[wip] DIY electric buggy for school students, Renault PHEV drive, Auris openinverter board

[Ruudi S]

This is my voluntary or work/hobby project for our vocational school to teach EV technology simply and safely. We already had made this buggy in one Erasmus+ project. But at the time I had no experience with openinverter technology. I still haven't but I am ready to learn. At the moment Buggy is driving and equipped with Nissan Leaf 2012 battery modules 10S2P 84V 8kWh, 9kW Brushed forklift motor and 550A Curtis controller (limited to 100A), a small DC/DC and 3kW onboard charger, ANT bms with display and bluetooth. It's all nice but... It came out really heavy 490kg for such a small buggy ofcourse one reason is that we are here no automotive engineers we teach and train workers for car service workshops. The frame is stronger than necessary, it doesn't have a diff at rear axle so manouvering in garage is very hard.
2024 started for me with local Toyota Baltics training for hybrid and electric cars and last year we have been given the renault drivetrain. I also ordered Auris board from evbmw.com shop. So now convinced from training that toyota hybrid stuff is pretty clever solution I contacted my countryman jnsaff from this forum who has already given me many parts from his projects that he didn't need. But now, this year we bought an Auris inverter from him.

[Ruudi S]

Here's what the electric buggy looked like when it was finished september 2021

[Ruudi S]

Now we need to prepare the Auris inverter for driving our Renault drivetrain. We use openinverter auris/yaris board. It comes almost complete only needs a few connectors and one IC chip to be soldered.

Received the IC14 chip and some connectors from mouser

Soldered connectors onto the board

Connected 12V power to the board and it started two leds, right one flashes.


To adjust or program the mainboard you can connect to it from any device with wifi connection. I saw the ESP module right away with my phone and the inverter page opened. Now we need to find out what parameters and stuff can we change on the page.


Here's what I see when browsing inverter page

[Ruudi S]

It took about a week and good help from forum members to find out that installed D1 mini ESP wifi module is connected to the atmega 328 microcontroller what controls the high voltage and high power DC/DC converter that is used as part of the charger. Charging is not what I will be doing right now.
First I'd like to get the inverter to make the motor to turn.

To get the wifi module talking to the stm32 I needed to connect it to the other wifi module connector J2.

When it was done, the web page displayed parameters right away!
Here's a few pictures of the web interface when it's getting the data from main inverter controller STM32

[Ruudi S]

About motor connectors. I need to find out what connectors are used here for resolvers. I'll try to ask local Renault dealer because I didn't find any from online wreckyards, also I have some japanese EV wireing laying around maybe something matches?

smaller generator/motor resolver connector:

bigger motor, the one with gearbox and differential

[crasbe]

These connectors look very much like Hirose connectors. Maybe you can spot some numbers on the connector?

They look somewhat similar to the GT18W Series from the Mitsubishi components, but not quite I think.

[Ruudi S]

These connectors look very much like Hirose connectors. Maybe you can spot some numbers on the connector?

Yes thank you for the idea! Thanks to that I found a number on the smaller generator/motor resolver connector 12519
a little googling found a mighty interesting 451 page toyota connector document
https://www.toyota-tech.eu/wire_harness_rm/RM06H0E.pdf

Seems like aliexpress has something similiar to offer do you guys think it's ok quality?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006 ... LVxzY&mp=1

[crasbe]

Aparrently that's a Sumitomo connector, the Sumitomo part number is TS025-8P. But it seems that that's a Toyota-only connector as it has the Toyota part number on it's side and not the Sumitomo part number.

The Aliexpress offer is certainly worth a shot, otherwise you could try to go to your friendly local Toyota/Lexus dealership and ask if they want to sell you a connector.


If you can't find connectors for the white connectors, it might be worth trying out if the 3D printed signal glands from the Mitsubishi stuff fit here: viewtopic.php?t=3563
They look very similar in shape. If you want to, I can provide some measurements for cross checking.

[Ruudi S]

I think it turns now! It took a few days to understand what to adjust and change.

[Ruudi S]

But it seems that that's a Toyota-only connector as it has the Toyota part number on it's side.
you could try to go to your friendly local Toyota/Lexus dealership and ask if they want to sell you a connector.

I think I'll order from Toyota dealership parts girl, they have one available what I think fits there and shipped only in a few days, price was under 20€

[Ruudi S]

Now when smaller motor is turning and the resolver connector is on its way it's time to deal with the main motor that is going to drive our vehicle.
I pushed the Renault drivetrain with 30kW electric motor near my 2012 Nissan Leaf stand (equipped with all the wires and control units).

This is the resolver connector

these 3 black connectors are the control connectors to Nissan Leaf 2012 OBC

38855 written here

And it fits perfectly!

There's written 38855 on the plug. It seems like it could be Yazaki 7283-8855-30 But I asked from Nissan service maybe they'll sell it to me.

yazaki link: https://www.yazaki-direct.co.uk/store/7 ... p423088902
aliexpress with wires : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001355493314.html
aliexpress just connector: https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005002925074865.html

Update, Nissan here like renault doesn't sell connectors separately only have to buy part of wiring with all the connectors and stuff.

[Ruudi S]

crasbe wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2024 3:38 pm
But it seems that that's a Toyota-only connector as it has the Toyota part number on it's side.
you could try to go to your friendly local Toyota/Lexus dealership and ask if they want to sell you a connector.

I think I'll order from Toyota dealership parts girl, they have one available what I think fits there and shipped only in a few days, price was under 20€

Well I received it but its only the connector housing. Where can I get the pins I don't know yet. Toyota worker that was at the desk today didn't know either.

The tables in the toyota document I found seems to guide me to 82998–24250

[royhen99]

I think this is the correct part Sumitomo 8100-3455. I buy parts from here https://www.auto-click.co.uk/6189-1240
Not so good from outside the UK but is a least a good source of infomation.

[Ruudi S]

Got the buggy driving to take part of car engineering student event in rallycross track organized by TTK - University of Applied Sciences.
Only our school had running electric buggy.
Other one was ofcourse world nr.1 in 2024 Formula Student car.
Thanks to my colleague, who's driving, he did and leaded doing all the needed metal work.

[Ruudi S]

At the moment buggy drives a little slowly. Battery voltage is about 80V maybe it's not possible to get more speed at that voltage?
Maybe someone who has more prius inverter tuning experience sees here on the pictures what to adjust to get more power. More power is needed because it doesn't want to climb even small hills.

[arber333]

Well I received it but its only the connector housing. Where can I get the pins I don't know yet. Toyota worker that was at the desk today didn't know either.
.....

Its similar to Sumimoto TS 025 female connector that we use with Outlander system P/N 6189-1092.
Pins are Female P/N 8100-3455 ... and male P/N 8100-3617

You can get all of them them here...
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002 ... ry_from%3A

[Ruudi S]

Its similar to Sumimoto TS 025 female connector that we use with Outlander system P/N 6189-1092.
Pins are Female P/N 8100-3455 ... and male P/N 8100-3617

You can get all of them them here...
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002 ... ry_from%3A

Thanks for the link, but your link is not the same connector I think.
I ordered it from aliexpress also, but I think it was this one.
Aliexpress connector: https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005002925074865.html

[arber333]

Thanks for the link, but your link is not the same connector I think.
I ordered it from aliexpress also, but I think it was this one.
Aliexpress connector: https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005002925074865.html

Apologies... i sent you the wrong pin count. I use that one with Outlander stuff.

However what you show in the previous post is not Sumimoto TS025 connector P/N 6189-1240 that you showed earlier. You showed 8 pin version. Terminals are the same... 8100-3455 for the female and 8100-3617 for male....

https://www.corsa-technic.com/item.php? ... lxOZ2-khUJ
https://www.corsa-technic.com/item.php?item_id=942
https://www.corsa-technic.com/item.php? ... NmSmimPsN5

[Ruudi S]

This month I am going to learn how to tune the FOC software

Here's the link from wiki: https://openinverter.org/wiki/Using_FOC_Software
all the first points have been done and I believe are alright and now I need to test those parameters:

The default values or curkp and curki can usually stay untouched

Next set up the "throtcur" parameter. It defines how many motor amps are produced per % of throttle travel.

You can customize the two parameters lqminusld and fluxlinkage, ideally with the real values of your motor. Otherwise keep fluxlinkage at its default, start with lqminusld=1 and slowly raise it until you get best acceleration.

12.05 Did a little "tuning" got it moving more rapidly and it got faster too, but need more time and testing. I changed throttle pedal % and got better acceleration right away.
Did some plots and saw that battery current is under 100A is it limited some other way than battery voltage?

[Ruudi S]

Now I got this far that it's clear that 80V is enough to run this buggy faster then safe with that frame construction!
Got bigger current and better acceleration also!
Amazing this openinverter FOC software!