Archive for November, 2012

I updated my BMS display software to actually respond to the buttons I have. Now I have another screen of data, graphing each cell. The graph goes from 2.0v at the bottom to 4.0v at the top and shows the min and max cell numbers (and the voltage). My cell #38 is dying. It is starting to trip my BMS when my pack is only 50% charged. Actually, it shouldn’t be tripping the BMS because it does sag to a pretty low voltage, but it always comes back up to > 3.00v when resting (i.e.: under no load). The updated... [read more]

Here is directions to make your own Elithion BMS Display. Use at your own risk! Parts required: Arduino UNO – (the Leonardo will NOT work) – ~$30 Sparkfun CAN Bus shield– $45 Adafruit proto shield – $12.50 Adafruit 2.2″ TFT LCD Display – $30 Extra long male/female header pins for the Arduino 8 wire shielded cord – $3 (Frys Electronics) Serial port + wire to tap into your can bus (or plug directly into the Elithion CAN bus output) NOTE: this project could be made *much* more cheaply by using a different display, and making your own CAN Bus setup... [read more]

Elithion BMS Display in my car, showing the basic features (State of Charge, amps out or in, pack voltage, min/avg/max cell voltage): Notice there are 5 buttons below; those will be wired up to the arduino to control more functions, but for now, the 1.0 release seems to be working well enough. The display shows errors/warnings at the top when they occur (and given that I have a dying cell, I see them). For example, here it is showing what happens when it can’t find the BMS (ignore the lower red line…that was testing): The display housing is 1/8″ aluminum.... [read more]

I did a lot of work on my display and now it is working! If anyone else is interested in the code, it is all at https://github.com/corbinstreehouse Good information to learn more about CAN bus and the Elithion spec: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs http://lithiumate.elithion.com/php/controller_can_specs.php PIDs for the Elithion can be found here: http://lithiumate.elithion.com/xls/Lithiumate_PIDs.xls The Can bus shield: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10039

I made some updates to my charger control project. I discovered my EVSE didn’t like the way I was testing for the proximity switch on the plug latch to be closed. Whenever the Arduino was on, I had the 5v line running through a 2.yk resistor to ground in order to detect it not plugged in. There was another line going into the Vehicle J1772 inlet. That goes into a circuit inside the plug that looks like this: What happens here is the resistance to ground changes once the J1772 plug is plugged in, and changes again once the latch... [read more]

I want a better BMS display for my car. I have the Elithion BMS “Pro“, which has worked pretty well in my conversion. Sometimes it gives faults earlier than I would want, and sometimes I’ve had bank communication errors that really shouldn’t happen (all connections are tight, and I don’t have excessive noise in my environment). There are a few displays out there listed on the Elithion website. I have the round small one made by elithion; it is lacking in features and doesn’t have the ability to show fine grained state of charge. There are simply 10 bars, and... [read more]

In California, EVs can get a clean air sticker and the right to use the carpool lane while solo (also called the High Occupancy Vehicle lane, or HOV). I love the fact that California is promoting clean energy. Apparently the DMV has stopped giving out the white stickers to DIY conversions (based on this post from mr2ev.com)! I think I got really lucky in getting mine. One thing to note from this page on the DMV Website: 12. Q: I want to convert my gasoline powered vehicle to a qualifying fuel type so I can qualify for CAV decals. What... [read more]

Based on my requirements, I made some hardware the will more intelligently control my Manzanita charger. It is powered by an Arduino, and has a little LCD to tell me what is going on and accept input settings: First off, everything is on https://github.com/corbinstreehouse/ChargerControl. It solves the problems I previously listed, by implementing J1772 (minus respecting the amperage that the charging station provides — since I can’t control that in the Manzanita charger) and implements a timer. I bought an Arduino last winter and learned how to do basic hardware programming. I then used EAGLE PCB software (free) to design... [read more]

I’m using the Manzanita Micro PFC-30 charger to charge my car. It basically has technology from 10 years ago, and drastically needs some updates. Now, they are slowly updating the charger, but it still doesn’t have the features I really want. Things I want in a charger: * J1772 support. This is the ability to turn on and off an Electric Vehicle charging station, and provide some safety measures when charging. I already have this J1772 adapter box that I’m using. The adapter box works great, but it has no safety measure to respect the proximity setting. Normally, when someone... [read more]

Venice Sunlight

I had to do some work on the Electric Bug lately. I replaced the right rear wheel bearing (I did the left a while ago). It was starting to get sloppy. My steering box was leaking oil, and it had vertical slop where the arm attached to the box. I think this can somewhat be adjusted out…but the leaking would have been hard to fix. Turning in corners was starting to shake quite a bit, so I needed to do something. So, I bought a new EMPI one (unfortunately, the quality is kind of crap, it seems to have more... [read more]