Cruise Control

Mike, thank you for posting this. Hadn't seen it before. If I understand correctly, they've hacked into the CAN bus and are actually controlling the car's speed through the CAN bus? ... or am I confused?

Whereas I originally had little use for a Cruise Control on our little i-MiEV, the longer CHAdeMO trip I took last week would have been a good candidate for CC, especially as I minimally hypermiled.

JoeS,

Thanks for your note.

Yes, it not only appears to connect to the CAN bus, but it looks like it learns the control records during setup. A copy of the manual is at:

http://www.net-import.dk/images/liteon-ap900c-en-manual.pdf

Mike

So, Mike, did you purchase one? Sure would like to know if it works...

Update: heard back from Mike. He's purchased one and will post his experience after he's installed it...

Hello

I purchased a unit with the stalk command center. I would have preferred a dash mount, but the dash mount had no cancel function, which is critical to me. I am not thrilled with the stalk. I feel that it is an inch too long. I'll get used to it.

The quality looks very good. The unit was pre-programmed, and came with a short additional installation sheet that advised to ignore the installation booklet. I may use the booklet as I get experience in order to modify the settings.

For the CAN-bus installation there are four connections, power, throttle, OBD-II, and the command module.

For access, I removed the charge door lever first (two screws), and then the driver's side under dash panel (two screws and some prying). I un-clipped the wires and the connectors attached to the panel, including the OBD-II connector and then set the panel aside. I then split the steering wheel cover (two screws and more prying). I removed the bottom half of the steering wheel cover, but left the top half in place.

The best location that I could find for the stalk was 2" below the cutout for the turn signal stalk in the somewhat flat area
rearward toward the steering wheel. This appeared to be the best compromise between clearance behind the panel and ease of use.

I used power from the pink wire on the dash panel connector for the seat heater.

The connection for the CAN-bus is a "tee" that the original OBD-II connector plugs into and has an identical connector that snaps into the panel instead of the original.

The throttle connection is also a "tee", but proved to be most difficult. Instead of providing matching connectors as above, this connection requires the pins be extracted from the original connector and then inserted into a new connector which mates with the "tee." While I don't own a pin extractor, I usually can remove pins with a stick pin or tiny screwdriver. Not this time. I even practiced successfully with the identical connector on the supplied "tee", but I could not remove the pins on the Mitsubishi connector. Since the Mitsubishi connector was no longer needed, I elected to carefully destroy it in order to salvage the pins and wires intact. Once that was done, they inserted easily into the new connector.

There is lots of space under the dash and I chose to mount the electronics with included double sided tape on a wide flat brace. I was reticent to cut extra wires, so I coiled up all the excess and tied it in the same location.

The steering wheel cover and dash panel snapped and screwed back together easily.

I then calibrated the throttle as instructed and tested the unit. Everything seemed to be working fine.

Here in Phoenix, the terrain is quite flat with the biggest cruise control challenge the dips in the freeway as it passes under grade level street crossings. I observed the cruise control to maintain 55 MPH on the downgrade with no regeneration, but it did go down to neutral current. I'm sure a steeper downgrade would cause regeneration. The climb out dropped to 54 MPH before recovering and took the current just to the top of economy on the gauge. There was no overshoot in speed. ECO mode caused a more sluggish response and thus a drop to 53 MPH, but otherwise performed about the same.

Allowing the cruise to accelerate to the set speed was whole different story. I find the cruise far too aggressive. However, that's probably just me since it is similar to my ICE cars. On them, my habit is to not engage the cruise until the car is near the set speed which avoids the issue. I didn't try accelerating to the set speed in ECO mode.

Please see the photos of the installation:

http://www.5by9.net/Prune/

Thanks for listening,
Mike

Mike, thank you so much for being a pioneer and biting the bullet financially and performing this installation and now documenting it. Sounds as though it works quite well. Once you get used to its response to the various i-MiEV drive settings, then you might want to experiment with any programmability the unit offers.

One area I was concerned about is your explanation of the issue with mating the throttle connection.

mradtke said:

The throttle connection is also a "tee", but proved to be most difficult. Instead of providing matching connectors as above, this connection requires the pins be extracted from the original connector and then inserted into a new connector which mates with the "tee." While I don't own a pin extractor, I usually can remove pins with a stick pin or tiny screwdriver. Not this time. I even practiced successfully with the identical connector on the supplied "tee", but I could not remove the pins on the Mitsubishi connector. Since the Mitsubishi connector was no longer needed, I elected to carefully destroy it in order to salvage the pins and wires intact. Once that was done, they inserted easily into the new connector.

Click to expand...

Referring to your photo, could you perhaps elaborate a bit more and explain whether the Mitsu connector you 'destroyed' would still allow you to remove the CC and return the car to original configuration?
Wow, I tried but the throttle connection image is way too large to embed within this text:
http://www.5by9.net/Prune/Throttle.jpg

JoeS,

I thought long and hard before I destroyed the connector. It is possible with the proper pin extractor the pins could have been removed. But, to answer your question: To revert to original a new connector body would need to be purchased and the pins and wires moved to it.

Mike

mradtke said:

I thought long and hard before I destroyed the connector. It is possible with the proper pin extractor the pins could have been removed. But, to answer your question: To revert to original a new connector body would need to be purchased and the pins and wires moved to it.

Click to expand...

... or you merely insert the bare pins with wires into their mate and use shrink sleeving to hold them in place.

Comparing your photo with the graphic in the booklet and rotating your photo 90°CW, I am still having trouble visualizing the throttle tee harness...

1) The harness I am looking at is...?

2) The upward-facing connector mated pair consists of the connector supplied with the CC plugging up into the i-MiEV connector(?)

3) The connector dangling down mates with a cable coming up from the throttle(?)

Sorry for being dense today...

JoeS,

Sorry about the photo orientation. My browser rotates it correctly by using the meta-data in the jpg file. The correct orientation is with the brake pedal on the left.

The pictured harness is the one supplied with the cruise control. The cable going off to the left gets routed to the cruise control unit and ends in yet another connector. Both the connector toward the top and toward the bottom of the "tee" were pre-wired onto the "tee" harness.

The bottom connector is identical to the original Mitsubishi connector and snaps directly onto the throttle pot. It is shown before it was snapped in place.

The top connector is shown already connected to the existing Mitsubishi wiring harness. The bottom half of it was pre-wired as I mentioned, but the top mating half was supplied loose in the package and was meant to replace the existing Mitsubishi throttle connector.

The Mitsubishi throttle connector is 6 pins in a row. The replacement connector shown toward the top of the photo is 2 rows of 3 pins. Even though the connectors' configurations are different (1x6 vs. 2x3), they are both the same connector type and the pins are compatible. It is not clear to me why they just didn't configure the "tee" with a 1x6 connector, but they didn't. The recommended process is to remove one pin with its attached wire at a time from the Mitsubishi connector with the correct pin extraction tool and insert it into the replacement connector where it will lock in place, just like in the original. No shrink sleeve is used. Once that is done, the Mitsubishi throttle cable will mate with the "tee" harness as shown, and the "tee" harness connector will snap directly onto the throttle pot.

Mike

http://www.ncs-systems.com/car-electronics/cruise-control-systems/mitsubishi-cruise-control/precision-cruise-mitsubishi-i-miev.html

I would like to know if anybody has fitted this system to their MiEV?

Appreciate the arguments, but three (count them!) average 30mph speed limits camera zones on my commute means I like my cruise!!