Help Please With 2009 i-MiEV: P1A33, P1A30, P1A39, P1A76 & P1A52

[martinwinlow]

My poor old (SSE liveried) 2009 i-MiEV has developed a fault again having been my daily driver since I fixed its CMU LTC chip failure back in 2024 when I first bought it as a non-runner.

It won't go to 'Ready' and nor will it charge AC charge. If I try to start it, the HV battery fan comes on and sys on for about 5 minutes before turning off. Likewise, if I turn off the ignition, the fan continues for a similar time and then turns off. 12V battery is fine...

I have to say that the range has become pretty poor of late (30-40 miles?) and I suspect a dud cell. I can't get Canion to connect despite using it only 6 months back on another iOn fix... The MUT3 reports low voltages on 3 cells in CMUID01: Cell D and F are at 2.100V Cell E is at 3.300V and all the others are around 3.8/9xxV. Beginning to wonder if I left the car on overnight...

Going only from the error codes and voltages of the error cells, has anyone anything useful to suggest? I'll have another go with both MUT3 and Canion asap.

MW

 

[MickeyS70]

My poor old (SSE liveried) 2009 i-MiEV has developed a fault again having been my daily driver since I fixed its CMU LTC chip

Going only from the error codes and voltages of the error cells, has anyone anything useful to suggest? I'll have another go with both MUT3 and Canion asap.

MW

Problem with low reported cell voltage is that the chances are 50:50 between a dud cell and faulty CMU, but a reported voltage of 2.1V means the CMU actually reports zero (if remember correctly) and that’s usually a tell tale sign of a faulty CMU.

Apart from the obvious and remove the pack to measure the actual cells, you could put a CAN bridge between the CMU/BMU to mask the low cells and start charging it, then remove the bridge and see if the values have changed..

 

[martinwinlow]

Thank you.

The fact that the car (which is a very early 'pre-production' version - one of its quirks is that its AC charging is 'dumb' ie it does not conform to the 62196 standard) has had a previous incidence of a failed chip on one of the HV battery module BMS PCBs (the CMU LTC chip I mentioned earlier) could suggest another one has failed. Unfortunately, I can't get my Canion to connect. If it did I might get the same quite distinctive readings which would pinpoint things a bit.

I gather there is an alternative to Canion these days but I can't remember what it's called - my Android devices are getting pretty ancient anyway...

A CAN bridge is a bit outside my experience. Is this a straight-forward process and where would I get a suitable bridge? Programming it? Where, physically does it go?

 

[martinwinlow]

Is the overall HV battery voltage just summed from the individual cell readings or measured separately? Just wondering if I were to add up all the cell voltages and it does not equal the pack voltage that that might suggest one sort of fault rather than another...

I tried it again this morning having had the 12V battery on charge overnight - just in case - and it very briefly went to 'Ready' before stopping and getting the yellow wrench again.

 

[kiev]

The MUT3 reports low voltages on 3 cells in CMUID01: Cell D and F are at 2.100V Cell E is at 3.300V

If you have a MUT3, then you have a much better tool than any phone app.

The MUT can drill down to read internal error codes of ECUs such as the MCU, OBC, BMU etc. Plus it can scan all the CMUs to read the cell voltages. Might be worth a look.

A weak 12V battery can masquerade as a "good" one--i've seen this hundreds of times on this and other EV forums.

The CMUs read the cell voltages and report to the BMU. The total pack voltage is the sum of the individuals, except in 2 places (that i have traced) related to Starting and Charging .

In the MCU where it is measured directly at START across the big black capacitor by the hybrid board in the bottom plenum. And in the OBC during Charging with a little op amp circuit on the bottom of the power board in the HVDC Output section.

 

[kennypats]

Thank you.

The fact that the car (which is a very early 'pre-production' version - one of its quirks is that its AC charging is 'dumb' ie it does not conform to the 62196 standard) has had a previous incidence of a failed chip on one of the HV battery module BMS PCBs (the CMU LTC chip I mentioned earlier) could suggest another one has failed. Unfortunately, I can't get my Canion to connect. If it did I might get the same quite distinctive readings which would pinpoint things a bit.

I gather there is an alternative to Canion these days but I can't remember what it's called - my Android devices are getting pretty ancient anyway...

A CAN bridge is a bit outside my experience. Is this a straight-forward process and where would I get a suitable bridge? Programming it? Where, physically does it go?

I have the same happing with a 2010 i-Miev and would be asking the same about CAN bridge

 

[MickeyS70]

I gather there is an alternative to Canion these days but I can't remember what it's called - my Android devices are getting pretty ancient anyway...

Hobdrive (paid version) seems to work well with almost any dongle

A CAN bridge is a bit outside my experience. Is this a straight-forward process and where would I get a suitable bridge? Programming it? Where, physically does it go?

I’ve done this myself and it’s surprisingly simple as others have already done the hard bit:

https://myimiev.com/threads/cmu-can-‘spoofing’.5505/

I used an Arduino Due and two SN65HVD230 CAN bus transceivers. The bridge is put under the back seats and connects in-line with the CAN High/Low wires going from the BMU to the CMUs in the battery pack.

A word of caution: masking a truly low cell can potentially fool the car’s low voltage safety shut off and create a fire hazard.

 

[martinwinlow]

If you have a MUT3, then you have a much better tool than any phone app.

The MUT can drill down to read internal error codes of ECUs such as the MCU, OBC, BMU etc. Plus it can scan all the CMUs to read the cell voltages. Might be worth a look.

A weak 12V battery can masquerade as a "good" one--i've seen this hundreds of times on this and other EV forums.

The CMUs read the cell voltages and report to the BMU. The total pack voltage is the sum of the individuals, except in 2 places (that i have traced) related to Starting and Charging .

In the MCU where it is measured directly at START across the big black capacitor by the hybrid board in the bottom plenum. And in the OBC during Charging with a little op amp circuit on the bottom of the power board in the HVDC Output section.

Thanks, Kiev.

I'll try a new 12V battery next.

Do you know how Canion calculates the total HV battery voltage (same question ie by adding all the individual cells or reading it as you suggest from somewhere else)?

I agree about the MUT3 but it is *really* tedious to use and all the data is spread over dozens of 'windows'-worth of data. The huge advantage of Canion is that it displays all the relevant data on one window... Also, if it is another failed LTC chip, the way the Canion displays the data may make it clear that the same fault has occurred to a different module...

 

[martinwinlow]

Hobdrive (paid version) seems to work well with almost any dongle

I’ve done this myself and it’s surprisingly simple as others have already done the hard bit:

https://myimiev.com/threads/cmu-can-‘spoofing’.5505/

I used an Arduino Due and two SN65HVD230 CAN bus transceivers. The bridge is put under the back seats and connects in-line with the CAN High/Low wires going from the BMU to the CMUs in the battery pack.

A word of caution: masking a truly low cell can potentially fool the car’s low voltage safety shut off and create a fire hazard.

Excellent, thanks for the link.

Is this the same technique that others have used to get much bigger HV packs (using new cells) to supply their full capacity to converted cars?

 

[MickeyS70]

Excellent, thanks for the link.

Is this the same technique that others have used to get much bigger HV packs (using new cells) to supply their full capacity to converted cars?

Yes, same principle: you intercept data, modify values of interest and send it on.

Main difference to pack upgrades is that in this case the CAN bridge connects to the ‘other’ side of the BMU and corrects ‘bad’ data coming from the CMUs.

 

[Gary12345]

Wowsers we are making this complicated - ok so its either the cell or the monitoring - if you take the pack out and check the cells directly you'll know if its a cell or not. If it needs a cell then put one in, if its needs a cmu then swap or repair that.

 

[MickeyS70]

Wowsers we are making this complicated - ok so it’s either the cell or the monitoring - if you take the pack out and check the cells directly you'll know if it’s a cell or not. If it needs a cell then put one in, if its needs a cmu then swap or repair that

Up until recently I would have agreed with you 100%, but there is now a real potential to ‘fix’ a faulty CMU without taking the pack out.

 

[martinwinlow]

(Hi Gary - We had drifted a bit off topic - I'm interested in the CAN bridge thing generally but agree that a 'proper' fix is the best route, if practical).

So, I tried a new and topped up 12V battery and it made no difference (as suspected but you never know!)

I also tried again with the Samxung SM-T330 (ancient, I know but if it works...) and managed to get it to work with Canion and the OBDLink-LX that have served me well these last 10 years or so... Frame rate appeared after connecting (having turned off wifi which I think has been an issue previously) and sensible data came up including the correct mileage.

I tried various screens and all that I looked at gave apparently sensible data including the 'Batt Temp' screen...



However, when I went to the 'Batt Status' screen, initially I got mainly sensible data...



... which all look very consistent (I can't remember where the SOC was just before the failure but probably more than 1/2 full which seems to make sense with these voltages - but not the SOC, RR and pack volts shown... and then a few seconds later I got this...




and the Canion app crashed stuck on this screen...

Thoughts and/or more ideas to try (MUT3)?

MW

 

[MickeyS70]

and the Canion app crashed stuck on this screen...

Thoughts and/or more ideas to try (MUT3)?

MW

The OBDLink LX works well with OBDZero for Android, might give that a try as it also features a neat battery/temp overview page:

 

[kiev]

The pack Volts at 6554 seems like the 2-byte PID (don't remember off hand, 373?) was reading all bits high, in hex 0xFFFF, divided by 10.

All the cells looked great with only 20mV difference min-max. Not sure why the total Volts is so far off except that it must be reading some other source rather than summing of the cells.

 

[Gary12345]

View attachment 806

and the Canion app crashed stuck on this screen...

Thoughts and/or more ideas to try (MUT3)?

MW

Thats classic LTC failure - you will see it is 8 cells reporting ridiculous voltages, and there are 8 cells in a module. So module 1 needs an LTC repair...

 

[martinwinlow]

Just noticed I wrote '2024' as the last time I fixed this car in my OP - it was actually 2020... and ~5000km later.

I also re-visited the thread on spekev (https://www.speakev.com/threads/i-miev-with-failing-battery-another-cmu-ltc-chip-failure.144620) and see that the 'confused' screenshot of Canion from that event is near identical to this one except that the fault before was in CMU05 and this one appears to be CMU01...



... and the blue lines on the gash Canion screen align with the cell number in the relevant CMU in both cases... which is interesting.

So, looks like another LTC chip failure.

I've got the car to the workshop - just need to rig up a winch to get it onto the ramp (or get some help in to push it).

 

[martinwinlow]

Thats classic LTC failure - you will see it is 8 cells reporting ridiculous voltages, and there are 8 cells in a module. So module 1 needs an LTC repair...

Indeed - Interesting that this is the second one to fail on this 2009 car (29k km).

 

[martinwinlow]

OK - my emails to PhoneReco have either gone answered or bounced and I gather from some web research that they are no longer in business.

Does anyone have any other recommendations for replacing the surface-mount LTC IC on my i-MiEV's BMS PCB?

MW

 

[MickeyS70]

Does anyone have any other recommendations for replacing the surface-mount LTC IC on my i-MiEV's BMS PCB?

- try a PC/laptop repair store, they usually have the necessary tools required.
- get yourself a hot air solder station and DIY (might want to practice a bit beforehand)