EV Beetle Conversion Project

 I was never happy with the Due chademo solution, and I do like the ESP32 so a while back I set about designing a new board. It's designed to fit in an ECU type enclosure, so looks much better. The software and hardware files are open source here: https://github.com/jamiejones85/ESP32-Chademo I also intend to setup a web shop at some point and make these available if anyone wants one. Anyway, below is a video of it in action.

This is the video from the day, in short I didn't end up on a recovery truck, by the skin of my teeth. I'd planned to stop more frequently that probably necessary, but things didn't get off to a great start, the first charge stop I was getting errors about current miss-match, which I'm not sure we should even car about, so I disabled it and charged away. Maybe the unit was reporting a current slightly different to what it was actually delivering, I didn't check in too much detail. I'll probably keep it disabled, then I can use the heater while charging. The software checks that the current reported by the station is going in to the battery, makes sense right? But not all of it will, some will be used by the DC DC to keep the 12v battery charged and the heater (if in use). Anyway, I got on my way to the next planned stop. This was a single BP Pulse unit just off the M1 at a pub, a Beefeater I think, anyway just as a pulled up someone was just plugging in an E-tro

 While I'd managed to get Chademo working on some units, the ChargePoint CPE250 units that Instavolt use weren't working, I'd taken multiple logs and it looked like the units wasn't following the specification. Basically, the station gives 12v on one pin, to initiate the process, when seeing this the car needs to send certain messages and give a signal to the station that the car is happy to proceed. Then the station locks the connector and starts it's isolation and various checks, ramps the voltage up to about 480v and then lets it fall again to under 20v. At this point the station grounds and other pin to close the Chademo contactors in the car and start the process.  In my case my controller was seeing the station ground the pin to close the contactors at the same time as the 12v, I spent a log time pouring over the software looking for issues and making changes, assuming I'd got the hardware right :D It turns out I'd got a resistor in the wrong place to

 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

 After quite a few trips round to the rapid charger resulting in failure, I finally had success. The code needed some tweaks, the software wasn't sending quite the right messages (the extended flag on the can messages was randomly being set and unset, explicitly setting it to false was needed).  The charger performed it's checks and then fired in to action. I'd set the max charge rate at 50 amps for this test, so a nudge under 20kw. This particular charging unit was reporting it was capable of 125 amps and 475V, the logs of this charge show the station ramped up to 50amps and I charged for 5 minutes, as I was only testing.  The hardware requirements for this are quite minimal, as the heavy lifting is done by the charging unit. I put together a basic shield for the Arduino Due (https://oshwlab.com/jamie84.jj/duechademo) and started modifying the Chademo Control Software from GitHub, my fork is (https://github.com/jamiejones85/CHAdeMOSoftware).  A couple of contactors are nee

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