Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

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wovenrovings
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by wovenrovings »

You're not a hardened Imiev driver yet then :) If it really has 13% left on when range is down to zero that's quite a buffer. Out of interest, what charge rate did you get when you were charging?
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

125A for the first 5min then it drops to 100.
But it stopped charging at about 70% not sure if it was because the batteries were too hot or some other reason.
I have had it charge 20kwh before but the weather was cooler.
Generally no bars is 10%. The last bar was flashing but the picture didn't show it.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

wovenrovings wrote: Sat, 02 Oct 2021, 07:48 You're not a hardened Imiev driver yet then :) If it really has 13% left on when range is down to zero that's quite a buffer. Out of interest, what charge rate did you get when you were charging?
I guess 13% is about 20km or so.
I just don't really like to test the services of tow trucks.😊
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by fifurnio »

Found a new data from my master bms...
My bms seems to send a info about battery capacity to the rest of all electronics.
This is a costant data in byte 6 in the same ID of SOC.
Normal value is 129, but changing this value range change proportionally.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

francisco.shi wrote: Mon, 04 Oct 2021, 11:49
wovenrovings wrote: Sat, 02 Oct 2021, 07:48 Out of interest, what charge rate did you get when you were charging?
I guess 13% is about 20km or so.
I just don't really like to test the services of tow trucks.😊
I get about 40kw for 10min then 30kw up to 80% then it drops off.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by Raphael303 »

Hi all
I have just come across this thread and have been skimming all over the past couple of months. However, as it is normal with forums, it is really hard to find out what has been done so far. The information is all over so many pages and posts...

So, @francisco.shi you have pretty much cracked it?

You have added an additional battery pack with it's own BMS and are fooling the iMiev into accepting it? Also, you have changed the max SOC of the iMiev?

More or less correct?

I have a first gen iMiev and at one point, when they replaced the battery on warranty they did a battery calibration in the garage and I saw, that they told the iMiev the battery capacity was around 35Ah or so. Their calibration tool told them to do so. But that is only 12kwh. So I wonder if the first gen. (2010) iMievs were limited per default? And is there a way to change it?

Also, I want to get in on the extender! :) What can I do? I'm not bad at electronics.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by nuggetgalore »

Raphael303 wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 03:08 Hi all
I have just come across this thread and have been skimming all over the past couple of months. However, as it is normal with forums, it is really hard to find out what has been done so far. The information is all over so many pages and posts...

So, @francisco.shi you have pretty much cracked it?

You have added an additional battery pack with it's own BMS and are fooling the iMiev into accepting it? Also, you have changed the max SOC of the iMiev?

More or less correct?

I have a first gen iMiev and at one point, when they replaced the battery on warranty they did a battery calibration in the garage and I saw, that they told the iMiev the battery capacity was around 35Ah or so. Their calibration tool told them to do so. But that is only 12kwh. So I wonder if the first gen. (2010) iMievs were limited per default? And is there a way to change it?

Also, I want to get in on the extender! :) What can I do? I'm not bad at electronics.
Welcome to the forum.
Some (early?) iMiEVs had a smaller battery, but as far as I know they were not exported. At least not into Australia.
How many cells in your traction pack?
I have a 2010 unit, it has 88 cells and new was supposed to be 16 kWh as all the cars imported into Australia.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

The cells have been replaced with 94Ah cells instead of the original 50Ah.
There is no external battery.
I am basically intercepting the messages from the BMS and the EV-ECU and making it think it as more capacity.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by Raphael303 »

nuggetgalore wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 06:12
Raphael303 wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 03:08

I have a first gen iMiev and at one point, when they replaced the battery on warranty they did a battery calibration in the garage and I saw, that they told the iMiev the battery capacity was around 35Ah or so. Their calibration tool told them to do so. But that is only 12kwh. So I wonder if the first gen. (2010) iMievs were limited per default? And is there a way to change it?

Also, I want to get in on the extender! :) What can I do? I'm not bad at electronics.
Welcome to the forum.
Some (early?) iMiEVs had a smaller battery, but as far as I know they were not exported. At least not into Australia.
How many cells in your traction pack?
I have a 2010 unit, it has 88 cells and new was supposed to be 16 kWh as all the cars imported into Australia.
This might be interesting:

Mine is a 2010, standard edition, nothing special about it, one seat heater for the driver only, and it had battery calibration at the dealership twice.

First time with the original battery pack, because we had the turtle symbol showing up in cold weather at random, sometimes after just 20k.
The battery calibration showed no problem with the pack, the dealership reported that after charging, decharging with their dealership decharge-calibration thingy, that they entered the current capacity of the battery pack into the computer of the imiev and that it was something around 36Ah or so, if I remember correctly, What I do remember correctly is that I multiplied that value by 330V and came to a rough 12kwh. I was a bit disapointed, but thought, wow, that battery deteriorated quickly, even though I could to a nice 100k with the pack in normal weather.

Later they realized that the battery was faulty anyways, and replaced it. Upon installation of the replacement pack they did a new calibration and reported that they have entered 36Ah as the new capacity, and that everything is no in order. I was very surprised, because I was expecting the new battery to be 50Ah or so, but it wasn't. Weirdly enough, the range stood, and still ist (3 years later) the same. I do 100k with a full battery. Also, if I charge, slow, on the road say from half to completely full, the charger reports something around 5-6kwh hours charged.

So I am very confident to say, that our iMiev only has, or, only uses 12kWh of battery.

However, I do believe, that the 2010-2012 models did have a 16kWh battery and that they are limited to 12kWh software wise. Probably because they wanted to gain long term experience before letting us use the full 16kWh. This also explains why my collegues 2013 model, does well over 100k, rather 115 to 120k on a full charge. If they have the same 16kWh battery, why would there be that difference?

My theory is this: The dealership has this battery capacity calibration tool from Mitsubishi. They discharge the battery and either the tool knows the connected model and knows, that the max capacity ALLOWED for that model is 36Ah and discharges and reports a maximum of such, OR, the tool even does discharge the full 16kWh but then, based on the model, reports 36Ah to the technician. The technicians then have a tool to program this into the EV-ECU or BMS or both. That last part is certain. Because they told me, that they did so.

Anyhow. For me it looks like that either the 2010 model have 12kwh packs or are limited software wise to only use 12kwh. Anybody here can confirm a 2010 or 2011 model charging from half to full and the charger reporting more than 6kwh?
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by Raphael303 »

francisco.shi wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 11:37 The cells have been replaced with 94Ah cells instead of the original 50Ah.
There is no external battery.
I am basically intercepting the messages from the BMS and the EV-ECU and making it think it as more capacity.
Wow, this is amazing! Respect! That is a major accomplishment!

Might there be a way you can change the capacity in the EV-ECU and or BMS though? One might have to bribe a mitsubishi-mechanic though... See my post above.

Which cells did you use?
Did you document your build process with foto or video? Is it here in the forum?
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

There is a shop in Brisbane that changes the batteries. He has got the cells specially made to be the same size as the originals but with newer chemistry. The shop name is OZ DIY electric vehicles. I am doing the controller for him. I basically read the current and voltage from the BMU and emulate the BMU to the rest of the car. I have to do the coulomb counting and have to work out the SOC.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by nuggetgalore »

Raphael303 wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 14:48

Wow, this is amazing! Respect! That is a major accomplishment!

Might there be a way you can change the capacity in the EV-ECU and or BMS though? One might have to bribe a mitsubishi-mechanic though... See my post above.

Which cells did you use?
Did you document your build process with foto or video? Is it here in the forum?
Hi Raphael,
I wonder if you are in Europe, cannot see on your profile where you're from.
I vaguely remember having read that some of the French clones had 12kWh packs early on as well as the Japanese iMiEVs.
The MUTIII tool can be used to set / reset parameters including the Ah capacity and it can also balance the cells and check the capacity of each cell.
There are some very handy apps to check the battery: CaniOn is free, a better one is EvBatMon and then there are scanners and MUTIII clones. But it appears that only the genuine Mitsubishi tool can do all the
resetting except for geniuses like francesco who can hack the software.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by coulomb »

Raphael303 wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 14:45So I am very confident to say, that our iMiev only has, or, only uses 12kWh of battery.
I'm not an expert on iMiEVs, but this doesn't sound right to me. Yes, they have a buffer, so not all 16 kWh are usable, but I didn't think it was implemented by limiting the learned Ah capacity figure.

A figure of 48 Ah comes to mind as the default value for new or replaced-with-new packs. Using 3.75 V as the nominal cell voltage, that comes to 88 * 3.75 = 330 V nominal, times 48 Ah is 15,840 Wh or 15.84 kWh. I think that's what an 88-cell iMiEV battery is supposed to start off with.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by Raphael303 »

nuggetgalore wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 19:29
Raphael303 wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 14:48

Wow, this is amazing! Respect! That is a major accomplishment!

Might there be a way you can change the capacity in the EV-ECU and or BMS though? One might have to bribe a mitsubishi-mechanic though... See my post above.

Which cells did you use?
Did you document your build process with foto or video? Is it here in the forum?
Hi Raphael,
I wonder if you are in Europe, cannot see on your profile where you're from.
I vaguely remember having read that some of the French clones had 12kWh packs early on as well as the Japanese iMiEVs.
The MUTIII tool can be used to set / reset parameters including the Ah capacity and it can also balance the cells and check the capacity of each cell.
There are some very handy apps to check the battery: CaniOn is free, a better one is EvBatMon and then there are scanners and MUTIII clones. But it appears that only the genuine Mitsubishi tool can do all the
resetting except for geniuses like francesco who can hack the software.
Yes in Switzerland, the 2010/2011 models here all have 100k range at best. It very very rarely shows more than 100k range on full battery. The imievs after that have more range.

I check the apps out again, a couple of years ago I actually tried those but one of those was horrible.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by stoatwblr »

francisco.shi wrote: Sat, 16 Oct 2021, 16:02 There is a shop in Brisbane that changes the batteries. He has got the cells specially made to be the same size as the originals but with newer chemistry. The shop name is OZ DIY electric vehicles. I am doing the controller for him. I basically read the current and voltage from the BMU and emulate the BMU to the rest of the car. I have to do the coulomb counting and have to work out the SOC.
Francisco, I'm in the UK and interested in the 94Ah mod as my cells are down to about 26Ah, so will need replacement soon

Are you using Samsung SDI94s out of BMW i3s as your donor cells?
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

I didn't do the cell swap. I am just doing the controller. I do not know what cells were used .
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by stoatwblr »

OK thanks.

With newer cells being NCM vs LMO formulation of the LEV50s (does anyone know what formulation the LEV50Ns are?), how much flexibility for programming is there in the BMS for voltage curves?
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by richi »

stoatwblr wrote: Wed, 20 Oct 2021, 17:24how much flexibility for programming is there in the BMS for voltage curves?
I think the basic answer is "none whatsoever." That's why Francisco used an CANbus man-in-the-middle, to translate the curves and power measurements into something the ancient BMU code can grok.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

It seems when they designed the old BMS they did what they needed to do for the job (and nothing more) there does not seem to be any allowance for changing the capacity of the cells or the current limit in or out of the pack. It kind of makes sense, why spend time making something more complicated than it needs to be if they were not intending to put bigger cells in the near future.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by stoatwblr »

I was more wondering about how much flexibility there might be for loading in a new program to the BMS - which I know is a huge job but you never know....
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

You would have to find out what processor they used, get the programming software, then trace the board so you know what is connected to what and then write software that will drive that hardware. It would probably be easier to make one from scratch. If you can get the original source code (very unlikely) then it would be easy.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by adoepner »

The big question? When will a product be available? Would love to install this in my car!

Andrew in Canada
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by francisco.shi »

We have some in beta testing already. You will have to contact Grahame to find out when he is happy to sell them. At the moment I think he has a backlog of cars that need to be done.
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by stoatwblr »

I'm assuming they wouldn't reinvent the wheel and are using the same processors they use for other control units (and likely most of the same code blocks). I agree that getting the original SC would be wonderful but if there are BMU firmware updates available then that can probably be reverse engineered to some extent anyway - whilst they may encode or obfuscate for loading, it's got to be decrypted when actually running, so keys are hardcoded somewhere (or keys aren't used at all)

For those thinking "DMCA" - don't worry. Firstly that doesn't apply outside the USA and secondly the USA has specific exemptions carved out for doing this kind of thing on vehicles (but not farm vehicles, hence the current issues with John Deere) to allow operational/compatibility/life extension work

WRT the MITM devices, I appreciate they're going to be tied to Grahame in Australia but other countries may be a different matter - and his work on getting these cells in BEV2 format should mean we all benefit (the maker should pay him a commission on sales)

As I understand it were are only ~1000 trios registered in the UK and less than 300 are still registered. That's got to be a record for obsolesence
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Re: Aftermarket iMiEV battery upgrade project

Post by stoatwblr »

A thought for the day... Gen3 Outlander BMUs will have had to be reprogrammed to handle reformulated battery chemistry unless somehow Mitsubishi were still getting LEV46/50 cells for these models up until they switched to badge-engineered Nissan Rogues

It may be worth looking into what the last of the Gen3s came with. There may be some clues for the BMU there
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