EV Beetle Conversion Project

 Browsing eBay, I chanced upon a VW Golf GTE contactor box, I've had 2 of these before, but butchered them to take control of the contactors directly, but this time I wanted to know more. My main aim is to reuse the isolation monitoring circuitry for extra safety, but baby steps. The easiest thing would be getting control of the contactors first, as it's pretty obvious when this is happening, they click closed. So this thing is still holding some secrets, but so far I've got the voltage message decoded and control of the contactors. This thing also reports current, though I'm not sure what message that is on, I'm not sure how to activate the isolation monitoring and if it does any sort of tracking of energy in and out, yet.  https://github.com/jamiejones85/VW-GTE-ContactorBox is the current example code for interacting with the box. UPDATE I've got it cracked, I can now ask it to perform an isolation test and interoperate the result. Very happy with this. Now to...

 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 ...

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 ...

 Due to a measuring error the first iteration of the battery mounting resulted in a mere 8cm ground clearance. As you can see here, there's quite a bit hanging low. While I did 2000 miles like this, I did on occasions have a box to road conflict. So with the weather getting warmer and the Easter break, I decided it was time to tackle this job, I had been putting it off, but an hour and a half and the bumper was off and the battery out. I then jacked the battery box up as high as I could get it and test fit the slam panel and crash bar, looks like a decent gain in ground clearance. Happy with this I marked the height and started making new mounting brackets.      I covered the seams with a load of seam sealer for good measure and painted the box with underseal paint that I had laying around and then started to mount the box it the new location. The battery box in it's new location, self supported by it's new mounts, tucked nicely behind the crash bar. The result has b...

I decided to pickup another battery pack to extend the range on the BugPlug (contact me if you have one for sale, looking for more packs for projects). I dismantled this pack, and it has evidence of water ingress, as you can see, some of the modules have oxidation. My first pack didn't have this. My original intention was to mount them where the fuel tank was, and initially this looked good with the car up in the air. I could only fit 3 across when oriented in the flattest way, on their side all 4 fitted and looked to give good ground clearance. I made up a quick frame for them and mounted it to the car, the Beetle has quite low ground clearance as it is, it became apparent this wasn't going to work. If I go with a 3rd pack I'll have to rethink how I can fit them where the tank was, but for now, the spare wheel well will be squared out and the modules will go there. Continuing with the battery box, I bought pre-cut steel, only added a couple of quid and saved loads of time ...

I'm currently working on adding rapid charging, in the form of Chademo. I've designed a hat to sit on top of an Arduino Due, containing 2 CAN bus transceivers,  a 12v input and 2 open collectors. This lives inside a 3D printed box. This is the brain of the Chademo system. Also located the inlet in the lower part of the front grille. A second set of contactors for the socket are required, so that it's only live when the charging station says so. Full of hope and fear I headed for my local Chademo charger, tucked down the side of a hotel. With my laptop out I gave it a test. Charger says no, so off home I went, found an issue with the 2 start signal wires crossed over, and returned the next day. Still denied, but gets further, my controller now recognises the session start sequence, I need to get the CAN bus logger out and debug that part. Stay tuned, maybe next time will be a winner.

 Further to my last post, I've come across someone on YouTube that's had their electric conversion reverted on the V5 to diesel. Since then, I've been in contact with some others that have either been rejected by the DVLA or had their vehicle reverted back to it's original fuel type. Next steps We've contacted our respective MPs, below is a list of them. John Healey MP, see previous post. Afzal Kahn MP, he's had a response from undersecretary for transport, see below. Connor Burns MP. Quick Edit. I sent the DVLA a Freedom of Information request to the number of post 2001 registered vehicles that have had their fuel type changed, below is the response. Dear Afzal Thank you for your letter of 7 October to the Transport Secretary enclosing correspondence from your constituent about electric vehicle conversions. I am replying as the Minister responsible for this issue. You will be aware that this Governme...

 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...

 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 a...

With my car having a type 1 inlet for charging, I need a type 1 to type 2 cable to charge on untethered EVSEs generally found for AC charging in public. These cables are usually pretty expensive, even used. I made one up for just over £30. The video below contains the details. Here I am grabbing some juice at a local carpark, I have a 3.3KW charger on board, so this is the maximum rate for my current setup. These particular EVSE's have a 3 phase connection and can in theory top out at 22KW.