Category: Car

It’s remarkably hard to find pictures of just the PEB (the inverter and DC/DC converter) of the Q210 as a single unit. I came across this single one though. I am the first to admit it is not a very interesting picture, but it’s all we have at the moment. Note that the box is upside down in this picture. Imagine the orange connectors on the left side when facing the car, and the entire module upside down, so the square black block, which I suspect is the 12 volt connector from the DC/DC converter being on the right bottom side.

The visible orange connector feeds the rotor coil for excitation. Tucked away under that metal ridge at the far right side (so in reality, on the top left side) are the 3 connectors to the stator coils.

I got a few pictures from a friendly mechanic of the inside of part of the BCB. I must admit I was suprised!

First, for reference, the buildup. The left sub-box contains the Filter Module, the right sub-box is the main power interconnect.

Cover removed. See image above for the connectors. The Neutral point connector goes directly into the motor. What is marked as signal connector are two smaller ones, the top one going to the charge connector lock motor, the other probably the CANbus. What they call the Converter, is technically known as the PEB. Note the 40 amp fuses between the battery wires and the heat pump connector, snugged away against the forward wall. Also note the orange bus-bars connecting the battery and the interconnect to the inverter against the aft wall. I suspect the third connector is for the high power rheostats, that are only installed in the cold climate versions of the ZOE.

Upper half, containing plugs and wiring removed. The blue box is a triple smoothing capacitor. The left one is a smoothing coil, and the right one is the rectifier. From there on the energy flows to the PEB where it is further controlled / processed to charge the battery.

The removed upper half. The cable to the charging plug in the nose is connected to the other, closed half of the BCB, left bottom. In this part the Filter Module is located that filters and measures the incoming power, switches between single and three phase operation, etcetera (no pictures yet).

Re-applying heat conducting paste to the rectifier module.

Nicely cleaned bottom, ready to accept the modules covered in heat conducting paste again.

Note: The rotor cable, as well as the three phase cables to the motor come directly from the PEB.

In one of the UK fora, there was quite a discussion about the 12 volt battery. I did some investigation and here is what I have found so far.

• the battery is a normal car battery, read, a lead-acid starter type battery. I assume same as i.e. Clio;
• the battery is needed to boot the car. Without it, the 400 volt system cannot be activated, which is a deadlock.

As for charging and jump-starting, this is all verboten by the manuals. With that disclaimer in place:

• you can jump-start the ZOE by connecting another isolated battery and starting the ZOE. It will start charging the empty battery immediately;
• alternatively, charge the battery with an external charger, but then always disconnect the minus pole of the ZOE first;
• jump-starting another car is possible (as it is a starter battery), but again, always disconnect the ZOE’s minus first.

The instruction manual on the fuses really is off. Here is the real thing, in German though. In all fairness, I got this from the first reply in this thread.

Zoe_Sicherungsbelegung The English version is here, kindly translated by SpeakEV user @Sandy Zoe_Fuses_EN

Note that there are also fuses in the red box op top of the 12 volt battery, a HUGE 250 amp fuse inside the battery pack, and probably a few more in the USM box under the hood.

Edit: shortcut most requested ones:

• VSP (keyless whoopwhoop and pedestrian warning sound): F16
• TCU (if timer or online services go haywire): F31
• CLIMA (if heating goes haywire): F3
• R-LINK: F26

No, this post is not about the rumours of the upcoming new battery pack by Renault. Imecar Elektronik of Turkey, in cooperation with Renault Turkey, have rebuild a ZOE battery pack to a capacity of 43 kWh. I don’t have details, but the picture suggest close to 4000 NCR18650PF cells. That in itself is an interesting design, as using cylindrical cells take a bit more space than the prismatic/pouch cells originally used in the ZOE. The casing, peripherals and LBCs have been re-used from the original battery. The metal box on top contains the LBCs computers, including the balancer circuits. In this picture the control wire to the LBCs seem not to have been installed yet.

I have absolutely no idea about net capacity, probable weight increase, etcetera. They are testing the pack as we speak. Stay tuned!

I admit traffic lights are the places where, when driving the Zoe, the challenge is burning. Boys toys. But after watching Alloam’s video about trying to get a 100/100 Eco score I have changed my strategy and now try to get really good mileage, just for the fun of it. Here are my tips for those who want to try:

• Be extremely gentle on the accelerator. When not hindering other traffic, try to keep your power below 8 kW
• Anticipate like crazy. If there’s any indication of slowing down, aim for 0 kW if possible. Remember, try coasting on 0 kW when possible, then regeneration, then braking
• Keep your speed down when possible. If you’re not in a hurry, just go with the lorry flow. Keeping 86 – 92 km/h makes a HUGE difference

Opinions of using the Cruise Control, especially in hilly terrain, varies. For flat terrain I always use it.

Where does CanZE come in? Well, for me, I keep an eye on the kWh/100km line in the middle graph of the Consumption screen. I noticed that after a while a second feedback mechanism emerged: the bottom graph shows a black line for the SOC in percentages, and a red line for the estimated range in kms (on a scale from 0 – 150 km). I really try to keep the red line above the black one, giving me a long-time average of over 150 km per full charge. As you can see, 170 km’s is doable.

And it really pays off. Look what I saw yesterday evening!

In the Bleeding Edge source code on Github, we’ve implemented a battery charging prediction model. It is accessible through the Experimental section. Here’s what it does.

When you start charging the battery, CanZE fetches the State of Charge, battery temperature, chargepoint power and  the range estimate from the car. The first three are fed into a mathematical model of the battery. The model is then run for 100 minutes. Each 10 minutes the State of Charge is displayed, along with a range prediction. This will allow you to estimate how much time you have before the required range to get to your destination is reached.

The model is of course not perfect, and by it’s nature, errors accumulate. Feedback is appreciated. We intent to put it in the next release.

Edit: The screen shows always 10 lines. It’s silly to pretend accuracy is better than that. Depending on the possible charging power detected, the number of minutes between two lines varies between 10 and 50 minutes. We’ve ironed out a couple of nasty bugs, but it’s ready for the next release now.

I am trying to find people who can assist figuring out the facts about grounding checking by the Zoe. See https://speakev.com/threads/calling-for-technical-expertise-grounding.17651

Sometimes chargepoints are wrongly commissioned, i.e. set for 63 amps, but fused for 40, which works mighty fine for all EVs, until a 43 kW capable Zoe comes along and trips the breaker.

In another case a driver in Belgium owning a new R240 and who has a single phase 32 amps chargepoint installed, the car consistently reports 20 amps max. He called the installer who insisted all was A-OK. So, the driver blamed the car. Renault couldn’t tell him if 32 A single phase is supported on the R240. However, they were nice enough to lend him a Q210 to try (and the Q210 supports the 32 A single phase configuration). Whoops, again 20 amps only.

CanZE of course reports this all, but to exclude any issue in the car, I build a little “amp checker” which reports the maximum current per lead the chargepoint communicates to the car. It’s a tiny, tiny little bugger. If you’re into some electronics fiddling and not afraid to try, here’s the instructable.

SAE J1772 EV charger checker