Hairball 2 Zilla Interface

[so many wires....]

Hello AEVA forum. I'm new to theforum and in the process of restoring one of the original 11 EV trial ford focus from 2011.
Unfortunately the Hairball 2 Zilla Interface, which has had a communications problem for some time, now will not engage the contactor since it took on moisture during a cleaning expedition.
Serial comms are not working using a PC. No characters back, though my serial monitor shows characters are being sent to the controller.
LED's show 'Main cont off' and 'Error'.
Voltages present on all the inputs, but no voltage out from 'Main cont coil'.

Any suggestions, circuit diagrams or words of encouragement would be appreciated.

[brendon_m]

I can't help with a diagram, but I can give you some words of encouragement.

You can do this.
We all believe in you.

[so many wires....]

Thanks. Encouragement achieved !
I have made some progress, perhaps due to recent encouragement?
Power cycling revealed an error E02h.
This error is not in the manual that I can see.
Anyone seen this error before?

[antiscab]

that might be a question for the present manufacturers:
http://www.manzanitamicro.com/contactus

possibly an internal error of some variety.

[antiscab]

If you haven't already, charge the car up, then push the emergency stop button. That will stop the battery being discharged to nothing

[so many wires....]

Hello all, I'm making progress. First thing to learn is that serial communications is inhibited by the throttle. Disconnect the throttle wires and voila! communications restored.
Clearing the errors and interrogating the software did not help much with the current problem, other than allowing me to force 'precharge enable' in software, but it will help in future.
So I'm still having trouble with precharge behaviour and have narrowed the location of the problem to the Hairball 2. I'm sure I can repair the problem if anyone could help me identify the remainder of the precharge signal path.
The relay on the board is not energising, nor is the pre charge LED and naturally the 'main cont coil' output is not energising either.
The IRF IPS6011 switch has VCC but no other voltages regardless of the state of the precharge command issued from the 'Special Menu'. So seeing as how the software is responding, if anyone could give me a hint as to the remainder of the circuit, I'm sure I could repair the rest.
Thus far emails to the designer Otmar Ebenhoech and Manzanita have yielded no response, though I have had to use their web forms.
If anyone has a real email address for Otmar, I'd be very grateful.

[brendon_m]

I don't have any real experience with the hairball so this is just a spit ball idea but there could be a short in the throttle which is pulling a 5V (or something) bus to ground. Hence disconnecting the throttle gives you comms. Now it may not engage the precharge until it detects a good input from the throttle as a safety lockout.
So possibly fixing the throttle will make it work

[antiscab]

the focus has a 0-5v hall pedal which is then fed to this:
https://www.zeva.com.au/Research/DigitalPotAdapter/

The pot adapter is under the dash near the pedal, so not likely to have experienced moisture damage.
It's probably worth measuring the output of the pot adapter (easiest at the hairball) to see if it's actually putting out a 0-5k range still, or if the signal has a lot of noise

EDIT:
A link to the adapter data sheet:
https://www.zeva.com.au/Products/datash ... Manual.pdf

[so many wires....]

I'm leaning towards a component on the Hairball 2 board but will check the pot input.
In the meantime if anyone has a spare Hailball2 I'd like to buy it.
Unfortunately i don't have forum permissions to post this in the appropriate forum, so if someone would oblige posting in the appropriate forum?