DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

impmad2000 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 6:23 pm Splendid idea, having watched Moggies Landrover I was thinking very similar…. And a mule for system development.

misteralz wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 6:37 pmFantastic.

Thanks... I will admit to some wobbles over whether this is a good idea.
We begin with a vehicle that could, literally, go almost anywhere in the world tomorrow.
Version 1 of the end product is unlikely to have the range and DC charge rate to get to Cornwall in a practical journey time...
Hmmmm.

So V1 will be reversible. No butchery and no throwing away of the (huge, 3L diesel) engine. Another garage ornament there.

misteralz wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 6:37 pmWill you be integrating the Leaf dash and column or anything like that? I love a G-Wagen but I could never live with Merc's ridiculous ideas about column stalks.

Haha. Column is not that bad!
Re dash - nope. Plan is to keep the dash looking OEM. Which will mean some trickery to have the existing gauges display info from the computer(s). The exception being the speedo, which is driven off the transfer 'box, so can remain as-is (transfer box is staying).

The very high level "design" is something like this.

Here's a naked G Wagen. Not mine - my projects don't move that fast - but representative of mine.


As mentioned, the engine is HUGE. And that's a 96L fuel tank, so nearly 100kg right there, when full.
My battery pack will weigh about 250kg. It would not completely surprise me if the total weight turns out to be lower post-conversion...

Plan is: engine and gearbox are not required. In version 1 the transfer box remains, as do the propshafts from the xfer box to the front and rear diffs, the diffs and axles themselves, etc.
So the motor will attach to the xfer box via the little propshaft you can see in the picture.
Version 2 might be twin motor, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

A poke around underneath suggests that the motor (and its close-coupled inverter) will fit between the chassis rails, pretty-much where the gearbox is now. Leaving the entire engine bay, plus the space where the fuel tank is now, for batteries.

Good grief

one-two wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 4:01 pmGood grief

All reversible Robert, worry not.

And at least it's not something with a decent engine. Nor indeed the 356. Yet.

yoda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 24, 2022 10:14 am What exactly is that on the pallet?

Ah yes, back to the pallet.


Specifically, what we have here is the electric "stack" from a Nissan Leaf. Stack, in this case, meaning (from bottom to top)
1) Motor and 2) Gearbox. Very simple in this case, no shiftable gears, just some reduction and an open diff

3) Inverter. Close coupled to motor, bolted on top. Apols to those who know - the inverter is the device that converts 450 v DC (batteries) to 3-phase AC (to drive the motor). It's a simple soul, really - you tell it what torque you would like, and it drives the motor accordingly.

4) (Absolutely huge, goodness knows why) charger. You plug in your cable from the wallbox or fast charger, and this gadget charges the battery (and indeed the 12v aux battery). Much more on that later. Unlike the inverter it's not as simple as it sounds. Max charge rate is 50kW (DC fast charge). Initially, I will use a granny charger and a 3 pin domestic socket. 2.4kW, so not fast...

This particular Leaf stack is the most recent one (2020 car). The motor hasn't changed much over the years of Leafery, but the inverter and batteries have gradually evolved. This one has 160 kW = 215bhp.
Approx 340Nm of torque at 0 rpm.

After a bit of disassembly, we have:



This pic shows 1) Motor and 3) Inverter, a nice compact unit.
I have taken the mahoosive charger off the top.
Gearbox has been removed and is at right of shot. Bonus electric aircon compressor also removed.

The generously-sized charger has retired indoors, for a bit of bench testing.
It needs CAN commands that would normally be supplied by the ECU of the Leaf, so there is some microcontroller hackery already.

Note full safety precautions

A minor milestone. I can talk to the charger.



The idea is that the charger needs to sincerely believe that it is still attached to a Nissan Leaf. Since the Leaf from which it came remains in a breakers yard in N Ireland, I need to fool it.
It is fairly easily fooled - I have a microcontroller (Arduino in this case) sending CAN messages. The only tricky part is that Nissan includes a little bit of counter and cyclic redundancy check stuff in the messages, which must be correctly emulated.

Anyway, if you send it the right messages every 10ms, it stays alive and talks back. All good so far.

Nice

impmad2000 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:53 am Nice

Thanks Tim.

Weirdly this is my idea of fun...I used to be a proper software engineer (robotic systems mainly), but got sucked into the terrible business of running the business. I don't think I've written any proper code for 20+ years. It's therapeutic to make things.

Also - the batteries are here:

I have a friend that work in Nissan on car electronics if you get super stuck.

Are these systems written in c?

Sent from my M2004J19C using Tapatalk

neilbardsley wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 8:41 am I have a friend that work in Nissan on car electronics if you get super stuck.
Are these systems written in c?

Thanks Neil, that could be handy! Although, you will be shocked to learn, there seem to be quite a lot of places that CAN bus geeks swap messages online! Lots of info out there.

My stuff, running on the microcontrollers, is indeed in c. I don't know exactly what's inside the Nissan hardware's brain - I am talking to it rather than deconstructing it.

What are the batteries ? My project ideas always hit a stumbling block due to the battery cost.
I’m loving this, if you haven’t guessed. I will convert something one day, but for now I watch with interest. zero Ev and ECC are great.

impmad2000 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 12, 2022 1:14 pm What are the batteries ?

Hi Tim,
Happy someone is enjoying reading this off-topic nonsense.

The batteries are the entire pack from one of these: From a 2021 car I think, via a breaker. They seem pretty much brand new, but time will tell when they have been through a few cycles and we see their state of health.

So 45 kWh, as used in various Stellantis products. In a Corsa, for example, the pack looks like this:

inaglasshouse wrote:
Hi Tim,
Happy someone is enjoying reading this off-topic nonsense.

I suspect you have quite a few 'lurkers' watching this with interest, Richard....