Sv: Solcelleanlegg

[Orla Pedersen]

Since the Zebra battery is pretty new to me can someone explain how the Zebra/AC heater stuff works ?

When connected to mains the BMI is regulating temperature with a 230 volt heating mat placed on top of the cells. The BMI contains two "switches", one mecanical relay, and one semiconducter switch in series.

When not mains connected a similar circuit with its own heating mat and switches takes over heating for as long as there is power on the battery.

On my zebra the AC recognition was eratic, and maybe even the temperature regulation suffered. The mains AC was certainly present on the BMI-connector but not always recogniced by the BMI-software. Eventually one week-end the BMI-fault probably "fried" the battery I think.

[PRensel]

Ok, i have checked wat happens when i use the charging cable with the Zebra battery/BMI.
To check first I took out the round AC connector and theres 230V at outer pins, so the AC power all the way to the BMI does work.

Using pcanview i can see that the AC heater switch is closed and AC heater relay is enabled.
The battery is 115.0 degC so it should warm up first before charging.

Is there anything else to check if its really heating up ?

[Orla Pedersen]

Just made progress on the 'Think-o-later' (short for Think Simulator). It can now mimic the BMI so my Think is now 'thinking' that everything is ok.
No more flashing wrenches, Power-limit or hazard symbol anymore, even without the BMI unplugged.
I can even control the fuel-meter so i can take an actual Ah-counter and reflect the SOC to the fuel meter.

Next step is to attach a suitable battery pack and drive away....

Great, could next step be bringing communication on the canbus to a minimum? We know that the BMI is running in "broadcast" mode, and that means a lot of information is send on the canbus, but how much is actually listened to by the PCU. There is no need for the emulator to "flood" the canbus with unnessesary information I think.

Good work! 

[PRensel]

I believe lots of BMI traffic can be left out just for the PCU.
In the other post i made about the Think CANalyzer you can see clearly whats is needed and what not.
For most data i have created a 'translator'. It is still very beta but usefull as it is.

[stradivaria]

Hi All,

I do not understand what is the target of this group?
Would you like to connect Gen 1 PCU with Enerdel battery, or you would like to connect any other battery to PCU Gen1 and Gen2?

RMI

[PRensel]

would like to connect any other battery to PCU Gen1 and Gen2?

Thats it :-)

[stradivaria]

So, what did you left to do?

I would be glade to help you...

There is already solution to replace Zebra with ENERDEL pack on GEN1,
I can fix 80% of all faults in ENERDEL pack.
If you have some broken Erelec, or Melec, send it to me, I can replace it with working parts.

[BauDemo]

The purpose of simulating the BMI is to be able to use ANY battery with the Think.
So the choices would not be limited by only Enerdel or Zebra.

For example someone may want to build a battery pack out of nissan leaf battery modules and then use it in a Think.

[Orla Pedersen]

Small news about initialization.
The BMI sends message ID H300 at startup, it keeps "Software version, revision, Id 1, Id 2, Id 3, Hardware version, Init succesfull, Battery address". Eight bytes in all.
I've just checked the remains of my cars BMI, and even if quite corroded i some places it still communicates, and the message ID H300 returns exactly the same pattern as that P.Rensel found in his car, "03 0B 0E 4D 44 02 01 00" or in decimal, "03 11 14 77 68 02 01 00".



Even though there might be different Id.'s in zebra batteries it's obvius now, that they don't send unique Id.'s to the PCU. That makes me wonder if the PCU only cares about "Init Succesfull" ?

The screenshot is from my version of a diagnostic only software on the DuinoMite platform, and based on BauDemo's original software. As sone as I'm comfortable with reliability and some extensions I'll share the program, patience please 

[PRensel]

The BMI sends message ID H300 at startup, it keeps "Software version, revision, Id 1, Id 2, Id 3, Hardware version, Init succesfull, Battery address". Eight bytes in all.

I have been working on reverse-engineering the Zebra battery en Zebramonitor and have created a Zebra simulator. This is an Arduino with CANbus who simulates the original Zebra battery.
I can even 'talk' to it with Zebramonitor and the Zebramonitor thinks it is connected to a real battery pack.  I have also found a way of resetting some values in the Zebra pack like cell fail count, cell fail percentage etc which you normally have to have a MES-DEA code for it to change.

When the Zebra starts it sents out the packets 0x300, 301, 302, 303 and 304 and every 10 second 30E and 30F.

In return it expects the packets 0x310 and 0311 from the car. When these car-packets are not there it wont turn on the contacters so the pack doesnt provide any voltage.

In return by sending the packets 300-304 tot the car with the appropriate bits sent the car is enabled and ready to drive.

If the pack has an error (too many failed cells for example) it sents out a bit-error to the car and the car starts blinking the power-limit light and cannot drive anymore until faults are corrected or reset.

The Zebramonior talks to the battery with packets 0x500, 0x520, 0x530 and 0x581
It uses a simple scheme to request data from the battery or can set variables in the battery.

Resetting any faults doesnt mean the fault itself is corrected.
For example my pack was shutdown because it had too many failed cells, 16 in total.
The limit is set to 10% per string of 144 cells, so 14 is the limit.
By resetting the 10% value to 15% or by changing the failed-cell count to 0 i could restart the pack again :-) But this doesnt mean that the pack is usable again.
 

Paul

[Go-carter]

Exciting to hear this! I only have limited experience in programming Arduino, so its fun to see you guys coping with it.

Is there a light in the tunnel for making an interpretator/"box" between the PCU and a new battery and for instance making up a battery of Leaf-cells? Or similar.

[PRensel]

Is there a light in the tunnel for making an interpretator/"box" between the PCU and a new battery and for instance making up a battery of Leaf-cells? Or similar.

Yes thats no problem at all really know all the traffic between PCU and BMI/BMS is analyzed.
I actually have this working with my Zebra emulator letting the Think believe it is connected to the battery while it is not :-)
And also the other way around letting the Zebra believe it is controlled by the Think.
And on top of that the Zebramonitor software is 'looking' at it and not seeing any errors :-)

It is all very experimental though and certainly needs some cleaning up before sending out boxes.

[stradivaria]

This is my idea, but is it not better to take real BMS system and make it working with Think PCU.

Then you can use any cells you want, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Enerdel, Kokam, Eag...

I think it would be less work
Any way battery has to have BMS system, if it is open source, then you can use any cells.

I see, that you already have many messages on the list....

[Orla Pedersen]

This is my idea, but is it not better to take real BMS system and make it working with Think PCU.

That would probably be the case in many situations, and then the "BMI-emulator" would be a "PCU to BMS" interface. Anyway this interface would need different coding to "please" different BMS's, but act the same against the PCU. Much of the work would be the same in each case.

[Dariusz Kowalczyk]

This is my idea, but is it not better to take real BMS system and make it working with Think PCU.

That would probably be the case in many situations, and then the "BMI-emulator" would be a "PCU to BMS" interface. Anyway this interface would need different coding to "please" different BMS's, but act the same against the PCU. Much of the work would be the same in each case.

Hi all
I'm new member of this group. Got Think with faulty Zebra battery and found this fantastic forum. The idea of simulating BMS is just great, and I'm more than happy to help you guys to test it or develop it further. How is the progress of the BMS emulator?

Darek