Install a Remote Control in a 2011 i-Miev

[bemart]

Hi

i have recently bought a 2011 i-Miev. The car doesn't have the remote control and I asked myself if it's possible to upgrade mine with the system. does that anybody know?

Greetings from Switzerland

 

[Don]

Welcome to the forum! - Glad you found us

I doubt it would be easy - If the car didn't come with one, then very likely the receiver and the antenna aren't built into the car, so they would need to be added . . . . and hopefully, the factory wiring would be there to support them?? Lots of work for a marginal gain, IMO. We have two 2012's and we have the remotes for both of them, but we haven't touched either for several years. No doubt by now both would need new batteries

Good luck with the project, if you decide to give it a try - Document what it entails so maybe it will help someone else

Don

 

[DBMandrake]

The reason for wanting the remote (and receiver) is that models without them cannot pre-heat - eg it's impossible to run the heater while plugged in, even manually.

This is one of the things I dislike most about my 2011 Ion. In winter when there is ice to deal with I end up unplugging and turning the heater on manually about an hour before depature, blasting the heater for about 10-15 minutes then turning the car and heater back off again and plugging it in to top up the charge by the time I leave. Better than nothing, but certainly not ideal. It's either that or leave the house with less than a full charge, and I don't have the range for that.

Has anyone made any attempts to reverse engineer the pre-heating system by looking at the circuit diagrams and capturing CanBus dumps to see what commands are being sent to activate the heater and onboard charger simultaneously ? (Which are normally interlocked out)

Best case scenario is that the optional receiver ECU(s) simply plug into the CanBus and inject CanBus commands onto the network to command the onboard charger and heater to come on at the same time. If it's just messages onto the CanBus and we can reverse engineer them, then theoretically an OBD-II dongle could be used with appropriate software to operate the pre-heating system, potentially remotely if run on a 3G/4G connected tablet, (or maybe even a Raspberry Pi) and with much greater functionality than the original remote... (the OBD-II port has permanent 12 volts available)

I suspect that as well as CanBus data there may be a "wake up" control line to wake up the ECU's as normally the OBC and Heating ECU's would be asleep when the car is turned off and not charging, with no CanBus traffic. But that shouldn't be too hard to accommodate if it comes to it.

Any takers ? :twisted: I would dearly love to hack in some sort of pre-heating even if it means entering the car to manually activate it. Just activating the heater and onboard charger at the same time would not be quite enough because the heater power output would also need to be controlled to remain within the available power from the OBC depending on power source, since the OBC is limited to a maximum of about 3kW while the heater can draw up to 5.5kW.

So I assume the official pre-heating solution regulates the heater power consumption to avoid discharging the traction battery by keeping the power drawn equal to or less than what the OBC is putting out with the currently available power source.

 

[jpev]

The reason for wanting the remote (and receiver) is that models without them cannot pre-heat - eg it's impossible to run the heater while plugged in, even manually.

This is one of the things I dislike most about my 2011 Ion. In winter when there is ice to deal with I end up unplugging and turning the heater on manually about an hour before depature, blasting the heater for about 10-15 minutes then turning the car and heater back off again and plugging it in to top up the charge by the time I leave. Better than nothing, but certainly not ideal. It's either that or leave the house with less than a full charge, and I don't have the range for that.

Has anyone made any attempts to reverse engineer the pre-heating system by looking at the circuit diagrams and capturing CanBus dumps to see what commands are being sent to activate the heater and onboard charger simultaneously ? (Which are normally interlocked out)

Best case scenario is that the optional receiver ECU(s) simply plug into the CanBus and inject CanBus commands onto the network to command the onboard charger and heater to come on at the same time. If it's just messages onto the CanBus and we can reverse engineer them, then theoretically an OBD-II dongle could be used with appropriate software to operate the pre-heating system, potentially remotely if run on a 3G/4G connected tablet, (or maybe even a Raspberry Pi) and with much greater functionality than the original remote... (the OBD-II port has permanent 12 volts available)

I suspect that as well as CanBus data there may be a "wake up" control line to wake up the ECU's as normally the OBC and Heating ECU's would be asleep when the car is turned off and not charging, with no CanBus traffic. But that shouldn't be too hard to accommodate if it comes to it.

Any takers ? :twisted: I would dearly love to hack in some sort of pre-heating even if it means entering the car to manually activate it. Just activating the heater and onboard charger at the same time would not be quite enough because the heater power output would also need to be controlled to remain within the available power from the OBC depending on power source, since the OBC is limited to a maximum of about 3kW while the heater can draw up to 5.5kW.

So I assume the official pre-heating solution regulates the heater power consumption to avoid discharging the traction battery by keeping the power drawn equal to or less than what the OBC is putting out with the currently available power source.

Completely agree here, I've been reading countless forum threads on various sites (this one and speakev especially) and there doesn't seem to be any conclusive understanding of the CAN messages.

Most people seem to have either gone the petrol/diesel heater route or given up it seems.

There has got to be a way to figure out what the receiver unit is doing for the remote, but no one that I've seen so far has attempted to open up the box or capture its output. (Maybe I've missed something, but now in 2019 there has to be a way to do this, maybe drop in an arduino or something!)

I've so far attempted to run the heat on the charger (nope!), but also tried putting the car in ready and then plugging in charger... of course it immediately jumps back to ACC mode WITHOUT heat.

I've got an OVMS unit arriving anytime, so would be game to join in this effort to see if preheat can work. This car is super lovely, but would like to leave with fuller charge, especially on winter road trips.

 

[DBMandrake]

I think the problem might be that those of us who don't have the pre-heating remote control unit and are strongly motivated to find a solution by definition don't have access to a car fitted with it to enable reverse engineering how it works...

And those that do have it are comfortable and warm in the mornings and probably not motivated to take their cars apart to reverse engineer...

The only other thing I can think of is that I have a Diagbox/Lexia 3 (official PSA dealer diagnostic tool) and one thing it can do is "actuator tests" on the various ECU's, and I'm pretty sure that it can actively command the heater on/off for testing purposes etc, meaning that it must be sending CAN commands to the heater ECU to do so.

We also know that either the BMU or OBC (not sure which, probably the BMU) sends commands to the heater ECU to control the battery ventilation flap, fan speed and A/C compressor state during rapid charging, so we know the heater ECU can be remote controlled...

With an OBD-II Y-cable (which I also have) it's possible for me to connect my Lexia 3 at the same time as my OBDLink MX+ and use Diagbox to send actuator test commands and then passively sniff the CAN bus traffic using another device in the same way that Canion does passive sniffing.

I don't have software that can sniff and decode CAN bus traffic and don't know much about the CAN bus protocols however so it's not something I could tackle on my own.

 

[Tiborx8]

Guys,

I started to work on this project. It will be simpler that the factory.

Any type of cabin heater ca be run on 220v ac, when the home charger (j1772) is connected to the car and the battery is already full. You can switch it on remotely - maybe from your phone but not sure yet - and it will automatically switch the 220v ac off when you disconnect the car from the charger. It does not seem too complicated, and it is easier to install and cheaper than trying to fit the factory remote - it is behind the dashboard, so a lot of work to get there, plus you need to buy the ecu and the remote... even if the connector is there, which i am not sure about.

 

[tewharaunz]

Watching with Interest!

 

[Herbie]

Guys,

I started to work on this project. It will be simpler that the factory.

Any type of cabin heater ca be run on 220v ac, when the home charger (j1772) is connected to the car and the battery is already full. You can switch it on remotely - maybe from your phone but not sure yet - and it will automatically switch the 220v ac off when you disconnect the car from the charger. It does not seem too complicated, and it is easier to install and cheaper than trying to fit the factory remote - it is behind the dashboard, so a lot of work to get there, plus you need to buy the ecu and the remote... even if the connector is there, which i am not sure about.

Hi Tiborx8,

Did you proceed with this project, and if so: how did you do that and how does this work out?

I would like to install a 220V ac outlet in my I-miev with wifi or 4g switching, to be able to preheat my car in winter. At home as well as at other charging points. Would that be possible?

I've found another post on this forum about making a 220 volt outlet: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2908. jsantala made something like this, did you use the same approach?

 

[stoatwblr]

the problem with the remote as supplied was that it was very basic - no repeating timers, etc

As a result most people who had it only used it a few times.

If someone in North America has a key and the module from a breakers imiev , then perhaps the canbus commands could be decoded to incorporate the functionality into the OVMS project

 

[Tiborx8]

Guys,

I started to work on this project. It will be simpler that the factory.

Any type of cabin heater ca be run on 220v ac, when the home charger (j1772) is connected to the car and the battery is already full. You can switch it on remotely - maybe from your phone but not sure yet - and it will automatically switch the 220v ac off when you disconnect the car from the charger. It does not seem too complicated, and it is easier to install and cheaper than trying to fit the factory remote - it is behind the dashboard, so a lot of work to get there, plus you need to buy the ecu and the remote... even if the connector is there, which i am not sure about.

Hi Tiborx8,

Did you proceed with this project, and if so: how did you do that and how does this work out?

I would like to install a 220V ac outlet in my I-miev with wifi or 4g switching, to be able to preheat my car in winter. At home as well as at other charging points. Would that be possible?

I've found another post on this forum about making a 220 volt outlet: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2908. jsantala made something like this, did you use the same approach?

Hi, so far I have just some first steps in this project - I am currently making infrared floor, door and windscreen heating for those who ordered it from me. So, my progress so far: The EVSE can be turned on by connecting the +12v pin on the EVSE J1772 plug and the ground pin using a resistor. This is how the car turns the EVSE on/off. I found the two cables under the seat which seems to control the EVSE. his way I am - in theory - able to turn the EVSE on/off.

 

[footandmouth]

Great idea Tiborx8. I was originally wondering how to do this using 240v AC for a domestic fan heater without having to add an additional mains cord and socket to the car.

Have you managed to make any progress on this?

A few things I'm trying to figure out:
- As we shouldn't charge the car at the same time as running a 1 or 2kw fan heater as together they will overload the EVSE (and probably the domestic wiring where it's plugged in), how do we ensure the fan heater only kicks in after the car has finished charging?
- I'm not clear on how to trick the EVSE to switch back on after charging. Should we connect the 12v pin to the ground via a resistor? What rating should the resistor be?

Great to see someone else is trying to do the same thing as me - thought I was going off in the wrong direction with this.

 

[Herbie]

Hi, so far I have just some first steps in this project - I am currently making infrared floor, door and windscreen heating for those who ordered it from me. So, my progress so far: The EVSE can be turned on by connecting the +12v pin on the EVSE J1772 plug and the ground pin using a resistor. This is how the car turns the EVSE on/off. I found the two cables under the seat which seems to control the EVSE. his way I am - in theory - able to turn the EVSE on/off.

Thanks for your update, Tibor.

I wil try first to mount a 220V outlet that is powered during charging, as described in this post: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2908. That wil fulfill my basic need. Being able to turn the EVSE on to use this outlet when battery is full might be usefull though....

So if you have any new insights/successes in 'hijacking' the EVSE, let us know!

 

[footandmouth]

I wil try first to mount a 220V outlet that is powered during charging, as described in this post: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2908. That wil fulfill my basic need. Being able to turn the EVSE on to use this outlet when battery is full might be usefull though....

Perhaps I'm pointing out the obvious here, but I'd rather say it and sound condescending than not say it: Be sure to add together the car's maximum current draw of 16amps to whatever you're plugging into a socket if you're going to be running both at the same time. If you're going to run a 10 amp 2.2kw fan heater and creating a total current of 26 amps, then make sure your EVSE, cabling and breakers can handle it otherwise you'll trip a breaker or cause a fire risk. Also think about if you want to charge at any other time, such as on a 10 amp granny charger - how can you make sure your don't overload it.

My preference (which I'm working on) would be to put in a relay after the J1772 connector to disconnect the Live and Neutral from the car's circuitry and switch it to the domestic socket you want to put in the car. That way you can never use both at the same time, realistically removing the overloading issue.

 

[stoatwblr]

I found the two cables under the seat which seems to control the EVSE.

I'm very interested in seeing if this can be used to get OVMS to control the charger. Do you have any photos or pointers to the location in the circuit diagram?

 

[stoatwblr]

I'm very interested in seeing if this can be used to get OVMS to control the charger. Do you have any photos or pointers to the location in the circuit diagram?

Adding to this...

After going through the circuit diagram it looks like the best (and safest) way of achieving this is to control CHGB output from EV-ECU or alternatively to interrupt the output of the onboard charger relay by putting a NC relay in series with it between connector A-06X pin1 / A107 pin 8