Hacking and overclocking a BMW "ioniser". (Not recommended)

Although fun to do, I really don't recommend doing this. The PCB seems to have voltage regulation circuitry on it, and making the modifications shown would result in excessive current and output voltage on a full 12V supply, resulting in arcing and burning of the ceramic plate and possibly transformer. This was done purely experimentally and in the modified form is only suitable for use at around 7V and in a non flammable location.
It appears that some BMW's have an ozone generator in their air conditioning system to keep it sterile. I bought one thinking it was going to be a simple module, but it turns out that it's fairly complex.
The vehicles control computer can regulate the output level via a single control wire, which can also send a signal back if the unit detects a fault. There are also three layers of control in the unit that mean that a single component failing is not likely to result in excess ozone production.
Initially I thought it might be possible to just take the control line high or pulse it manually to get a response from the unit, but it seems to require a fairly strict control signal. So I decided to bypass all the controls so the high voltage module runs all the time.
Note that bypassing all the controls also bypassed the safety monitoring and will potentially allow the unit to be run at several times its normal rating. This is not good for the ceramic ozone plate and electrodes, and could result in high voltage flashover and burning.
The unit will start creating a corona discharge (and therefore ozone) at about 6V and the current rapidly increases with voltage. I did some tests to see how hard it could be pushed and got the following results.
6V 400mA. A useful output with potentially long electrode life.
7V 840mA. This is probably close to the level it's run at by design.
8V 1A. I wouldn't recommend much higher than this.
9V 1.4A Shortened electrode life and risk of flashover.
10V 1.8A Very impressive, but too high.
11V 3A. Far too high. The voltage caused flashover on the ceramic plate resulting in sustained arcing. With normal operation the control system would probably have detected a flashover, shut the unit down and sent an error code to the ECU.
This makes me wonder if the small 100uH inductor is part of a voltage regulator to limit the output.
I'd guess the switchable transistor bias in the Royer style high voltage circuit might be to allow PWM regulation of the output.
Note that bypassing the control circuitry does remove the safety features and poses a risk of sustained tracking and burning of the unit in the vicinity of the ozone plate and the transformer.
The modifications shown were purely experimental and the unit shouldn't be used like this in an environment where failure would pose a risk.
BMW describe this unit as an ioniser and suggest that it is used to create hydrogen peroxide in the air conditioning system to sterilise it. In reality it's an ozone generator and when the spare oxygen atom of ozone (O3) contacts a water molecule (H2O) it will convert the water into hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) so it more or less works as they describe. But the highly oxidising nature of ozone will also destroy bacteria, viruses and mould directly.
There's a possibility that they're trying to avoid saying the word ozone because it is associated with health hysteria. In reality ozone exists at low levels naturally in the environment, and as long as it is kept at a low level or shielded from direct breathing it is relatively safe.
In summary, I would suggest against modifying these units the way I did. It would be much safer to control them with the correct control protocol, allowing the internal electronics to regulate the power and shut the module down in the event of failure.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.co...
This also keeps the channel independent of KZbin's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.

[@hpmmqh4477]

"Get it all nice and hot, then bang it." -- Life lessons with the master All jokes aside, I need a solder sucker

[@hjalfi]

I got one of the ultracheap Chinese soldering iron / suckers. I did end up taking it apart to check the earthing (poor) and the connections (mains wires simply twisted together inside! But done very carefully, and it may be because one set of wires is aluminium), and I would say it's worth exactly the $9 shipped I paid for it, but it does _work_ --- rather well... Long and boring teardown video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pGHGoaiXib9pq5I

[@silverstrings5569]

I would be very careful getting the squeeze-bulb type. They don't play nice if you get it a touch too close to the iron itself.

[@TheGamingComputerBomb]

Solder wick is the best

[@KatzRool]

This entire thread reads like a strange euphemism.

[@newjerseybill3521]

@2:53 "I'm seeing way too much sophisticated stuff..." Welcome to the world of German automotive engineering. :)

[@LaterMeansBrick]

Just had to replace a broken door latch mechanism in my old e36. It had so many moving parts it would make a clockmaker blush.

[@straightpipediesel]

It's European engineering in general and there's a reason. European labor is expensive, particularly in the West, and often hard to find for repetitive assembly jobs, so they try to automate as much as possible. Because there's limitations of what a robot can do, this means putting 5 snap-together plastic pieces to avoid two screws.

[@alextasarov1341]

LaterMeansBrick were you looking at the window regulator? In my e46 the regulator looks so confusing and there are a bunch of other random parts in there as well besides the speakers and airbag. It may not be so modern anymore but everything still works as well as my parents newer chevys and fords xD

[@brucegoatly]

The transistors are labelled FZT - isn't that the noise they make when the magic smoke comes out?

[@benbaselet2026]

Not realy, in this quality made in Zermany product the fizz will be much longer because there is way more working smoke inside the components.

[@dsloop3907]

The Zerman fizz's are known for their bursts- fizz---fizz---fizz, usually ending with an epic FIZWAHHZZZUUUZZ, pop.

[@RavenLuni]

@@dsloop3907 Cheap chinese variants just use rice krispies for this.

[@lumpyfishgravy]

Lovely old Zetex / Ferranti.

[@misterhat5823]

@@lumpyfishgravy Yep. Zetex made some excellent BJTs.

[@Nono-hk3is]

"You're just a bear poking a wire on!"

[@peterg.8245]

All my life 😥

[@williamsquires3070]

Remember, reverse-engineering any circuit, no matter how small or large is a matter of pen, paper,... and screaming! 😊

[@robinpeach-toon2595]

Big Clive, you are like the Bob Ross of circuitry but with a bit more pops and fizzes, thank you

[@Gwalchgwyn]

Glad I'm not the only one who made this comparison: it is so true!

[@Lykaotix]

You've convinced me to reverse engineer an air purifier I found not too long ago. Best part about it though...I have 2 identical models....so I may be modifying at least one of them.

[@ShaunieDale]

“Assuming I don’t let the smoke out”. Then he picks up his famous Spudger and I immediately worry that he might let the Claret out! Keep up the good work Clive. I do diagnostics on cars for a living and I’ve never had to replace one of these yet, so this is useful to me!

[@Poop-nu1so]

This is good stuff right here. Yeah it's too bad most modules these days require data to run. I don't know if it's always serial data, like via a CAN bus, but i do know that sometimes their "language" and/or protocols are proprietary. This means only their own modules, like a BCM, can talk to each other. Also that's only if they're programmed properly. Meaning you can't always swap the same hardware between the same vehicles either without being properly reflashed. Very frustrating.

[@kenmore01]

I can't even get my printer to talk to aftermarket ink cartridges.

[@rpavlik1]

BMW - Bear Moving Wires - seems like a real BMW to me 😉

[@generedwine6863]

LOL is that bear or bare moving wires?

[@aterack833]

I upvoted this before I actually got it, at first I thought you were saying the bmw saw the bear and said “seems legit” sarcastically, or maybe not sarcastically

[@graealex]

Don't worry about blowing it up. Automotive components need to withstand - 100VDC pulses in testing, as well as other kinds of under- and overvoltage scenarios.

[@harveyhart8348]

Well Joy-Joy for getting it running, several years ago I was asked to fathom an Eberspacher ... there's a £800 free standing set or 2 for £150 that are for polar regions and snap into skoda/Volvo/ect and the dodgy supplier throws in a hand drawn note as a wiring diagram... but I had no joy .. perhaps you would have fared better...

[@SightsToKeepInSight]

It's amazing how i love your videos and i only understand 5% of the explanations... but i keep watching until the end. Maybe because my mind is always waiting for things to go wrong ;)

[@robcooper9265]

Hi, Great VIdeo! BMW uses a number of communications standards to talk to the various modules its cars, but I think this device uses a system called IBUS (sometimes KBUS) . This is a single wire bus that in its quiet state is held at 12V by a resistor (aprox 10K). When a device wants to communicate it pulls the bus wire to zero volts using a UART at 9600 baud to modulate the signal. This as you found out is a little difficult to emulate with a bit of wire tapping on the gnd. :) . If you wanted to take this further then I would suggest using an arduino or raspberry pi's to operate a transistor that will pull the bus to ground as the uarts signal goes high. There's lots of stuff on the internet about how to format IBUS messages.

[@1dubsalot]

BigClive: How to Hotwire a BMW... Ozone Generator

[@win132001]

Epic click bait title! 😆😎

[@Notpoop906]

He totally should have made the title some variation of this!

[@BPantherPink]

SUCH an important thing to know this...and marvel at the ingenuity of this lovely man !! Have just booked a Series7 just for this very purpose 👍🙏🏼

[@BPantherPink]

Four o'clock in the fkng morn...and he's at it still 😁

[@ehsnils]

The connector on the unit is most likely Ground, Power and LIN bus. A LIN bus is a multi-drop serial bus, usually 9600bps, but can be up to 19200 bps. So you need to make some experiments with LIN bus devices.

[@jeffreyhebert5604]

I always wonder who put thumbs down on your videos...what's not to like..actually I don't waste my time wondering just find it wierd..anywhoo have a great day Mr Clive sir cheerios

[@AlexanderWright1]

The control wire is possibly CAN bus allowing the unit to talk to the car, and vice versa.

[@Der_Kleine_Mann]

Nifty little device👍 I would love to have an Ionizer in my car, but I probably won't be able to afford a BMW in the near future, but maybe I can somehow incorporate a functional ionizer in my Citroën Berlingo👍

[@TheSlyMouse]

One of my favorites ozone videos

[@D4NS80]

Oh no. He said Corona! Demonetized! :-P Great video. It's amazing how much mad technology gets squashed into a European Car.

[@chrishartley1210]

I'm guessing there is some form of current detection which the microprocessor would use to limit consumption (max is supposed to be 830mA), but of course you bypassed all that.

[@stephenpointon]

there is probably more electronics in that one circuit than a 1960's morris minor or VW beetle!

[@hardwareful]

5:55 : that looks like a buck converter stage using the inductor of the current-fed royer converter. That's pretty typical for LCD backlight circuits. Top circuitry might be current monitoring on the output side that is connected to ground which can provide feedback to provide some safe way to shut down the converter. Can't turn off BOTH transistors of a current-fed converter at once as this would cause overvoltage and destruction of the switches.

[@ozonesama]

I like all your ozone-related videos very much.

[@Datadog-1]

Great video Clive, one of my favorites so far

[@BjornV78]

3:32 On the circuitry there is maybe a feedback to the CAN-bus diagnostics of the car.

[@jovangrbic97]

Oooh, very mikeselectricstuff like! I like this style very much! I would really be cool if you'd reverse engineer and disec more exotic stuff too, on top of the usual ebay chinesium. Great Vid!

[@ckm-mkc]

A lot of modern car components run on 5v signals rather than 12v, something to keep in mind when trying to power them up....

[@farnzy2011]

I'm sure I could hear it running the first time you tried it

[@thebrowns5337]

That was someones BMW starting up outside when Clive did his furious knuckle shaking trying to trick the unit into life.

[@oswaldjh]

Customer: Build in an ionizer air freshener that's the most complicated and has a swollen BOM. BMW: Hold my schnitzel

[@enda320]

From checking out some wiring, it looks like they were driven with LINbus, so you'd have to be pretty lucky with the tapping to get it running! www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/g11-750i-lim/wiring-functional-info/body/heating-air-conditioning-functions/ioniser/1VnYYkkk5I

[@makomk]

Yeah, LIN has checksums and all sorts. It'd take a lot of luck for a bear prodding it with a wire to pass those checks.

[@aspectcarl]

I was also going to suggest LIN

[@minigpracing3068]

Both of my brothers are technicians at a Mercedes dealer, they say basically nothing operates from "normal" controls. Everything is on a data network, no matter how simple the function. I'm guessing this thing is on some kind of network to give diagnostic data back to a tech. when it has a problem, so I agree with what has been said above.

[@ericpaul4575]

I was figuring canbus as I never heard of linbus.

[@chrishartley1210]

@@Biggus_Mickus Which will be why the indicators never seem to work.

[@randysmith7094]

It's probably looking for a certain frequency PWM sign. You could build a simple 50% pulse generator with a 555 timer chip and tune in the signal that it's looking for with a pot. Then if you want to be fancy, put the 555 chip in PWM mode to control the power.

[@rickyribs8032]

I have no clue what this guy is taking about most of the time.why do I find this channel so watchable?????😳

[@TheLusus]

Just a thought that probably someone else allready pointed out. But you hadn't bridge the ground to the connectionpoints that the lid/cover would connect.

[@mattymrj01]

Clive, you should take a look at a final stage resistor for a car HVAC blower fan. I replaced mine and took it apart and found quite some circuitry and I wonder why it needs that since it's only job is to drive a DC (albeit, a 400W one) fan.

[@timsjourney]

If you had it after all aluminum and corrosive metal, the ozone would be alright to remove some pollen, mold, mildew and some allergens from the air and some from the interior of the car. Ozone has a half life of 45 minutes and can smell like bleach. It is still used by cleaners to eliminate Smoke odor from clothes.

[@InfiniteWonderz2]

i'm finding electronic car parts incredibly interesting, all the way from an ECM and playing with it using a cheapo logic analyzer all the way to the o2 sensors and oil pressure sensors and temp sensors. I wonder around the local wreckers yard, luckily I'm allowed too because he knows I'm just after little electrical knick knacks and knows I'll always bring them straight to the shop and have a good bartering process with him (which he really enjoys) and knows that if I was to try steal anything bigger than some sensors he'd be able to tell I have a radiator down my dacks and under my shirt, in his words haha. He's often out there pulling parts off that people have phoned in anyway. Much fun is had and its only a short walk for me especially during the ca vooiood. He was still aloud to operate in a very restricted and minimal way and I think as we are in an extremely remote/rural/isolated area/regiona that had only had 5 cases acquired overseas and no community transmission within that region next door to our region and none in ours thats how im guessing he was able to get the go ahead (although for all I know he may not of even been open and just working on cars and if i came in and asked if he was open to first time he said yeah mate go have a look see if you find anything interesting) and liked to see me wondering up the road for some distant face to face conversation as the isolation was fairly brutal as isolation in these communities can be brutal itself in some cases and I'd still be able buy electronic knick knacks to help keep him going during the tough times.

[@notsonominal]

you had me at external stimulation, thanks for keeping us entertained!

[@tiporari]

I'd be surprised if that was PWM. It seems way more likely that it would be CANBUS. The MCU is probably generating the AC waveform that drives the transistors at the input side of the HV section. The canbus is bidirectional and includes ID, state info, diagnostics, etc.

[@ICountFrom0]

Isn't this an unsupressed arc, on ground? Shouldn't this cause mayhem with radio reception? And pump noise into stereo amplifiers?

[@TheGodpharma]

Do all BMWs have these? I don't recall it being a £999 option when I specced mine.

[@qm3ster]

How did you make your hands so tiny at 3:48? Are you a wizard?

[@someguy2741]

You need to install that into your forced air central heating....

[@tomniewazne2041]

I am not electrical engineer but you should have bridged the contacts for the piece of the riveted civer you removed, before trying to make it work. You pointed it out yourself! This is HV device so it is likely to harm when powered with broken casing or someone not qualified messes with it. Surely that was a reason for the unit not to draw any more current. There might have been more reasons I am not aware of.

[@witeshade]

Have you tried attaching a function generator to the input to produce a more regular and accurate pwm signal?

[@LuizDahoraavida]

ah yes the CAN Bus protocol, often simulated with a bear poking a wire with a resistor attached to it.

[@bigclivedotcom]

Probably LIN, but the vague data implied a simple pulse width modulation signal.

[@human2761]

I'm curious if you can RE the ceramic element and how its made.to pump out the ions, since its not the usual needle used in ion generators.?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Search for dielectric barrier discharge.

[@nosaltiesandrooshere7488]

👍 Danke fürs Hochladen! 👍 Thanks for uploading! 👍 Very good and beautiful, thank you! 👍 Sehr gut und schön, danke!

[@AureliusR]

Aren't ionizers and ozone generators the same thing? Doesn't ionizing air create ozone?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Proper ionisers create only a tiny amount of ozone below ambient levels. Some ozone generators are wrongly called ionisers, which gives real ionisers a bad name.

[@quark3415]

SMELLS THE OZONE,THIS GUY IS MAD!

[@astrixistheman]

Does clive not have a function gen? Or 555 timer?

[@BobReed1]

Do all car AC units have these devices installed?

[@DaveAdams222]

Something with a high level of complexity coming from Germany? No way!

[@LifesAbe-ach]

O3 generators can degrade plastics . Seen it first hand in duct systems

[@TrapperAaron]

You are seeing why any beemer outbof its warranty period spends more time in the shop than on the road. Almost like when Ford decided to put the whole CAN bus system into their factory radio package. The offshoot of which is if ur radio dies so does your car.

[@mitchellhw2006]

With an on-board microcontroller, I'm guessing the third wire is a CAN bus interface. Why bother with the micro if your going to feed the PWM to it? Let the micro develop the PWM based on CAN bus requests for it to turn on and do something.

[@bigclivedotcom]

It's the cheaper single wire LIN bus.

[@baltazard133T]

Soooo you actually came up with something more profoundly useful than you are led to believe. From my understanding ozone ionizers remove odors from the air and surrounding materials. With that knowledge somebody who has bad smells in their vehicle EX wet dogs, potheads, stinky people in general could use this device as an ionizer to remove said smells. Set it up on a timer where every night when you return home you have it run for an hour or two, when you return to your vehicle the next morning it will smell fresh as a daisy LOL

[@si98justme1]

A lot of that redundancy is directly coupled to liability in case of catastrophic failure. So unfortunately for those shouting “over complicated“, it’s to save your and BMW’s ass if it goes pear. I’m not too sure I’d be complaining if otherwise, it interfered with a bus line or set fire to your dashboard, resulting in a fatal accident. If you’ve worked on any car modules, for any length of time, you would know that BMW is not the only one doing this, in fact, almost all other manufacturers are, and for exactly the same reasons. In the words of Disturbed - “Don’t judge what you don’t understand”. I was going to guess that the PWM pin was actually LIN, which is a single wire comms bus, but as someone already pointed out, it’s definitely PWM.

[@LunaNicoleTheFox]

But why is there an "ioniser" in a BMW? Like why? I am german and the only good thing I can think about is using it to make the oxygen in the intake air for the engine into ozone to use as an oxidiser instead of normal oxygen, and even that would be of questionable benefit at best.

[@NikEastwood161]

Hi are these large images of the pcb scanned, or photographed before you print them?

[@xenonram]

Photographed and then printed.

[@afterburner008]

High Big Clive is it worth buying a modern puremate pm100 ioniser it's difficult to find the vintage beauties you have

[@bigclivedotcom]

I think the puremate might be low level ozone generators as opposed to ionisers. I've not taken one to bits yet.

[@afterburner008]

@@bigclivedotcom Awe shucks I just purchased a lemon

[@FrontSideBus]

I think Clive needs a frequency generator...

[@EdgyShooter]

Doesn't the case have contacts?

[@lumpyfishgravy]

Tantalums - BOO! Scratching my head to figure out what that QFN33 is.

[@ferrumignis]

ATMega88-15MZ

[@Catastropheshe]

"You not gonna fool me! You're not my BMW!" 😂

[@williamarmstrong7199]

Clive Munro! The Scottish cousin of Sandy Munro reverse engineering BMW's ;)

[@tomwilliam5118]

You have some of the best videos

[@samuelelberson5476]

Liam Neeson is a technician?

[@stephenphilp1380]

That circuit picture underneath the real one was causing me some dissonance.

[@kacey797]

Reminds me of zack from Jerry rigg every thing

[@thelovertunisia]

Maybe they use two zenner diodes for fault protection to ground.

[@jovangrbic97]

I'm surprised they use PWM for control and not some serial comms protocol...

[@Chris_Grossman]

That was an excellent reverse engineering job to get that working.

[@joelg1318]

I'd like to see more CNC Bus hacking videos please.

[@TT-RR]

That CPU is a rebadged ATmega88 from Microchip Technology. A Microcontroller made for Automotive Industry: ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/Atmel-9365-Automotive-Microcontrollers-ATmega88-ATmega168_Datasheet.pdf

[@gymprofessor329]

Lucky they didn't decide the car ionizer needed a CAN connection lol. Woulda been harder than the PWM connection lol

[@sharg0]

"Dab this on the positive connection" - Isn't most pwm signals high and then pulled to ground by the controller?

[@tjsynkral]

Crank it till it pops!!!

[@bigclivedotcom]

I did. :( It was the ceramic plate that flashed over and started arcing. The transistors were fine.

[@GogogoFolowMe]

Photonicinduction anyone ?

[@jamesg1367]

Yer makin' me want an ozone generator more by the day.

[@obviouslytwo4u]

This is probably not 12-volt it probably requires 14.4 volts to indicate when the alternator is on.

[@Lone_wolf--br7fi]

*BMW has entered the chat.

[@sarchlalaith8836]

Let the smoke out... You've been watching AvE

[@maxmoors]

@Louis Rossmann enters the chat... You're not using flux, why are you not using flux? USE MORE FLUX!

[@me03hul]

LIN communication?

[@silureswarrior6045]

That picture is doing a number on my perspective

[@hightower005]

Not PWM but K-LINE

[@peterschulze2082]

External stimulus? Why do I have a bear with a hammer in mind :-D "I will apply unreasonable force!" :-P

[@jurjenbos228]

The input is probably a CAN bus, which is well documented.

[@bigclivedotcom]

CAN would require two network wires. But it is possibly a single wire network.

[@preslav87]

@@bigclivedotcom It should be LIN witch is single wire at 12V officially. "The ioniser distinguishes between reversible faults (caused by outside influences) and irreversible faults. Both types of fault are detected. The feedback signal is transmitted on the bidirectional line (pulse width modulation)." Source: www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/f10-520d-lim/components-connectors/components/components-with-b/b88-ioniser/XWEl5YS

[@robdawg1017]

I want to see Photonicinduction hook it up to his rig!

[@tncorgi92]

Instant conflagration.

[@zeroyon4562]

@TheBaconHunter Yeah what happened to him? Didn't he get married and go to India?

[@xenonram]

@@zeroyon4562 he got married in India, but supposedly mice back to Britain. He was saying about how his ex didn't support his endeavors, and then goes dark after he marries the Indian broad. So maybe she doesn't support it either. I just hope he's ok.

[@deltab9768]

Yeah, hope he didn't injure his lungs inhaling all that smoke, and hope he didn't get electrocuted ⚡😨⚡

[@jeffreyhebert5604]

I'm only halfway through watching your video however I have total faith that you can hack this..

[@ziggyz8345]

An OZONE generator, why are we not using that on a global scale ???

[@craigladewig3158]

how do you make the zoomed in prints of the pcb's ?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Good lighting and a standard printer.

[@craigladewig3158]

@@bigclivedotcom So thats printed on paper ? Looked like a hard plastic sheet

[@klind57]

You're just a bear poking a wire on. I've heard that so many times in my life.

[@hanleypc]

Is this standard in most BMW with air con?

[@zeroyon4562]

Only 5 and 7 series as well as rolls royce for this particular part number. Maybe it's an option in the 1,2,3etc series.

[@telephony]

Looks like you wrecked your spudger, hahaha!!! :-D

[@jdhtyler]

In the old days I just wound the window down ;-) for a bit of fresh air, when the smell of mould from the damp carpets got too much [Ford Escort mk3 battery tray corrosion - {made a lid for the battery, that stopped it over filling the battery}].

[@Brusselpicker]

BMW = Blown My Wallet.

[@qm3ster]

How to hotwire BMW ...ozone generator