Toyota Prius Gen3 Board
The Toyota Prius Gen3 Board is an open source project to repurpose 2010-2015 Toyota Prius inverters for DIY EV use. It consists of a circuit board and programming that replaces the Prius' original ECU. Note that there is also a Toyota Prius Gen2 Board
Prius Inverter
The Toyota Prius is a hybrid vehicle. Their inverters are suitable and attractive for DIY EVs because of:
- Large part availability. Priuses have been made in large numbers for 20 years.
- High affordability. Prius inverters are available for around $150 from scrapyards everywhere.
- Durability. Toyota engineers appear to have made the inverters foolproof, many inputs and outputs gracefully handle fault conditions.
- Respectable performance. Rated for 50kW output, but tests indicate they can tolerate as much as 300kW
- Ease of repurposing. Emulating the original ECU seems reasonably feasible.
The Gen3 Prius (2010-2015 model years) has a variety of useful components inside the inverter package:
- 2 high power inverters, for the 2 motors MG1 (starter) capable of handling X(?) amps, and MG2 (drive motor) capable of handling Y(?) amps.
- A DC-DC converter to provide 12v power supply to the automotive systems and accessories.
- A boost module to boost the 200v battery pack up to 500v, which looks to be able to function as a battery charger (wish list for future development)
- See this video for a thorough disassembly and explanation of the Gen3 Inverter (Timestamp ???? ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Vm-C4MsW8
Control Board
As designed by Damien Maguire, the open source hardware for the control board can be purchased as both partially populated and fully populated and tested boards on his website:
Prius Gen3 Prius Gen3 Full & Tested
How To Use
The Prius Gen3 Board is suitable to control any (please add: motor types here) motors.
Note: Early versions of the board have a few mistakes. (Add details)
Schematics, Bill of Materials, and other documentation are available on Damien's Project Github
(Note: This is the V2, which replaces the V1 board)
(note: flesh out bill of materials here, or post changes to Damien to update his documentation directly?)
The control board takes advantage of the OpenInverter.org software (link?) for control.
Assembly notes?