:) Yaris/Auris board in the works.

Thanks
I've done a bit more...

I've just got the 12V DC/DC converter of the Yaris inverter working with an input of 400V DC and also tested the output with a 40-50 Amp load.

I've posted it here as I'm not sure if the Toyota Gen 3 Yaris Inverter DC/DC module is the same as the much more common Toyota Gen 3 Prius one that is the main topic of the Toyota Gen 3 Inverter Hacking thread.

My limited experience of switched mode PSUs is once designed they are often more tolerant of varying input voltage than you would expect especially when being supplied with a higher supply voltage than intended as the control is often more than capable of altering the switching to compensate. For this to be successful the power stage components will need to be capable of working a this higher voltage and the switching mosfets 6R099A and K3906 have maximum voltage of 600V leaving the 1.6uF 250V input capacitors needing to be changed. The SMD capacitors are imposable to identify working voltage so will only get attention if they fail or explode.

I reverse engineered the HV and output power stages looking for a single feedback point hoping this would be some sort of simple easily hacked Over-Voltage trigger. This was found in the form of a simple resistor divider network that went into what looked like an op-amp or similar before being optically signalled to the control chip on the low voltage side of the circuit. As this was the only link between the HV and LV stages of the DC/DC converter I stopped reverse engineering it any further.
Once this resistor divider network was identified I noted the feedback voltage at the normal point of shut-down of 235V and used it to calculate a resistor divider value for a new slightly higher shut-down voltage of 280V to test the concept. After this test was complete I replaced the capacitors and repeated it with a resistor divider to shut down at 400V and after this was proven to work loading it with 40-50 Amps using some cheap diesel engine glow plugs to prove it was actually working. The output voltage of the variac and possibly the ripple on the smoothing capacitor caused the DC voltage to droop when loading the DC/DC converter but it's all I have to power it with at the moment.

I took a few photos and made a rambling video about what I was trying to do.
The full DC/DC module. Held in place by many screws.

Front of PCB.

Back of PCB.

Feedback voltage breakout test board.

Front SMD resistor replaced with breakout wires

Rear SMD resistor replaced with breakout wires

Replacement Capacitors.

Replacement capacitors in place.

Input filter stage.

HV power stage and and 12V output + filter.



Hope my rambling video does not bore you all to death.

Excellent work

Very nice. Is this part of the inverter assembly of in a separate enclosure?

It's part of the inverter assembly. Under the bottom cover next to the boost inductor.

Fantastic. I'll be using a prius gen 3 inverter with a siemens 1pv5135 and a 400v battery in the E39 soon.

Cool.
Do the Prius DC/DC converters look the same the same as this Yaris one?
I don't have any other inverters to compare it with and no one really photographs the bottom section of them.

When running the Prius Gen 3 inverter on 400V are you feeding directly into the High Voltage bus or going through the boost stage using the standard battery input?

Great job documenting and sharing with the community Mouse!

You're setting a great example.

I just opened up a Prius C inverter (G9201-52012 on case, F1759-52010 control board, F1789-52010 power board) and the DC bus caps are 775uF 650V for the high side and 315uF 300V for the low side. The inductor is 235uH. For my application (home PV inverter), I'll be controlling it with a FPGA.

I'm surprised the DC/DC uses an active clamp forward topology, most PC power supplies (which are very similar) above 700W or so use a full bridge topology.

NiHaoMike wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 12:16 amI just opened up a Prius C inverter (G9201-52012 on case, F1759-52010 control board, F1789-52010 power board)

Added that to the wiki. If the control board has an extra "04" next to it, both it and the power board match the numbers on the Yaris units.

MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 3:10 am Added that to the wiki. If the control board has an extra "04" next to it, both it and the power board match the numbers on the Yaris units.

It does have an 04. The number on the case differs by 1 digit, I presume to indicate slightly different programming.

MattsAwesomeStuff wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 9:57 pm You're setting a great example.

I am most definitely following in the shadow of Johannes and Damien.
I'll start a project thread when I've got some content to post up.

It would be very interesting to see if this dc to dc converter design is a carry over from the gen 2 prius design, as these are very plentiful. I will have to crack one open.