Wheel trims and Info Screen

While it's cold outside I've been a little reluctant to venture out to mess around with the car. I have started trying to tidy the 12v wiring by fitting a new relay fuse box for my additions.

This is proving more time consuming than I'd originally planned but the protoboard PP detector circuit that I had taped to the top of the HVJB is now in it's new 3D printed home. As you can see, I'm going to need more black tape.

Another addition is a set of wheel trims that popped up on Facebook market place 5 minutes away for £30 in like new condition. A little cosmetic enhancement, but I like them and the price was good.

I've also been working on a bit of an info dash using an ESP32 to read CAN BUS messages and serve up a HTTP server and web socket, displayed on an old Fire Tablet from a gadget drawer. Displays motor temperature, inverter temperature, and battery pack temperature. Along with Sate of Charge, instant currant draw as well as the current trip distance and amp hour usage. Code is here if you want to use it https://github.com/jamiejones85/ESP32-DASH

To help with calculating the State of Charge based on actual usage and not estimates based on voltage I've installed the ISA scale IVT-s shunt into the HVJB. This will also be used later when I add DC fast charging.

Another little thing I've been looking at is the electric power steering rack from later model VW's and figuring how to power it up and run it. It's looking like it might be a straight swap mechanically and significantly quieter than the Zafira pump. It just requires pin 4 to be given a 12v enable signal to work in failsafe mode, or to use as intended it looks for the RPM signal can bus message. I'm really looking forward to getting this installed when it warms up a little.

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DVLA Inspection

I decided to try get the DVLA to update the V5 to electric for the 4th or 5th time, but this time I was told I'd need an inspection before the change could be made. The inspection was by a 3rd party company. The guy turned up and took a load of photos, looking for the changes I'd made, and tallying up the points against the points system they use to decide if it's radically altered or not. Your vehicle must have 8 or more points from the table below if you want to keep the original registration number. 5 of these points must come from having the original or new and unmodified chassis, monocoque bodyshell or frame. Part Points Chassis, monocoque bodyshell (body and chassis as one unit) or frame - original or new and unmodified (direct from manufacturer) 5 Suspension (front and back) - original 2 Axles (both) - original 2 Transmission - original 2 Steering assembly - original 2 Engine - original 1 Given that I had the original gearbox, suspension, steering assembly and only

DVLA Refusal to Update V5

Now with over a 1000 miles done on electric, and over 6 months of to and fro, the DVLA are still refusing to update my V5 to electric and change the tax classification. Their reasoning in the VERA act, below, they have taken this to mean that on post 2001 vehicles the fuel type and tax classification cannot be changed. This is despite the DVLA website (https://www.gov.uk/change-vehicle-details-registration-certificate) making no reference to been unable to make the changes. LPG conversions, changes to disabled classification and conversions to a camper-van are all possible. Here's another part of the VERA act. The purpose of this post is to document my experience with the DVLA, so back in August 2021, the 2nd to be exact, I filled out my V5 to change the fuel type to electric and tax class to electric. On the 14th of October I was asked to provide more details, receipts, photos etc. I was also asked to fill out a V627/1 built up vehicle report. Below is the first letter I receive

Golf GTE Battery Disassembly

Having deliberated over battery pack options, I was convinced I would go for a pack from a BMW plug in hybrid or the Outlander PHEV, but a pack from a Golf GTE popped up on eBay for £500 delivered, which was too good to let pass by, at 8.8kwh it works out at £57 per kilowatt hour, a bargain. Tearing it down wasn't the easiest task, and with 350v - 400v under there, a little nerve wracking. The lid was glued down with some serious adhesive. The pack consists of 4 modules, each module is 2 strings of 12 cells, with a cooling plate between them for liquid cooling. Each of the 12 cells has a BMS slave board, which reports the voltage of cell cell to the BMS master, along with the temperature of the string. Each module can store just over 2 kwhs. The modules communicate with the master via a CAN Bus network that's internal to the battery. I've put up a GitHub repo with a DBC file for interpreting the reported frames https://github.com/jamiejones85/DBC-files if you are looking at

EV Beetle Conversion Project

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