Battery pack change plans

[coulomb]

Next question is can I try to repair the OBC similar to the way I have seen on this forum or do all of them have different issues and can I measure anything to see what is the issue?

There can be many faults, but a very few are far more common that all the others:
* Exploded snubber capacitors; these can be diagnosed by examination
* Blown pre-charge resistors; these can be checked with a multimeter
* Oozed mains X capacitor; these can also be checked by eye.
These are all fairly easy to check.
Slightly harder and I think fairly uncommon:
* Relay contacts high resistance
Very hard to fix but fortunately rare:
* IGBT(s) or capacitor(s) blown in the Waffle Plate™. The potting used in the Waffle Plate is like epoxy, very hard to work with.

The ultimate reference for these repairs is right here on this forum; you probably came across it already:

The Troubleshooting and Repair for On-board Charger (OBC) Thread

It's quite a long thread now, and the index is still being worked on (use the AEVA index, first link), but getting pretty good. The main hassle it getting the charger out of the car. Undo the battery midpoint fuse thingy before poking into it. It's possible to leave the charger in the car to work on I believe; I always work on the bench since I don't own an iMiEV. I sort of fell into working on them.

 

[alviseven]

well have bought hobdrive and using the obd connector I use for Czero the app says it can connect to the obd connector but not then to the car. Which is very frustrating. Going to try it on a different car - mondeo - which I assume it will work but need to check if the app is a single use or can be used on multi car before spending time doing this.
The info about the charger repairs look really interesting and hope I can get to this soon. I dare not take the "working" car apart till I have found out more and these blessed codes. Think I might try a single mitsubishi 30GBP type reader and see if that will work

 

[MickeyS70]

well have bought hobdrive and using the obd connector I use for Czero the app says it can connect to the obd connector but not then to the car. Which is very frustrating. Going to try it on a different car - mondeo - which I assume it will work but need to check if the app is a single use or can be used on multi car before spending time doing this.
The info about the charger repairs look really interesting and hope I can get to this soon. I dare not take the "working" car apart till I have found out more and these blessed codes. Think I might try a single mitsubishi 30GBP type reader and see if that will work

Strange, did you set the profile as suggested in post #70? Has been a while since I installed mine but vaguely remember something about “beta testing” mode?

For more info see below
https://myimiev.com/threads/hobdriv...w-electronic-control-units-reset-errors.4101/

Might also be a problem with your OBD port, did you try with the old car?

 

[alviseven]

Finally success nearly went and bought a 106GBP unit but went through the system and started again with hobdrive and got success

I may be wrong but none of the codes I can see seem to indicate that either of the chargers OBC or chademo are at fault but there is issues within the battery BMU and one CMU which seems to be causing things to come to an abnormal stop. And most of these seem to be because the batteries are not clever!

Codes I have thrown up
P1A12 - OBC abnormal stop
P1A7E CMU09 batt cell abnormal
P1A4B - voltage of each cell abnormal
P1A3G - charging state error
P1A33 - cell voltage error BMU
P1B03 - charge time out
P1A2F - cell error BMU

This is just hobdrive output and enclose screen shots so cannot pretend to be too clever!
However I am guessing from this that it may mean that most of the electronics are possibly ok and its the cells which are causing all these issues particularly when they get very low like below half charge as this is when the car has been hard to charge for quite a while now.

I assume that I would not do any harm to clear these codes and now I have four bars from the chademo charge could retry the OBC and see if with the codes cleared it will charge on the charger again?

Either way I think unless corrected that a battery drop and change for the cells on the other lower mileage and decent range car - back in march 24 - might be a sensible start point?

So glad I persisted with your advice and got to this point as the car has been so frustrating and had a vintage electric car come back with a block "modern" controller last week too so right down in the dumps but this has cheered me up!

 

[MickeyS70]

Great news indeed, what sorted it in the end?
Yes, you can try and clear the codes to see what comes back immediately, then plug in to AC charge, let it fail and immediately read out the DCTs.

However there is a hint that not all is well with your OBC (to quote @kiev)
“The P1A12 DTC is a high level code to cover any fault except 26 and 32 in the list of OBC codes, which can be found at the last post of page 1 of the OBC Troubleshooting thread, see here
https://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36493#p36493”

 

[alviseven]

Help please
come home tonight to find the car beeping like an alarm was going off.
Its not the normal alarm, but one I have never heard before and it situated immediately beside the UK Drivers side front headlamp unit

I have disconnected the front battery - did not stop so have forced my hands under the passenger seat to remove the main traction battery clip

STILL DOES NOT STOP and starting to annoy the neighbours!

Have managed to reduce the noise by muffling the unit but it is still beeping with as far as I can see no power going to the unit!

BTW the car was dead to turn on tonight too not a thing lit up on the dash no key fob no remote unlock nothing yet when I was in it last night it was all fine.

What do I do? Other than snip off the offending item and smash it up.

 

[MickeyS70]

Help please
come home tonight to find the car beeping like an alarm was going off.
Its not the normal alarm, but one I have never heard before and it situated immediately beside the UK Drivers side front headlamp unit

I have disconnected the front battery - did not stop so have forced my hands under the passenger seat to remove the main traction battery clip

STILL DOES NOT STOP and starting to annoy the neighbours!

Have managed to reduce the noise by muffling the unit but it is still beeping with as far as I can see no power going to the unit!

BTW the car was dead to turn on tonight too not a thing lit up on the dash no key fob no remote unlock nothing yet when I was in it last night it was all fine.

What do I do? Other than snip off the offending item and smash it up.

Doesn’t ring any bells, (no pun intended) maybe it’s a custom made alarm with its own battery as I can’t see anything that matches your description in my car?

Edit: couldn’t remember where the alarm horn is so I triggered it, the sound seems to be coming from the general area you mentioned, looks like your 12V aux went flat and somehow triggered the alarm, connect it up again, jumper it and use the key fob to turn off the alarm.

 

[alviseven]

Doesn’t ring any bells, (no pun intended) maybe it’s a custom made alarm with its own battery as I can’t see anything that matches your description in my car?

Edit: couldn’t remember where the alarm horn is so I triggered it, the sound seems to be coming from the general area you mentioned, looks like you’re 12V aux went flat and somehow triggered the alarm, connect it up again, jumper it and use the key fob to turn off the alarm.

Will try when home.
Stuffed rag over it plus ear defence! Left home.
Both of the cars have same unit certain it's stock item but it sound flatter than normal alarm but must be standard one. Will jump with a large battery and report back.
Thanks

 

[alviseven]

Sorted - silly me really left interior light on overnight after being flushed with success on getting the DTC codes. A jump battery allowed me to silence the alarm finally and then put the front drive battery back on external separate charger.

What amazes me is that the alarm was still pipping for over two hours and showing no signs of stopping despite the front control battery being disconnected and the main traction orange plug being removed - SO WHERE was the POWER coming from!


However panic over now for the neighbours will rest easy tonight!

Did also make the discovery that the two traction orange plugs between the two cars are very different type. The white spares Ebay car is a round terminal type plug with the black "working" car having spade flat terminals. Hope this still means that I stand a chance of finding the same colour BMS units in the battery pack and not that I have a later pack ... time will tell but
Photo shows two types of my plugs with round on the left clearly very different to the spades on the right.

 

[kiev]

Which component or circuit uses those orange connectors?

i don't recognize either one, but the one on the right has a built-in interlock circuit so i suspect that it is somehow connected to the HV pack.

When you say that you disconnected the 12V battery to silence the alarm--was that just the negative terminal or both?

The ETACS-ECU controls the security system. i'm not familiar with the details of it or if there might be some sort of super capacitor to store energy for the alarm-without-bsttery such as you described.

 

[MickeyS70]

What amazes me is that the alarm was still pipping for over two hours and showing no signs of stopping despite the front control battery being disconnected and the main traction orange plug being removed - SO WHERE was the POWER coming from!

It’s powered by the 12V aux but must have a capacitor as backup or similar to keep it going when the battery is removed, others have reported the same behaviour.

Did also make the discovery that the two traction orange plugs between the two cars are very different type. The white spares Ebay car is a round terminal type plug with the black "working" car having spade flat terminals. Hope this still means that I stand a chance of finding the same colour BMS units in the battery pack and not that I have a later pack ... time will tell but
Photo shows two types of my plugs with round on the left clearly very different to the spades on the right.

My 2012 IMiev (built 2011) has the “spade type” battery service disconnect and green CMU boards, not sure if a change in orange connectors coincides with different color CMUs, time will tell.

Even if they are different, there is still the option of just replacing the cells which should allow you to properly CHAdeMon charge until you get the OBC sorted.

 

[alviseven]

Which component or circuit uses those orange connectors?

i don't recognize either one, but the one on the right has a built-in interlock circuit so i suspect that it is somehow connected to the HV pack.

When you say that you disconnected the 12V battery to silence the alarm--was that just the negative terminal or both?

The ETACS-ECU controls the security system. i'm not familiar with the details of it or if there might be some sort of super capacitor to store energy for the alarm-without-bsttery such as you described.

I took all of them off in the end neg and pos from the front control battery

the two connectors are the HV connectors from underneath the seats of two different cars. One the round pin is from a 2010 "early import" style blacked out windows no electrical connection to passenger seat with no black brick charger on the granny charger which has red BMS units and the spade type is from the passenger plug on a 2011 Uk spec with wires connecting passenger seat to car for airbag monitor, black granny charger and unknown BMS (but I hope the same really wish please!)
The capacitor must be a super once since I disconnected every known power source in the car and left it for 3 hours and it was still bleeping away at the same volume that I left it - that is some capacitor.

 

[kiev]

When the alarm was beeping for 3 hours, were any lights also flashing? And it was the regular horn that was sounding off, not some other device?

i wonder if the terminals could have been removed at the horn (spade lug terminals?)

Notice here that the ETACS has something called "POWER SOURCE", but there is no discussion of this in the FSM that i could find:

 

[CeeJay09]

I just did a battery swap in my 2010 imiev, it had the "interlock" spade type HV service disconnect and GREEN CMU boards, my other 2010 donor car had the round pin HV service disconnect and the red boards. the red boards are quite hard to come by so I gave them to a local shop for a customers car. you can just swap the packs of 8cells and 4 cell packs from one battery case to the other..... BUT you will have to swap the CMU boards across between "module" packs. also keep a note of the location of each board to allow you to start the car without renumbering the CMU board numbers as I just had to get a shop to that this morning

 

[MickeyS70]

BUT you will have to swap the CMU boards across between "module" packs. also keep a note of the location of each board to allow you to start the car without renumbering the CMU board numbers as I just had to get a shop to that this morning

While car doesn’t care where the CMUs physically are (therefore renumbering is only required if you have an ID conflict) it’s a good idea for (future) troubleshooting purposes to be able to identify them according to the original layout.

 

[alviseven]

When the alarm was beeping for 3 hours, were any lights also flashing? And it was the regular horn that was sounding off, not some other device?

I cannot remember really but pretty certain that no lights were on but then the control battery pretty flat however the horn was the round and fitted with leads which seem to disappear in the car and the white spares car has same unit in the same place so its stock item not retro fit but the unit is about 80mm diameter 1/2 baked bean can size. Guess this is the regular horn. hidden behind plastic cover etc right next to the driver GB side headlamp

 

[alviseven]

I just did a battery swap in my 2010 imiev, it had the "interlock" spade type HV service disconnect and GREEN CMU boards, my other 2010 donor car had the round pin HV service disconnect and the red boards. the red boards are quite hard to come by so I gave them to a local shop for a customers car. you can just swap the packs of 8cells and 4 cell packs from one battery case to the other..... BUT you will have to swap the CMU boards across between "module" packs. also keep a note of the location of each board to allow you to start the car without renumbering the CMU board numbers as I just had to get a shop to that this morning

interesting that you had red CMU boards with the round plug like me and we will see how the colour of the spade type car is in due course - maybe this is the marker and easy tell tale after all?

 

[michael8554]

Car alarms have security features.
For instance, if the car's 12V runs flat, the alarm may "think" that someone is trying to disable the alarm by removing the car's 12V battery.
But the alarm has its own battery, which sounds the alarm.
And once a Merc A-Class had continuous alarm when the alarm sensed it's own battery voltage was below a threshold, as it was reaching its end of life.

 

[CeeJay09]

While car doesn’t care where the CMUs physically are (therefore renumbering is only required if you have an ID conflict) it’s a good idea for (future) troubleshooting purposes to be able to identify them according to the original layout.

While car doesn’t care where the CMUs physically are (therefore renumbering is only required if you have an ID conflict) it’s a good idea for (future) troubleshooting purposes to be able to identify them according to the original layout.

Have you done this before? the CMU boards are linked in a daisy chain and it did not function on my car with the green boards and the spade type interlocking HV(LV) service disconnect

 

[MickeyS70]

Have you done this before? the CMU boards are linked in a daisy chain and it did not function on my car with the green boards and the spade type interlocking HV(LV) service disconnect

The CMU boards are reporting data via the CAN bus, which means they’re all in parallel and therefore the order doesn’t matter:
http://mmc-manuals.ru/manuals/i-miev/online/Service_Manual/img/90/HET04E03CC00ENG.pdf

On the other hand, the facility to re-number the CMU IDs is indeed daisy chained, wouldn’t have thought the order mattered in that regard but seemingly it does, thanks for clarifying.