Problem with turtle icon

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bezzeb

Active member
Joined
Sep 17, 2020
Messages
33
Good afternoon
After 10-20 minutes of driving, the turtle icon lights up
When I checked my iMiev by lexia i have this problems
u1109
u1100
u1106
u1121
All errors are related to the CAN bus
Please tell me what is the best way to start eliminating these errors.
I would be grateful for the answer.
 
What year is your car? What is the age and condition and voltage of the 12V starter battery up front under the hood?

a weak, old or worn out aux battery can cause a multitude of issues such as the CAN. As the weather gets cooler the aux has to work harder too, so it needs to be fully charged and in good condition to start the car, allow EVVSE charging, etc.

If the 12V is good and strong, then the turtle is generally due to a low voltage level of the pack.
 
2012 with about 51,000+ miles. Original owner.
Over the past few months have noticed the turtle coming on when capacity bars are 13/14 out of 16 and speed about 55/60 and accelerating.
As soon as I back off on the accelerator the turtle goes away. Not original 12V battery.
Any thoughts?
 
Might it have been some cold winter temperatures when this happened? What does the 12V aux battery voltage measure when the car is OFF and has been sitting several hours?

Assuming the aux is good, these turtle conditions make me think that you have a weak cell in the pack. Its voltage gets pulled really low under heavy load such as acceleration, then bounces back up when the load is removed.

This can be seen using an OBDII dongle such as the scantool LX and the android cellphone app "Canion" .

It may be just a minor condition that would correct with a few cycles of balancing; drive it and/or run the heater until under 2 bars on the fuel gauge, then plug in and allow it to fully charge and balance.

Canion would allow you to verify that this is the culprit and whether balancing helps. If the cell is just worn out and degraded due to age then this won't correct the issue. if the cell fails then the pack is covered under warranty, but not for normal wear.
 
kiev said:
What year is your car? What is the age and condition and voltage of the 12V starter battery up front under the hood?

a weak, old or worn out aux battery can cause a multitude of issues such as the CAN. As the weather gets cooler the aux has to work harder too, so it needs to be fully charged and in good condition to start the car, allow EVVSE charging, etc.

If the 12V is good and strong, then the turtle is generally due to a low voltage level of the pack.

sorry for the long lack of response.
I-miev 2012
the 12v battery was completely problematic -4% (health)
now replaced with a new one

the car is charging normally, the battery with a charge indicator has 14.65kwh
the problem with the turtle remains (max 60km/h,no recuperation, very high consumption ~35kw/100km )
 
Now that the 12V aux is corrected, what sort of HV Pack min/max cell voltages do you see? Are there any weak cells that are not keeping up with all the rest? When fully charged they may be close together, but any weak cell will be easy to see as the pack is brought down below half on the fuel gauge.

Full throttle acceleration runs will help to see this also, the pack voltage will drop under accel and the weak cell will trigger the turtle, then when the pedal is released the voltage recovers and turtle goes off.
 
kiev said:
Now that the 12V aux is corrected, what sort of HV Pack min/max cell voltages do you see? Are there any weak cells that are not keeping up with all the rest? When fully charged they may be close together, but any weak cell will be easy to see as the pack is brought down below half on the fuel gauge.

Full throttle acceleration runs will help to see this also, the pack voltage will drop under accel and the weak cell will trigger the turtle, then when the pedal is released the voltage recovers and turtle goes off.
Thank you.
i will try to check all cells

the first check in December showed that a battery with a charge of 40% has a difference of 25mV between cells
and turtle lights up constantly after 10 min of the start of the trip
 
That helps to hear the symptoms.

Based upon your information it sounds like a thermal issue, related to something heating up in ten minutes that causes a sensor measurement to read out of bounds and trigger the turtle. Then when the car is OFF and cools down the reading is back in operating range.

Since it restarts after cooling then nothing is "broken" as much as it is temporarily out of specification. It could be an electrical component such as a ceramic capacitor, or the sensor, or it could be an actual thermal heating event.

If you have one of the phone apps to monitor the cell temperatures to see what happens over the first 10-15 minutes looking for clues.
 
kiev said:
That helps to hear the symptoms.

Based upon your information it sounds like a thermal issue, related to something heating up in ten minutes that causes a sensor measurement to read out of bounds and trigger the turtle. Then when the car is OFF and cools down the reading is back in operating range.

Since it restarts after cooling then nothing is "broken" as much as it is temporarily out of specification. It could be an electrical component such as a ceramic capacitor, or the sensor, or it could be an actual thermal heating event.

If you have one of the phone apps to monitor the cell temperatures to see what happens over the first 10-15 minutes looking for clues.

After a series of tests I found the following problems
1)the turtle turns on only after the arrow goes beyond the border of the eco mode
if you release the gas and the arrow is again in the eco range, then the turtle disappears
2)Lexia shows good cell voltage throughout the ride
15mv with a charged battery
30-35mv with discharged battery (20-30%)
3)There is a difference in the temperature of the modules
min -11C
max -16C

3a263b6eafb7.jpg


7ed93eb5b6ef.jpg


068084f8cf9b.jpg
 
bezzeb said:
...
After a series of tests I found the following problems
1)the turtle turns on only after the arrow goes beyond the border of the eco mode
if you release the gas and the arrow is again in the eco range, then the turtle disappears

By your data and images it appears to be a normal pack, but something strange is happening when the pack is loaded with a current drain above 50 Amps (the upper edge of the ECO range).

The Canion App allows nearly instant real-time dynamic graphical display of cell and pack voltage and pack current, so a defective or weak cell would show up with the high load condition. It is only under high load that the weak cell is unable to sustain its voltage, so it is not visible to the somewhat static display of the Lexia device. That's my guess..?
 
I am having a very similar problem on my 2012 MIEV.

Basically, when driving at highway speeds above 60 MPH the turtle shows up during acceleration. Using CANION, I have determined that turtle turns on when pack voltage drops to around 270 volts, which I understand is ~3 volts per cell (assuming 88 cells - is that how many this pack has?). While turtle is illuminated the car will regulate the power as low as it needs to in order to keep the pack voltage above ~270V.

Also, there does not seem to be a bad cell per se. When at rest, the cell voltage difference is 0.010 Volts. When under load with the turtle illuminated, the difference is closer to 0.4 Volt, with about 10 different cells at the low end and maybe 5 at the high end. Pack temperature seems fine at under 10 degrees C. I'm in Columbus Ohio, so outdoor temps were around 25*F when I got the data a couple of days ago. Last year this problem only occurred when outdoor temps were around 0*F. Now I can get it to happen up to around 35*F.

I'm starting to wonder if this is a pack age problem causing all the cells to have higher internal resistance than when they were new.
 
That's a great observation, thanks for sharing. And great first post.

i have a car with a weak cell that will go to turtle under acceleration, but never made the connection to the 270V level for the pack, i was just watching the one bad cell.
 
kiev said:
bezzeb said:
...
After a series of tests I found the following problems
1)the turtle turns on only after the arrow goes beyond the border of the eco mode
if you release the gas and the arrow is again in the eco range, then the turtle disappears

By your data and images it appears to be a normal pack, but something strange is happening when the pack is loaded with a current drain above 50 Amps (the upper edge of the ECO range).

The Canion App allows nearly instant real-time dynamic graphical display of cell and pack voltage and pack current, so a defective or weak cell would show up with the high load condition. It is only under high load that the weak cell is unable to sustain its voltage, so it is not visible to the somewhat static display of the Lexia device. That's my guess..?
tested the cells while driving today and not found big discrepancy

at the same time, when fully discharged, the canion show low cells
12a2f9579115.jpg


646e62292795.jpg
 
bezzeb said:
...
tested the cells while driving today and not found big discrepancy

at the same time, when fully discharged, the canion show low cells
12a2f9579115.jpg

Good job you have found the culprit--cells #12, 23 and 27 are worn out and can't keep up with the others. Plus there are 12-14 other cells that are weak and not keeping up either although not as severe. The normal difference between the high and low cell would be 10 to 20mV, but these 3 cells are out of family by almost 500mV.

The temperature data looks normal to me--nothing out of family or indicating an issue there.

You will need to either replace the pack with one in better condition, or drop it out and replace all the weak cells. The price for a new pack might be too much to invest unless the car is in good condition to last another 7-8 years. A used pack or used cells doesn't seem practical for long term, but might be a short term bandaid on the problem. Good luck, let us know what you decide.
 
kiev said:
bezzeb said:
...
tested the cells while driving today and not found big discrepancy

at the same time, when fully discharged, the canion show low cells
12a2f9579115.jpg

Good job you have found the culprit--cells #12, 23 and 27 are worn out and can't keep up with the others. Plus there are 12-14 other cells that are weak and not keeping up either although not as severe. The normal difference between the high and low cell would be 10 to 20mV, but these 3 cells are out of family by almost 500mV.

The temperature data looks normal to me--nothing out of family or indicating an issue there.

You will need to either replace the pack with one in better condition, or drop it out and replace all the weak cells. The price for a new pack might be too much to invest unless the car is in good condition to last another 7-8 years. A used pack or used cells doesn't seem practical for long term, but might be a short term bandaid on the problem. Good luck, let us know what you decide.
Thank you.
I have replacement batteries
 
kiev said:
bezzeb said:
...
tested the cells while driving today and not found big discrepancy

at the same time, when fully discharged, the canion show low cells
12a2f9579115.jpg

Good job you have found the culprit--cells #12, 23 and 27 are worn out and can't keep up with the others. Plus there are 12-14 other cells that are weak and not keeping up either although not as severe. The normal difference between the high and low cell would be 10 to 20mV, but these 3 cells are out of family by almost 500mV.

The temperature data looks normal to me--nothing out of family or indicating an issue there.

You will need to either replace the pack with one in better condition, or drop it out and replace all the weak cells. The price for a new pack might be too much to invest unless the car is in good condition to last another 7-8 years. A used pack or used cells doesn't seem practical for long term, but might be a short term bandaid on the problem. Good luck, let us know what you decide.
The problem ended up in the MCU
As it turned out, the Vin number was programmed, but the CRC number amount was not changed
is there a CRC sum calculator ?
Or how can you calculate the CRC code?
 
Hi, I just bought a used peugeot ion with 105000 km from 2011 . i am a electric car neewbie, so please excuse the maybe stupid questions.. i got the same issue with my car: turtle appears when i accelerate fast or going up a steep hill. when it was around zero degrees outside it got worst and the car even slowed down to 5 kmh when the turtle appeared. battery was showing at least one third of capacity, sometimes more than half. i live in switzerland. are here maybe any members from switzerland that could help me find out if this is because of an bad cell ? could someone from switzerland borrow me this "obd link" so i could do a test with the canion app ? i would be very happy if someone could help me figure this out ! @bezzeb : could this also be my problem ? the car was in a car repair shop and they probably disconected the battery, and the problem appeared only after that. how do i find out if this is the same issue, and how do i fix it ?
 
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