Skip to main content

Pack 2 is in and running

 I've now mostly got the second pack installed. It's running and the extra range has been great. Still have some tidying up to do, a bit of paint and put some rivnuts in to hold the lid over the top. Sadly I couldn't get them perfectly inline in the old spare wheel well, just wouldn't fit. Also the location isn't ideal, but needs must. What's the range? I don't know to be honest. I get between 1 and 1.5 miles per amp hour, and I've got the BMS set to 46 amphour capacity. With me having full control, I can if I know I'm going to really need the range, charge right up to 4.2v per cell (96 cells) and discharge right down to 3v really push the pack, but generally I tend to charge to 4.1 and discharge to 3.4v to take it easy on them.

Think I can fit a 3rd pack somewhere? 



There's now another bit of sheet metal welded to this to cover the bottom, and it's painted in primer, so getting there. 

What you can see is the VW contactor box, with fuse, so that outside of the front and rear battery boxes there's no HV outside of them, unless charging or driving. Both packs fused with high voltage DC fuses.

The 2 packs have clashing canbus ID's so I've made a quick can bus device that adds an offset to the ID's then sends them on to the BMS, which required some code changes to support the additional ID's properly.

The video below covers this with a little more detail



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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 re...

Instrument cluster and CAN Bus

 The car has quite a simple instrument cluster, and a single CAN Bus network.  The instrument cluster is mostly simple signals but a few are required to keep it happy. The cluster has a dynamic oil pressure warning, meaning that over ~800rpm the oil pressure pin needs pulling to ground otherwise the cluster shows an error and beeps. The RPM signal is on the CAN Bus, ID 0x280 where Bytes 2 and 3: RPM*4, I'll have my custom ECU replacement send out this signal. 2 Other CAN BUS messages appear to be required:  0x 488, this contains a counter,  Byte 0: Counter 0-F << 4 + 8, Byte 1-4: 21, 21, 7E, A6, Byte 5-6: 0, Byte 7: Counter 0-F << 4 0x580, this also contains the counter and some static data,  Byte 0: 0x80 + counter 0-F,  Byte 1, 2: 0, Byte 3: sequence 0x0f, 0x28, 0x7f, 0x28, Byte 4: sequence 0x1e, 0x10, 0x00, 0x10, Byte 5: sequence 0x70, 0x56, 0xf0, 0x56, Byte 6: sequence 0x0c, 0x48, 0xa7, 0x48, Byte 7: sequence 0x46, 0x90, 0x28, ...

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 ...