Hyundai Kona EV High voltage junction box

[@ceecrb1]

Weirdest looking oil sump ever!

[@Sixta16]

The connector for the PTC heater, even the other ones, looks a lot like Aphenol ePower-Lite - in case you are wondering what these may be.

[@WalterWhite-pr1qs]

Average bloke: lights a candle Mike's electrics: plugs his car into his house

[@k20nutz]

Oh hell yeah. My gear head and solar geek worlds collide!

[@Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you]

Love the video, very interesting and seriously informative as always!! Did chuckle a bit at 'didn't want to do anything that might mess with the warranty later' whilst uploading a video to a worldwide video platform telling everyone his plans to hack his car........ :P Love your videos!

[@maxtorque2277]

Given the fact the CCS goes "off board" i'd be surprised if there wasn't any welded contact detection in place. Ie if you manually set those CCS contactors shut, the system will pull the battery contactors to "safe" the system (hopefully it doesn't use a pyrotechnic main battery protection system other wise that could be an expensive mistake...........)

[@mikestegen]

Yes that is definately a risk. Reminds me of the excellent teardown video of Ingineerix on the tesla pyrofuses.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

According to the service manual, There is no sensing of the CCS pins past the contactors.

[@edc1569]

That was my immediate concern too!

[@vincei4252]

I like the polka dot fuses.

[@DaveBrown1]

Wow Mike thanks for the look around. Wonder what your going to do with the ~400V DC from the car??? Always strikes me this could feed into a solar inverter then that would sync up onto the 240v AC to feed your home. You would require some logic to enable this feed, else your Kona would be supporting the National Grid ! Thanks for the video Stay safe regards Dave

[@gordonwelcher9598]

400 volts is perfect to power a vacuum tube amplifier for your car stereo.

[@lElektrongeek]

I own an old electric vehicle a Citroën Saxo electrique, the 120V DC from the 12kwh Nicad battery pack is accessible directly on the charge socket

[@HIBAW]

It's crazy neat that the AC compressor runs off the HV side :) I just realized that about my bolt ev as well.

[@pxidr]

Would really like to see the CCS GreenPHY interface, I'm currently working on a DC fast charger, and the CCS protocol is a pain in the butt !

[@mikeselectricstuff]

CCS is handled by a dedicated module : openinverter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1195

[@pxidr]

@@mikeselectricstuff I think this module is only usable at the car side, not the EVSE side. But I can be wrong. Apparently Codico offers modules based on the QCA7005 chip : www.codico.com/en/white-beet-es-evse-slac-bridging-module

[@markjennings2315]

There goes your warranty. Brave man, I always wanted to see what was in there so thanks for taking a hit for the team as it were.

[@antoineroquentin2297]

nicely manufactured parts. no wonder are ev cars so expensive

[@lordozzer9172]

Maybe build something like a charging interface for CCS (uses powerline, there are modules which can do that) which closes the Relays and then let the current go out the CCS port. Watch out for current measurement direction. Good Luck!

[@AAAyyyGGG]

Good point about current measurement but shouldn't be a problem if he's controlling the contractors 'himself'...

[@AKAtheA]

There's also the little issue of being able to draw 100+kW @ 400V of pure DC from the plug if hacked. Things can get...exciting...if something goes wrong.

[@justDIY]

Seems like a lot of wasted / open space inside this junction box? Is that for cooling, or interchangeability with other designs, like the enclosure is generic and used on multiple ev systems?

[@pomprocks]

They probably have plenty of room and aren't worried about a little extra space used up here.

[@AmiranBokhua]

Hi Mike, it's cool you cracking open the car just to check the feasibility of V2L conversion! Can I ask you d you find this vehicle easy to work with in general? I am thinking to buy out my Kona from leasing firm and want your opinion on DIY fixability!

[@Dingbat217]

Yeah definitely see if you can find a way to turn on that contactor so you can feed the battery voltage straight out on the CCS pins, tha way the modification in the car are on the low voltage side only so much safer to implement. One way to signal that a suitable plug was plugged in before you close the contactor would be to tie into the CP / PP lines as that way you could sense a suitable V2L plug was plugged in and automatically close the contactor. The Ioniq 5 does a similar thing that when you plug it in it puts a resistance between E and CP or 60ohm, I think it was, and then the inverter wakes up and provides 230VAc straight out on the L and N pins in the Mode 2 plug, but if it's possible to close the contactor based on CP resistance I would assume so as the CCS plug does that when you go to a DC charger. If you can find out how that is signalled from the plug then just replicate that and you wold get the battery voltage applied straight on the HVDC pins!

[@matthiasobermeyer2135]

I`m thinking of exactly the same! the only thing is, the CCS communication protocol is something like a Powwerline lan communication, and rather complicated to do. Furthermore you need to run the normal CP signal with a certain pulse width, to signal the car that you wanna talk now with this CCS standard, which is essentially HomePlug Green Phy which i don`t know nothing about.

[@bgdwiepp]

Probably monitors voltage drop across the contacts and regulates the power dissipation for the "200A" charge currents

[@90msg90]

Is your car past the warranty period or are you planning to fix it yourself anyway, should any problems occur?

[@SgtSiff]

What's the benefit of parallel (vs one big) fuses? I see it a lot in inverters but have never been sure why.

[@paulaxford6754]

The're not in parallel. Each supplies a separate circuit, HVAC compressor, cabin PTC and on-board charger.

[@flipschwipp6572]

Did you figure out the protocol side of V2G via ISO15118? Or do you tap into the coil voltage of the contactors?

[@mikeselectricstuff]

CCS doesn't support V2G yet, and is a terrible, insanely complex protocol. I'm looking at just closing those contactors!

[@flipschwipp6572]

@@mikeselectricstuff would do the same, whoever wrote that specification and got the idea of using plc, which then needs workarounds for adressing a simple p to p connection should look for another job.

[@michaelcalvin42]

New camera? The 50 FPS is quite nice.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

no, just no editing/rendering

[@4833504F]

I'm very excited to see you do this!

[@Reversed82]

did you find a solution or hard show stopper for this? also curious about it...

[@ohnoitisnt]

Fully on board with this project, 3kw dc out to a grid tie full sine inverter?

[@juliankandlhofer7553]

interesting stuff! i wonder how long it will take for good standards to develop to allow powering external devices from an ev battery. i reckon someone like VW who works closely with bosch might one of the first manufacturers to implement something like this.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Needs to be integrated into EV electronics (Onboard charger) - Hyundai Ioniq5 looks like the way to do it for V2L - V2G is more complicated, if it's worth doing.

[@rkan2]

V2G is pretty well established with Chademo in Japan... Even though they are probably the leader in volume in V2G installations of any country - they are still small numbers and the installs thus aren't cheap (10-20k$/€/£). Nevertheless, I think all Nissan EVs support V2G, where as Teslas don't, even if they have a Chademo adapter.

[@andymouse]

Interesting....cheers.

[@AgentOffice]

Phat bus bars

[@lazerusmfh]

I thought about doing this, but ended up buying the battery packs out of several EVs and making my own pack for my house, about 50kwh capacity

[@grahamparks8885]

Where does the 12V DC-DC connect? How many amps/watts can you get out of it?

[@jaro6985]

12V DC-DC is the lead-acid, connected to cigarette lighter outlet. You'll get at most a kW or so, maybe Kona is higher if it is designed to do this though.

[@davidmcclare443]

hi perhaps it might be worth investigating is there is device to plug in to the ccs that has outputs similar to the v2h (vehicle to home) like the one that the leaf uses (chademo)

[@mikeselectricstuff]

No, because the idiots who created the CCS spec didn't think to include V2x yet

[@brainkod]

@@mikeselectricstuff By summer this year it'll be, it seems: v2g-clarity.com/blog/new-features-and-timeline-for-iso15118-20/

[@detaart]

Sniffing the bus to find what actually closes the contactors might be worth doing.

[@SeanBZA]

Probably easier just to use a pair of diodes to wire "or" in a 12V contact closure signal instead, and then place the controller into the interior with a warning lamp that it is active, perhaps also using a small amount of logic to detect that the non standard plug has been placed into the socket, so the vehicle will not backfeed the supply side by accident. Just has to have some form of electronics driving a coil on the plug side, and a corresponding coil in the socket rear, so that a simple high frequency signal is generated on the one, and the other provides some form of discrimination, perhaps by simply using a 125kHz RFID tag coil both sides, and detecting the tag being present and having a valid recognised serial number to control the relay closing to provide the backfeed supply. That at least has simplicity in it, and also no switch needed, except on the plug, to interrupt the RFID, to provide a safe disconnect method by simply shunting the coil. Press switch, insert, release switch and clunk contactor closes to give DC bus. Plug regular charge unit in and the vehicle responds correctly, you just have to disable the plug presence jumper on the power draw plug, to stop the vehicle responding.

[@trey1531]

What's the best way to convert 400v DC to mains AC?

[@fargogemini694]

Inverter

[@Berkeloid0]

You could try a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) - they run off DC internally so a three-phase unit should accept 400 VDC, but check that it doesn't have any sort of protection that might kick in if it doesn't see AC on the input phases. They produce a PWM square wave output so might need some filtering to get a sine wave but because they are essentially PWM DC they are much cheaper than sine-wave inverters. You can also get second hand computer UPS units that run off a 400 VDC bus. APC have some in the 3-6 KVA range that run off 200 VDC and a few models above 6 KVA that run off 400 VDC that you might be able to use. There are also larger units that come up from time to time of other brands (saw a 120 kW three phase UPS/inverter come up recently for AU$300 but it needed a forklift to move, otherwise I would've bought it.) But being second hand, if they break it could be difficult to get replacement parts so they may not be suitable for some applications.

[@gsuberland]

​@@Berkeloid0 Another alternative, if you're going to run solar or wind alongside it, would be to use a solar charge controller with a high DC input limit and a pair of independent MPPTs. Renewables feed one input, leaving the other available for the EV to plug into when needed. It's nowhere near as cheap as the hacked UPS option, but it's not absurdly priced and it has the benefit of being interoperable with any 48V system.

[@mitchese1]

I was thinking of using a standard solar inverter. Many of them have a max DC input of 800V and will take anything from 200-800V. With an external meter installed directly behind your revenue meter, they can follow the flow of energy at your grid connection point and hold that at zero ... SMA calls this "Zero Export Mode". So Car battery -> Inverter is the only connection required, then everything should just work. I've been planning on doing this with my Zoe, just as soon as I can locate some of the connectors for a decent price.

[@AKAtheA]

the real question should be, do you really need AC? Anything resistive will work on DC, anything with a switchmode power supply already does work on DC, series wound motors will run on DC...only induction motors and steel core transformers need AC. DC-DC voltage conversion is simple and efficient.

[@TobyAsE120]

Im a bit confused. Where did the box come from? The car or is this part of the charger? What exactly are you trying to do?

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Its a box fixed to the side of the inverter. Many EVs have something similar to distribute and fuse the HV supply. I'm looking for a convenient way to get access to the DC battery supply to turn into 230VAC

[@agurdel]

@@mikeselectricstuff Better apply for a patent on it. Imagine every EV to have a 230VAC socket in the trunk. Every EV would become an emergency battery. Sounds like a better idea than that smart-grid back feed stuff. At least better to sell to the consumer.

[@moe.m]

@@agurdel Many EV have a 230V socket. Most of the time it supplies only a few hundred watts though, to not make the inverter too big and expensive.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

@@moe.m Ioniq 5 does 3.6kW, I think the Honda E is about 1500W. Not aware of any others - it's not common (yet)

[@moe.m]

@@mikeselectricstuff Hmm, maybe it's less common than I thought. A friend of mine has a Kia Niro with a 200W AC outlet.

[@m1l4nchee]

Are there any inverters that can be hooked up to 400v EV battery to provide portable power? Most offgrid inverters seem to be built to work 24v/48v battery banks. Only solution appears to be grid tie inverter that needs to be "fooled". Inverters that come with some EVs are very small and work off the 12v which increases losses due to dc-dc conversion. Anyone knows a solution to make some considerable power for running some tools, appliances, for camping etc..

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Yes - found one on Aliexpress but it's rather crude - basically just an H-bridge & LC filter. No isolation, which can be an issue as the EV has isolation monitoring - not sure if this needs dealer tools to reset

[@m1l4nchee]

@Marius Samartean Thanks for sharing this, what car do you own? Is it EV or PHEV?

[@ToumalRakesh]

Petition to change the channel name to "mikeseclecticstuff"

[@SomeFur]

Hah

[@RambozoClown]

Time to go ludicrous?

[@MrNetmask]

moar videoz pleaz

[@charade993]

Hi!

[@lordjaashin]

can you get a screen in front of your mic? your exhaling and breathing sounds dominate the audio and makes it difficult to actually understand your sentences.

[@no_more_free_nicks]

If you like making videos why not to spend 50$ on two cheapest softboxes to light up with soft light your work place?

[@egg5474]

Already stripping your EV to bits I see... And I wouldn't have it any other way

[@eliotmansfield]

Dont drive it….Take it apart!

[@msylvain59]

Damn, I was thinking no later than yesterday "We didn't have a Mikeselectricstuff video for a while"

[@rkan2]

Ah, The Kona teardown Part 1 !

[@zanfr123]

I'd love to see a teardown of the motor (Kia eNiro here)

[@martinlaptop5622]

Glad you posted a new video I’ve really been missing your content

[@groovejet33]

Nice to see a notification from yourself. Around 2009 I started watching you. Outa all my Sub's your one of a few who really know their Onions😉😁 Very knowledgeable about electronics. Most of which is over my head & skill level. But that doesn't stop me enjoying your content. Thank you Mike. All the best for what comes next, in our crazy world.🤔😯😉

[@ssj3gohan456]

So: that HV connector is almost certainly keyed specifically for Kia/Hyundai, and will not be available except for at a breaker yard. You will probably be able to source it at Farnell but find out it's the wrong key. There are typically 6-10 key positions by default. Those contactors indeed are only rated for 120A *breaking capacity*, they're not extra heavy duty. But they're rated for up to 250A continuous. This is extremely common in EV engineering.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Not convinced - the datasheet says 120A switching, 120A continuous, 225A for 3 minutes, 400A for 30 secs, which would imply that heating is the limiting factor. However that rating may be for a wire connection, so the heavy busbars could allow an increased rating due to better thermal conductivity. www.panasonic-electric-works.com/pew/at/de/downloads/ds_61213_en_ev.pdf

[@Galeere2]

@@mikeselectricstuff Does that imply that it might arc and burn if any interlock is opened while fast charging?

[@gsuberland]

Great idea! I've been thinking about local battery backup for grid outages and there are some affordable-ish options, but using an EV is a really good alternative that would cut costs and long-term e-waste. Assuming an average situation of a 60-70kWh EV charged to around 75%, it's about equivalent to 48kWh of AGM deep cycle batteries, which would cost around £5-6k. I was thinking that the high voltage inverter would be the major sinker here, since you'd be spending a big chunk of cash on something that only really works for the specific EV supply scenario, but if you're planning on integrating off-grid power (solar, wind, micro hydro, etc.) you could go the route of using a 450V DC capable solar charge controller. They're kinda pricey - a Victron MPPT RS 450V 100A costs a bit over a grand and gets you 4800VA, and the 200A version is more like £1900 - but they usually come with a pair of independent inputs, so you could run your usual renewables on one line and plug the EV into the other when you need it. You'd get some losses from adding the extra DC-DC conversion step, but converting it down to standard 48V is probably worth it just in terms of flexibility.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

I found a 3000W solar inverter on Aliexpress that can run without a battery, and also a 3000W standalone 350-400DC->230VAC inverter for about US$400. www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001704095436.html

[@gsuberland]

@@mikeselectricstuff Oh, sweet! I'd only really looked at Western market stuff.

[@MoritzvonSchweinitz]

Are these modules designed and built in-house, or are the usual providers like Bosch supplying them? Or did new companies swoop in?

[@mikeselectricstuff]

I think Hyundia/Kia do a lot of their own stuff.

[@69uremum]

He's alive

[@cmjones01]

Interesting to see what's inside. Thank you for publishing this. I've done a lot of work with V2G but only from the Leaf via Chademo. I wrote the software to control the V2G charger for a UK deployment of it. It's disappointing that CCS doesn't support it: the hardware is capable of it, clearly, but the protocol isn't.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

The CCS protocol is utterly ridiculous

[@cmjones01]

@@mikeselectricstuff Fortunately I haven't had to deal with CCS at that level. I haven't heard anything favourable about it! The mode 3 "protocol" is also somewhat ridiculous but at least it's easy to understand.

[@helios_ja]

@@mikeselectricstuff CCS IS THE FUTURE OF CHARGING

[@mx96288]

german home storage solution company is developing v2h with ccs right now. look up E3DC. i think they already have successfully tested prototypes on the audi e-tron platform with 11kW discharge i think. (their biggest home storage unit s10e pro (19.5kWh) can handle up to 12kW output as of right now, thats 9kW from the batteries plus an additional 3kW from solar. they have the batteries and the solar all on a shared DC bus for the inverter, i think they call it trilink technology. the 26kWh option can also offer up to 12kW from the battery alone but is a rather unpopulat choice imo, because the addtional battery cost just drives down ROI and with v2h on the horizon and stationary storage always being more expensive because of economy of scale. they also work with VW as of now to implement v2h on their id3 / id4 platforms. iirc cars delivered in Q4 this year will be v2h ready, but yeah still need the proper standards, monitored DC conduits in the home, etc.

[@mx96288]

i think the standart for bidirectional charging/discharging, which they will try to implement, will be called ISO 15118

[@flipschwipp6572]

Nice to see this technology open and disassembled. There seems to be high potential for simplification and more integrated design. (Junction box can be integrated into battery or Inverter). I recently got an idea which I found out to be called Bipolar Litium cells, which also packs enormous potential for simplification in battery modules, turns out you can ommit the current conductor metal foils and their resistance i you stack cells directly like lasagna.

[@edc1569]

Of course another perspective of simplification might involve using the same inverters across a bunch of different models and just changing the junction box to suit. Arm chair engineering is never a great idea.

[@stevengwilliam8096]

Mike, just thought I would pop a comment onto one of your more recent videos. it was nice of you to stop and have a chat with me at Fully Charged on Friday. We sat just outside the mega theatre for 5 mins whilst I scoffed a cake if you had a chat with a few folks. Hope you get that EV charger to tear down or un-pot an EnPhase micro-invertor. Either would make an interesting video. Cheers, Steve G.

[@Ruudi05]

Good idea and easy to test but what do you think the car battery SOC meter think of it if you would start discharging battery from fast charge plug?

[@brookerobertson2951]

So basically you want to make a powerwall that you can drive..lol. I know that some Honda electric cars have a 240-volt AC output. But I think that it would only be good for a few 100 watts. Also I had an idea about making electric cars grid-tie to store green energy wind and sun for when there's no wind or sun or for peek time needs . And apparently there's a company already trying to do it.. sounds like a good idea but not if consider charge cycles/battery degradation..

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Honda E outlet is rated 1500W.

[@paulkennett]

The charge cycles are typically shallower and gentler in a powerwall setup than a car so the battery degradation is much less of an issue than you'd expect.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

@@paulkennett Yeah, flooring the Kona pulls over 100kW - you're never going to see that on a powerwall!

[@MrMaxyield]

The new Ford lightning electric truck is supposedly able to back feed into your home in case of power loss. Not sure of the particulars but a transfer switch of some sort would be necessary...

[@JohnEnergy2012]

So the contactors were not located in the battery box? Were you able to to tap into the system in order to create a V2L solution? Thinking of doing something similar with a Maxus eDeliver3. Any guidance or tips?

[@Berkeloid0]

Fascinating stuff! If you ever get to the electric motor itself I'd be very interested to find out what kind of voltages they produce when the wheels are turned. I'm wondering whether they are standard three-phase motors (380/400/415V) or whether they are designed for other voltages. I've thought about using them to generate three-phase power but I have no idea what kind of voltages they produce!

[@adamskurt6328]

Buy a Isolar SMVIV5600-48 offgrid inverter and feed the solar input with the battery voltage. 5000W with no problem. Only try to find a safe way to make the High Voltage connection. This is a very cheap V2L solution if constructed on a safe way.

[@ashar011]

I am getting P1A1A fault code and car is not going to drive mode. is there a possibility that junction box is faulty? does it supply energy to car motor?

[@nicolaswannen1743]

Great idea, I want to do the same with my ebike, but the shimano steps battery apparently only delivers power while cycling. Any idea to get around this ?

[@rustblade5021]

i have a nucleotide synthesizer if you want it

[@notsoprotip5806]

Made a PTC port to Inverter MPPT connection but must keep the car on to get V2L. Any tips how to engage the battery only? Thanks for a great vid that gave us power for the next black out!

[@azenzic6297]

The only way to make it run on battery only would be to find a way to close the contractors of the HV battery. You will need to know the voltage of the contractors, most likely 12v, and what circuit controls them. All the cars relays are controlled by the 12v battery. the hardest part of doing this would be to find a way to keep the 12v battery charged while holding the contractors closed or adding a way to inject 12v into the car.

[@azenzic6297]

I would love to see what you have done with the inverter MPPT port!

[@Smidge204]

I did some daydreaming about this myself not that long ago, after I saw that the Ionic 5 has a V2L adapter that plugs into the chargeport - surely it would be possible (though maybe not easily) to convince the car that there's a DCFC charger connected and have it pull in those contactors for you? You would "just" need to emulate the control pilot signal to convince the car your load is actually a DCFC... to paraphrase some famous last words; "It's as simple as that!"

[@erlendse]

Well.. there is the AC charging with PWM signal. And then it's the DCFC running PLC(power line communication) link over the same pin, with IP networking and all.. I do NOT know the details. There is probably a way to tell the car exactly what you are trying to do even!

[@epatto]

Problems arise when the vehicle sees that current is flowing in the wrong direction or that you are not supplying it what it asks for. Instant contactor opening ensues.

[@Smidge204]

@@erlendse DCFS uses a total of five connections: Two for the HVDC link, two for the proximity sense, one for the PWM based communications signal. The big hurdle is more or less in two parts: One, passing the safety checks to ensure the HVDC link is properly made and safe - I believe this is the external charger's responsibility and can maybe be skipped if you like to live fast and die young. Two is making sure you provide the proper DC voltage to the car. The vehicle will tell the charger what voltage the battery is at, and the charger needs to match that voltage before the vehicle will attempt to close its own contactors - obviously it could be really bad if it didn't. The deal breaker is the vehicle may or may not specify how much current the charger is allowed to provide. I'm not totally clear on how this works, but I *think* the car specifies a max current and the charger is obliged to not exceed that - otherwise it would be impossible to charge if the car is asking for/allowing more than the charger can provide. Equally unclear is what happens if the current flow is reversed - could be an absolute freakout.

[@erlendse]

@@Smidge204 For fast charging, HomePlug Green Phy PLC is used on the control pin. It's a full IP network between car and charger. For the AC chargers: The charger give PWM to car, car gives a load on control pin to tell what it want the charger to do. Back to DC: The car give the charger updates on max/set voltage and current as the charging goes on. Just like a smart-battery connected to a smart-charger. There is probably a lot else going on too, like exchanging car and charger details between car and charger. Proximity sensing is likely done with a very short pin so it will disconnect first, taking down the whole charging setup before anything else disconnect. Also the lock release is signaled via that pin.

[@tomsixsix]

DCFC uses GreenPhy, quite a complex protocol to implement yourself, and plenty of sanity checking from the car's end. Who knows if it detects negative current it may well go 'FAULT' and throw those contactors...

[@error079]

How has cars with Vehicle to Grid solved this problem?

[@moe.m]

Exacly like Mikes idea in the End - they are connected trough the charge port.

[@rkan2]

Chademo is not that different from CCS... DC is DC. Chademo has V2G standardized and Nissans also implement it.