Freelander 1 Freelander EV

[Alibro]

BTW I'm not laughing at your misfortune just your description of what happened. I do absolutely admire what you've achieved,with a great dollop of envy, because I wouldn't know where to start & I'll admit I fall asleep trying to understand some of that coding malarkey . Keep up the good work & the down to earth descriptions of when it doesn't go right, all the best.

None taken.
The replacement is built and ready for testing tomorrow so here's hoping I don't do the same again.

 

[Alibro]

Want a laugh guys?


Here's a top tip, if using these connectors to connect your 12V then DO NOT try to plug them in live.

If you do then don't be surprised if you let out the blue smoke

The hole on the left isn't meant to be there. Turns out the positive of the plug sticks out a little so it is very easy to touch the ground of the socket while connecting them.

So this is me trying to cut out the second Arduino Nano to replace it.

And so a couple of hours later after much swearing, a little red wine and much hackery it's been replaced and tomorrow we'll have another go.
Two things that particularly annoy are, the only reason I used these connectors was to reduce the chances of blowing the second Arduino and after spending a couple of hours rewiring the LV junction box I was really hoping the next test would work and all I had to do was plug the Arduino in again and test.
Maybe tomorrow.

 

[GrumpyGel]

As I rapidly approach my 6th decade, I'm still very amazed how every day is still a school day.

I think some are ****ed off that they don't know everything, maybe even think they do. But I love learning stuff.

It may mean you still have/create grief for yourself, but finding stuff out is great

 

[Freddie17]

It may mean you still have/create grief for yourself, but finding stuff out is great

I found out today that replacing the suspension springs & struts on an F2 isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

 

[GrumpyGel]

I found out today that replacing the suspension springs & struts on an F2 isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

There's not much that is when it comes to working on bits you've not worked on before.

The important thing is, do you still have all your limbs, eyes etc?

If you do, then its a good day.

It wasn't such a good day for 1 of the drivers at the Speedway at Ruapuna here in Christchurch last night. My son went along and I got a call from him quite agitated. A Sprintcar driver clipped the wheel of another at full tilt, smashed into the concrete barrier and the car burst into flames. He watched as the marshals tried in vain to put the fire out with the driver still in the car.

They guy was eventually extracted from the burnt out wreckage and take off to hospital, but he won't be in a good way.

 

[Freddie17]

There's not much that is when it comes to working on bits you've not worked on before.

The important thing is, do you still have all your limbs, eyes etc?

If you do, then its a good day.

It wasn't such a good day for 1 of the drivers at the Speedway at Ruapuna here in Christchurch last night. My son went along and I got a call from him quite agitated. A Sprintcar driver clipped the wheel of another at full tilt, smashed into the concrete barrier and the car burst into flames. He watched as the marshals tried in vain to put the fire out with the driver still in the car.

They guy was eventually extracted from the burnt out wreckage and take off to hospital, but he won't be in a good way.

Yeah - I’ve got my limbs, and those suspension struts are not the easiest of things to play with, so a good day.
And the sun was shining.

The nice thing is - it’s not a daily, so I can afford to take my time.

 

[Alibro]

There's not much that is when it comes to working on bits you've not worked on before.

The important thing is, do you still have all your limbs, eyes etc?

If you do, then its a good day.

It wasn't such a good day for 1 of the drivers at the Speedway at Ruapuna here in Christchurch last night. My son went along and I got a call from him quite agitated. A Sprintcar driver clipped the wheel of another at full tilt, smashed into the concrete barrier and the car burst into flames. He watched as the marshals tried in vain to put the fire out with the driver still in the car.

They guy was eventually extracted from the burnt out wreckage and take off to hospital, but he won't be in a good way.

I'm sorry to hear that GG, I love motor sport and everyone knows it can be dangerous but it's always gut wrenching to see someone get hurt.

As I rapidly approach my 6th decade, I'm still very amazed how every day is still a school day.

I think some are ****ed off that they don't know everything, maybe even think they do. But I love learning stuff.

It may mean you still have/create grief for yourself, but finding stuff out is great

it never occurred to me that these connectors could be so dangerous but if you look at the tip of the plug in the photo it clearly sticks out beyond the black insulator. This makes it almost inevitable you will touch the pos of the plug to the neg of the socket when connecting them. The Arduino was getting a Gnd from another source so poking 12V into the GND connection like I did was a tad sub optimal. All I could do was laugh when I realised.
I'm sad to say my 6th decade is only a few months away.

 

[GrumpyGel]

I'm sorry to hear that GG, I love motor sport and everyone knows it can be dangerous but it's always gut wrenching to see someone get hurt.


it never occurred to me that these connectors could be so dangerous but if you look at the tip of the plug in the photo it clearly sticks out beyond the black insulator. This makes it almost inevitable you will touch the pos of the plug to the neg of the socket when connecting them. The Arduino was getting a Gnd from another source so poking 12V into the GND connection like I did was a tad sub optimal. All I could do was laugh when I realised.
I'm sad to say my 6th decade is only a few months away.

View attachment 336650

"sub optimal"

Love it.

I shall use this term at work, next time I think I'm clever and doing things correctly when I diagnose faults with a multimeter and "sub optimally" catch 2 wires with 1 prong and blow fuses.

My spanners have chunks burnt out of them where I've been removing wires from batteries and caught both terminals - very "sub optimal" that one

Mind you I have to drive to Te Anau today (400 miles) to deliver a car to someone and pick up their campervan and drive that all the way back on Monday because someone "sub optimally" fixed a problem with it randomly cutting out.

 

[Alibro]

The good news is the new Nano is working and the circuit that detects when the Charger is plugged in also works.
When I plug the charger in the Nano gets 5V and powers two relays which stay on until the charging sequence completes.
There are still a few things to sort out but I'm finally getting somewhere, albeit slowly.

 

[Alibro]

Over the weekend I discovered that disconnecting Gnd from the accelerator pedal to prevent the car driving away while the charge cable is plugged in is NOT A GOOD IDEA!
At one point during testing I turned on the ignition and the motor suddenly revved without warning. Thankfully I had the car out of gear so it didn't shoot off and I turned off again quickly enough to prevent any harm but it was a big wake up call to the potential dangers.

I suspect what happened was I had the GND disconnected by a relay and because of an issue with the timing it was still disconnected when I turned on the ignition. With the Gnd disconnected the throttle position sensor voltages were allowed to 'float' enough to rev the motor.

I've always been in the habit of taking it out of gear while testing or even charging so this was not so much good luck as safety mitigation working however because of this and other issues I hadn't thought of I'm kinda back to the drawing board and need to rethink the connections.
As has been the case from the start of this project, I take one step forward fall on me arse then get up and try again.

 

[GrumpyGel]

Doesn't the controller for the motor have some sort of 'inhibit drive' input?

 

[Alibro]

Doesn't the controller for the motor have some sort of 'inhibit drive' input?

Yes mate, it's currently triggered by the brake light switch and as I was writing the post above it occurred I could use it but I need to confirm it won't pull on the brake lights but I guess another relay would sort that.
I think there is an ignition switch for the inverter too which also might be a possibility.
The reason the inverter is powered up for charging is because it sends out the pack voltage on CAN and I currently use that as a safety backup to turn the charger off when the pack is full. The initial charge control gets it's voltage from the current shunt.

 

[Alibro]

Another thing I discovered was that the circuit I built (on the previous page of this thread) to sense when the charger plug is pushed in and send a Gnd to power my Arduino Nano, sends positive 12V when the plug is not in. I suspect this may be what killed my first Nano.

 

[GrumpyGel]

Yes mate, it's currently triggered by the brake light switch and as I was writing the post above it occurred I could use it but I need to confirm it won't pull on the brake lights but I guess another relay would sort that.
I think there is an ignition switch for the inverter too which also might be a possibility.
The reason the inverter is powered up for charging is because it sends out the pack voltage on CAN and I currently use that as a safety backup to turn the charger off when the pack is full. The initial charge control gets it's voltage from the current shunt.

I'm a novice on battery stuff. But I don't know how a monitor of the batteries knows their voltage when there is something plugged into them charging them. It would presumably see the voltage that the charger is putting out.

Another thing I discovered was that the circuit I built (on the previous page of this thread) to sense when the charger plug is pushed in and send a Gnd to power my Arduino Nano, sends positive 12V when the plug is not in. I suspect this may be what killed my first Nano.

Can't be having that - that's a power drain. Only temporary mind

 

[Alibro]

I'm a novice on battery stuff. But I don't know how a monitor of the batteries knows their voltage when there is something plugged into them charging them. It would presumably see the voltage that the charger is putting out.

Can't be having that - that's a power drain. Only temporary mind

The shunt has pack negative and positive so is able to send out the pack voltage by CAN. The inverter does the same.
By plagiarising the work of others I have a ready made way of reading the CAN from the shunt and inverter so although the charger might be able to do the same I'm sticking with using them.

As far as I can see the power drain while blowing the arse out of my Arduino was only for a few microseconds so not enough to worry about.
The second, and now it seems third to go the same way might be considered a little more of an issue.

BTW GG I never got around to asking if you had a Northern Irish couple rent a motorhome from your company by the name of Ronnie and Helen Wells? Ronnie is my wife's cousin and they were touring NZ for 4 or 5 weeks around February.
If you have any dirt on them I'd be very happy to abuse it.

 

[GrumpyGel]

The shunt has pack negative and positive so is able to send out the pack voltage by CAN. The inverter does the same.
By plagiarising the work of others I have a ready made way of reading the CAN from the shunt and inverter so although the charger might be able to do the same I'm sticking with using them.

As far as I can see the power drain while blowing the arse out of my Arduino was only for a few microseconds so not enough to worry about.
The second, and now it seems third to go the same way might be considered a little more of an issue.

BTW GG I never got around to asking if you had a Northern Irish couple rent a motorhome from your company by the name of Ronnie and Helen Wells? Ronnie is my wife's cousin and they were touring NZ for 4 or 5 weeks around February.
If you have any dirt on them I'd be very happy to abuse it.

Thinking about it, I think they were the ones who left the pamphlet for the Waiau Naturist site in the van, together with a drinks receipt from the Cruz Gay & Swingers Bar. Used condoms everywhere and broken bed board.

No couldn't have been them, didn't have any hires under the name of Wells in Feb, doesn't go by the name of "John Smith" does he?

That may or may not have been fabricated of course, but, hey, you can pass on the rumours

 

[Alibro]

Sadly these are the latest additions to the "Shelf of Shame"


RIP little fellas

In reality they're not completely dead but injured enough I wouldn't trust them for anything much. The digital pins 10 and 11 are no longer working and probably others too.

This is what I am using now.

And instead of the 5V voltage regulator that is still soldered to the board on the right I'm using a LM2596 buck converter feeding 7V to the Arduino Uno. It just keeps things simple and saves me soldering it onto a vero board.
The wires going to the Uno are soldered to pins that are hot glued to the lid and are easy to push into the Uno which is just as well as while testing I was confused as weird stuff was happening and it turns out the Uno was resetting for no particular reason. Replacing it seems to have solved this issue so I suspect it was dodgy from before as I don't think I damaged it this time.
I spent several more hours working on this today and got it to the stage it was working as required.
Now when I plug in the charger cable the Arduino powers up and pushing a button starts charging then when fully charged it powers off again.
All pleased I had it working I tidied up all the leads, tucked everything into the boxes, closed the bonnet and turned on the ignition to take it for a test drive and NOTHING!
No throttle, no drive and a very peeved me!
So after 30 minutes or so of not fault finding I reverted to form, spat out the dummy and walked off in a huff!

To be continued.......

 

[Andy Warren]

Another ten bob in the meter to charge it, that's about all I can offer ? Sorry to hear this, hope it's something simple .

 

[Alibro]

Another ten bob in the meter to charge it, that's about all I can offer ? Sorry to hear this, hope it's something simple .

Thanks mate, every little helps.
I'm not too concerned as it will probably be something stupid I've done like a disconnected wire or some such.
I spent months working on the startup procedure to get it reliable as it seems to be very fussy about what gets powered on first but I've added so many wires since then that it is very messy. In an ideal world I would strip out the entire low voltage connection box and rewire the entire thing but I can't face that amount of work.

 

[Alibro]

We're driving again!

During testing I was poking about at the wiring and suddenly one of the relays in the relay module triggered and after a few minutes more poking I figured it looks like the relay module is faulty.

This is the offending module.

Ignore the missing jumper, I had to pinch it after one on the new module pinged into the engine bay.

I haven't had time to check for sure yet but this doesn't look right.

The last relay was flicking off and on as I touched the side of the board so at first I thought maybe it was a cracked track as I haven't always been as gentle with it as I might be and the support for it flexes a lot but I guess a dry joint could do it too.
Anyway the module is now replaced and the car is driving again with all the charging bits still in place