My official Prius Plus mods thread.

Norm is a Genius!

I ended up with a Lilliput screen whose “X†and “Y†coordinates on the touchscreen were reversed from previous models. He was able to put in some updated code to get it working so now you should have no problem with an in dash pop out and up screen. Everything is working perfectly.

Here is the set up screen, touch the LCD button
[attachmentid=8878]

Select the CAL button
[attachmentid=8879]

Touch the bottom left.
[attachmentid=8880]

Touch the top left.
[attachmentid=8881]

Touch the top right.
[attachmentid=8882]

Confirm the touch points.
[attachmentid=8883]

Mine was 100% right on target. Then SAVE
[attachmentid=8884]

Here are my codes.
[attachmentid=8885]

Here are my R1 settings.
[attachmentid=8886]

I have not figured out how to navigate all the way around every screen yet, but now with being able to have touch screen match the view screen it should not take long.

Thanks for everything Norm! You Rock! B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sub3marathonman @ Jun 15 2007, 04:15 PM) [snapback]462575[/snapback]</div>

Thanks for pointing that out. Last night after I got the code downloaded I ran out to my car to hook it up. I did not even read what it said. Those numbers can't be right so I will have to check some stuff out. Thanks for pointing that out. That is why I have been posting all these months. It keeps the project honest and helps me by having more eyes look things over. I'll look into those readings later. Right now I am looking for a connector so I can plug in my temporary board.

 

Life has a funny way of happening when you are busy making plans.

I have been away from this blog taking care of some pressing non Prius issues. I know, “What could be more pressing then working on modifications for my Prius?†Well, family for one thing, and the lawn, and laundry, and shopping, and on, and on, and on.

I have been waiting to make my 1000’s entry at Prius Chat so I could report good news. Well I have it, My PHEV conversion is working like it should. Now for the bad news, I only just got it working properly last night.

I would like to note here that there are many, reasons too numerous to count going on in my personal life that I have been unable to spend the few hours it would have taken to finish this projects months ago. Now to be fair, there have been problems individual components of this system, however they are small are easily fixed. I hope to explain a few of them so that anyone considering a conversion like this will understand what I went through and why many of these items are really no big deal.

Now the first problem I encountered with the PHEV system was caused by a small electrical part that was not performing as expected on the low power control board Calcars designed and I built. The part is a transistor called a “Tip127†and it works like an electronic switch. When it senses power on one of its three pins, it then allows power to go through its other two pins, completing the curcut. Now this transistor will stay on as long as the input power to the control pin is above a certain threshold specified by the manufacture. Ron designed the circuit to drop below that specified threshold, however the manufacturers documentation was incorrect or there were variation that happened in the manufacture of this part.

In the end the transistor was not completely shutting off and it would stay on, get very hot, and burn itself up. The solution was to find another transistor that would work with the low power control board, or to redesign the control board. It was determined that a little of both would be best.

So there I was unable to use my PHEV functions. Chris Ewert came up with a solution of a small temporary board that would allow limited functions, but it would allow the PHEV mode to operate. I just had to go buy a few parts and build it. It sounded easy enough, but with my limited soldering skills and cheap equipment, ( I wonder how I got such Cheap! equipment?) I over heated the transistors while I was soldering, and I could still not get the PHEV function to work. We did some tests and the LED board on the dash of my car was not lighting up like it should. Wouldn’t you know it, a LED was out and I did not know it.

Long story short, with my spotty work on my temporary board I could not easily replace the parts so Chris was nice enough to build a new temporary board and send it out to me. In my haste to hook it up I shorted the board by plug-in up the wrong connector and blowing another TIP127. (This was before the new transistor was found.) Later that day I was able to replace that part and the car started to work. YEAH!

Then all I had to do was plug it in to the wall and it would start charging. Or so I thought…. The charger was not working; it had no sign of life at all. I traced the problem to a blown fuse inside the charger. (I can now recommend not opening the charger.) I bypassed the fuse with another fuse of the same value and plugged it in. WOW did it make some pretty colors as it overheated in about one second. You see fuses blow for a reason! Sometimes just replacing them without figuring out what caused it to blow out is the wrong answer.

A call to Delta-Q and FedEx to Canada and I had to get my pack charged up because it would get damaged sitting discharged for days. I removed all twenty batteries from my pack and put them in parallel to charge using a 12 volt charger. That worked fine but Delta-Q was so quick I got the charger back in two days. I however was out of time so I could not see getting back to the project until September. As luck would have it, I did find the time and I got the pack back in my car, but when I plugged the board back in, it did not work. I did not have time to trouble shoot the problem so it just sat like that for a while.

Finally, one day I was sitting at lunch in my office parking garage staring blankly at my battery pack—wearing a noticeable frown—daydreaming about getting this thing working and remembering all the problems I was having with the connector pins falling out of the back of the Molex connectors. “Could that be it?†I said out loud. I reached inside and I pulled off the 12 volt power supply connector that goes to the control board and removed the electrical tape I had hoped would help keep everything together. The wires just popped out again. I believe that we had installed a wire too large of a gauge for the connector pins to be able to crimp correctly around.

I pulled the board and put it on my desk at the office and starred at it from time to time. All I had to do was to solder some wires from the bottom of the board under the Molex connector just as Chris had suggested weeks ago. I got home by 5:30, I had my cheap soldering gun hot by 5:40, and by 5:45, I was taking a test drive with my family in tow around my neighborhood. I drove with the system on for about 20 miles to start out with last night. And I plugged my repaired Delta-Q charger in and it came to life.

Now my Delta-Q is charging my pack but I feel the programming in it right now would overcharge my batteries the way it is set right now. I got Ron of the phone late last night and we decided to unplug the charger before it finished with it’s cycle and I checked the voltage of my pack. All twenty batteries were full and happy. I sent out an email to Delta-Q and they are working on the charging algorithm and I believe I will be able to reprogram the charger over the internet when they come up with a solution.

For now I can use my PHEV as it was intended as long as I give special care during charging. This has been an adventure and I have learned much during the process. In September I plan to build three new battery packs complete with wire harnesses all matching and ready to drop in the trunk of a 2005 – 2007 (Hopefuly 2008 too.) Prius. The new box will incorporate the charger to sit in the middle and down in the middle of the spare tire. It will also sit lower them my current battery box and this will allow the floor board that comes with the car to sit in place again so it will have a very professional finish. Finally, each battery will be strapped in place and the whole box will bolt down. I will be able to unbolt four bolts and the box will lift to allow for access to the spare. The box will be lighter them my current box too. One battery box will go in my car, one will go into Darren’s car at the maker’s fair this October 20-21 but he will use a more expensive charger so I will have to make accommodations for that ahead of time, and the third box will be for just incase.

For now I have to get back to those things that I need to take care of around the house, but at last I can stop worrying about getting my PHEV working. I’ll start collecting data just as soon as I get the charger issue taken care of.

 

First 20 miles and I was on my way to over 100 miles per gallon, then....

(Long story removed)

I had to gun it to get away from a very strange driver, and by the time I got home it was 96 mpg for that run. now I have never been able to Pulse and glide very well but I do try. I hope to incorporate some P&G with PHEV and see what I get this week in the way into work. Also, I will bring in my extension cord to work and I will see what they say about me topping off there. I will be taking the back roads into downtown from my house tomorrow to see how driving below 40 mpg works for my mpg average.

 

Here are some images of my first few trips. I still have some tweaking of when Can-view relays come on.

Here we are at 17 miles arriving at work.
Left to right.
First bar shows what is normally "Warm up." I was able to stay in EV for the first 4 minutes and 55 seconds or so.
Second bar shows where I went over 34 mph and the ICE warmed up
Third and forth bars show some freeway travel
Fifth and Sixth bars show "No Bars†I stayed in EV the whole time. Please notice the green cars showing some regen.
[attachmentid=10075]

Here is the trip home.
I had the first three bars in a row blank, but two of them are now off the screen.
The rest was a standard trip with the second pack working but it was not completely full.
[attachmentid=10076]

Today I noticed some sort of problem with my contactor. I was all set to EV in the whole way to work. I was going to just stay under 34 mph. The contactors are suppose to turn on when the OEM battery gets low. Well I have been noticing a problem with one contactor that goes something like this.

Turn on system
Relay 4 comes on
OEM SOC gets low, so Relay 6 comes on and charges the battery.
OEM SOC gets high, so R6 now shuts off.
OEM SOC gets low again, so R6 shows to be on, but the voltage won't increase. It must not really be on.
I then shut the system off and both R4 and R6 turn off
I turn it back on and R4 turns on only.
The shut if off and R4 turns off.
Then on again, R4, and R6 turn on and the voltage now jumps and the OEM starts to charge.

MY R6 has to turn on, off, on, off and on again. I'll have to look into it to see if I need to replace it. It may have a bad one, but why is it so consistent?
I also notice that I hit the freeway with a High SOC and so R6 was off. Because I was going 50-60 the SOC never dropped enough to turn R6 back so I got no assist this morning. I will program another relay to turn on when I am at those speeds, as needed to improve my gas mileage further.
[attachmentid=10077]

My second pack voltage full is about 268.
When I got to work it was down to 251.
I think I will be able to get over 100 MPG when I get everything just right.

 

Oh yeah! On the way home yesterday I was almost home when the ICE did finaly kick in. I was up to 97MPG overall average this tank. Oh so close. Darn ICE. :angry: