think 2009

[Orla Pedersen]

Using Nikometer and diagvga from Orla it is obvious that this car has had AC heating problems some time in history - the AC heater relay error flag is lit. This flag is described as category "Notice" but needs to be reset with Zebra monitor (which I don't have hardware for just yet).

For your information, the status for heater relay and heater switch,  read from the canbus by diagvga and Nikometer software is NOT fault messages.

Definition :
0 = AC heater switch open
1 = AC heater switch closed
Real time status of PWM controlled AC heater switch

0 = AC heater relay disabled
1 = AC heater relay enabled
Flag active 6 sec. before/aften AC heater relay enabled

Zebramonitor canbus communication is unknown to me.  PRensel investigated zebramonitor communication, but he is silent for the time being

[jonandse]

Oh, ok, so the error code listed in the Zebra pdf is not the same as I see with Nikometer?

I have now ordered the original PCAN adapter from Lawicel (buy quality, cry once, support your local geek shop!) - it will be interesting to see if the general error can be further explained by the zebra monitor?

Fun fact: The Zebra montitor software decompiles pretty well in a range of VB5 decompilers. clsBMIvar.cls is an interesting read. Overall, the decompilation is full of italian funcion calls.. frmAcquisizione! 

It is probably not ok to post any source code here for copyright reasons but the curious mind should be successful in decompilation on their own.

[worry]

Please explain as much as you can, so maybe I (and probably others) with almost no computer knowledge can learn. Thanks. 

[BauDemo]

Oh, ok, so the error code listed in the Zebra pdf is not the same as I see with Nikometer?

I have now ordered the original PCAN adapter from Lawicel (buy quality, cry once, support your local geek shop!) - it will be interesting to see if the general error can be further explained by the zebra monitor?

Fun fact: The Zebra montitor software decompiles pretty well in a range of VB5 decompilers. clsBMIvar.cls is an interesting read. Overall, the decompilation is full of italian funcion calls.. frmAcquisizione! 

It is probably not ok to post any source code here for copyright reasons but the curious mind should be successful in decompilation on their own.

The internal BMI codes are much more detailed than the few that are communicated to the outside.
You would need Zebra monitor to extract them... or as you have done some decompiling - you can initiate comm with the BMI and then request the error codes.

Much more interesting would be to decompile the firmware for the BMI - there are couple of things that are not really making sense in it. 

[jonandse]

I now have the tracking number from Lawicel for a PCAN (home delivery this upcoming Saturday!) so I will run the real Zebra monitor very soon.

However I am pretty convinced that the problem is with the relay.

If I disconnect the AC cable to the Zebra battery it's voltage reading goes to 0.1V.

If connected it is at a few volts only, 4.3V in attached picture. This is probably capacitive coupling.

At the same time the PCU reports the correct AC voltage (225V in the attached picture) and there is both the humming from the isolation transformer as well as AC present in the plug to the Zebra battery.

Is there a good guide somewhere on how to drop the battery out of the car, preferably without a lift?

[jonandse]

After messing a bit with PCAN drivers I finally got it working on a clean installed win7 32 bit and zebra 2.7.6.

I could use a hint to change access level to customer. Any advice, anyone?

[jonandse]

For future reference: ZEB001 and BBIRD are the passwords found in frmMain.frm sub routine NuovoLivelloAccesso to get to access level 1 (Customer) and access level 2.

The password is not case sensitive thanks to the UCase$ treatment of frmAccesso.txtPsw.Text.

Note that the distributed software does not contain any level 2 access level so the bbird password is quite hypothetic.

Unfortunately this does not help my problem, I still have to drop the battery out of the car to troubleshoot the AC heater and right now my workshop is occupied so not sure how this will continue.

If anyone in the larger Stockholm area would need Zebra monitor support don't hesitate to reach out by PM.

[BauDemo]

The battery is not charging because of the SOC too high error. This means that there is inconsistency between the voltage and the SOC.

You may need to reset the errors - right click and then "reset" if I remember correctly.
When done, replug the car and monitor to see if any errors appear.
Also monitor the temperature - I think you will see the SOC too high error again when the temperature is enough for the battery to show any voltage.

None of the errors you see now can be helped by dismounting the battery.

[jonandse]

Well, unfortunately clearing the errors did not matter, it doesn't turn on AC heater after clearing the errors either. I wasn't really expecting that to happen either given the zebra manual stating that notice errors will clear automatically when conditions change.

Anyway I cleared the codes this morning, reconnected AC but unfortunately no success.

Today I also noticed a weird -0,1 and -0,2 temperature on the battery. Haven't seen this before, before the aborted charging (which probably was due to the SOC error!) the temperature sensors were all good.

Now, approximately 10h later, the red wrench error in the dash is visible and the Zebra says PCU error in msg 0x310.

Something seems wrong with the heater. The BMI want to heat but nothing happens?

[worry]

I too got strange readings when I tried Zebra monitor on my dead zebra-Think. Must admit I have never tried that program before. I also tried Think Techcenter with an adapter I borrowed. Strange errors came up there too. I quickly gave up, suspecting something wrong in the canbus. Have no experience there either, but have read that if one of the components connected to the CAN-bus have a fault it can overload the bus. All sorts of errors can follow.

Did you measure your CAN-bus? This is a bit out of my leage, but you should measure 60 ohms between CAN H and L when the vehicle is turned off. You can do more with an oscilloscope.
Just a shot in the dark....

[jonandse]

Thanks for the advice. Haven't checked signal quality on the CAN bus, but since both Nikometer and PCAN seem to communicate just fine I assume the bus itself works.

If I would head down the "emulate zebra" path, what would I need?

Cells.
BMS.
CAN translation micro controller.
Donator cabling.
Donator battery tray.

Loads of time?

You folks who already tried, where/why did you stop?

[BauDemo]

Again, try to understand what is the computer telling you.
If there is an error bit in message 310 it is there for a reason. And this reason will probably not go away with another HV battery.
The PCU is not sending 310 or sending message with that bit. Fire up PCAN View and see if there is a 310 message on the can bus.
Try to monitor the 12V battery and see - maybe the PCU is trying to startup the charging but does not get enough energy from the 12V battery?
Also the temperature sensors are calibrated for the working temperature of the battery and are not accurate beyond that ... so it is not strange to see a difference of 30C when the temperature of the battery is below say 100C.

[jur]

In my understanding the main issue is the non-working AC Heater. Anything else showing up could be disregarded for the time being. You might want to check the "Monitoring / temperature" and Battery parameters" sub-pages in ZEBRAmonitor (and others, too) for some additional heater status data extracted in interactive mode, which are not available in the normal broadcast on the CAN bus.

I resurrected my spare BMI the other day. As Orla described, AC heater power is controlled via a mechanical relay switch for safety (also used for BMI internal supply) and an additional "solid state switch" (SCR or TRIAC) for power control via pulse width modulation. Unfortunately the BMI does not report the actual AC current, only actual PWM %, and I am not sure if that reading is conclusive.

The only way to check the heater contacts directly would be to detach the BMI _carefully_ from the battery case at the so-called "flange". In theory you could also exchange it with another (tested) BMI.

my € 0,02
Jens

 
       

[BauDemo]

In my understanding the main issue is the non-working AC Heater. Anything else showing up could be disregarded for the time being.

From which error message in the list of error messages you deduct this?

[jur]

Hej, BauDemo

Have a look at the first error list from ZM which jonandse did upload on May 14th.:
- TBat is reported as below 210 degC,
- Heater timeout is reported (according to the old BMI error list this error is thrown when AC heater is on for more than 22 hrs and temp is still below 200 degC), 
- no "switch off" category error (internal ISO fault or the like) is active (these could be expected to shut down the heater circuits),
- the temperature sensors are _not_ reported as faulty. So I would trust also the temperature readings shown earlier.

In my view this leaves few other possibilites apart from a persistent AC heater malfunction. And as long as the battery doesn't get heated up properly, everything else comes second.

btw.: I have seen my Gen0 PCU throwing a "shutdown fault" on Msg 310h once in a while without any further detectable consequences.

Regards, Jens