Network | The Chez

The J1772 inlet has been installed onto the tail end of the CitiCar. I no longer need to unlock the trunk and drag out a socket on the end of a long cord to plug in.

The body of the car only offers a few places to put the socket. My original goal was to install it next to the exiting inlet for power from the house. The area surrounding it was obstructed by the door hinges on the inside, or had “electric” written in vinyl on the outside of the car.

I settled for a ridged area by the passenger tail light in the back. There are holes by the contactors that were originally used for the battery and motor cables. I can thread the cable from the adapter to the charger.

CitiCar J1772 Installation

Removing Wires

A fuel gauge from a CitiCar reads from 14 to 19 volts

I removed the three wires from the battery compartment all the way to the dashboard. One was already identified as being for the volt meter. The thicker wires were discovered to lead up to the charger.

While I was at it, I removed the volt meter and found that it had a round hole in the dashboard behind it as opposed to a square hole to match its shape. The hole is too small for the AiLi volt meter. I would prefer to keep the original volt meter and try to control the voltage fed to it with an Arduino to represent the capacity rather than the voltage.

Wiring Harness

Wires brought back to the battery box through a split loom

Wires were thread from the font of the car to the battery compartment through a split loom zip-tied to the aluminum frame. I drilled a hole slightly behind and to the left of the throttle to pass all of the wires through. They connect up to the motor controller and the reversing switch. Short extensions were setup for each connection so that I don’t need to reach into tight spaces to disconnect the wires.

Fix spliced wire with a network keystone jack

When I was trimming the excess split loom tube within the CitiCars battery box, I cut through one of the cables still inside. It was the AiLi battery monitor cable. The cable contains 4 tiny wires, surrounded by strands of what appears to be another line acting as a shield. I had some left over networking Cat6 connectors and keystones and wires up each side to make a solid connection.

Battery monitor still works after fixing wire with network connectors

I was able to hook one of the Chevy volt batteries up with a dc-to-dc converter and a light to confirm that the AiLi meter was reading the correct voltage and change in current as I flipped the switch on and off.

This wasn’t so bad after all. I would have probably ended up doing this anyway. The wire was too short to reach the shunt to begin with. Now that everything has a network connector, I can create an extension cord to reach the shunt in its final position.

Racing Use Only

One of my favorite pieces of flair is the racing switch panel for a car that can’t go faster than 35 mph. I got out my old label maker and labeled the different switches. Each switch is a project on its own.

AMPS

The “AMPS” is the “User Mode” wire on the motor controller to let it switch driving profiles. A driving profile can change the maximum amps the motor is allowed to draw.

START

I’m considering how to approach this. I have the CitiCar play a sound of an engine revving up to race, or play a random list of custom sounds.

RUN

The run switch is to turn on the 12 volt DC-to-DC 12 volt converter to use the lights, fans, horn, etc. The car will not operate without this being flipped up.

3SPD

The is going to setup the car so that the motor controller only sees three different positions when the throttle is pressed. It will also allow the original contactors to activate. It will mimic the speed and sound of the original motor controller in the CitiCar.

RDO

This is the power to turn on the radio and amp.

In other news

I ordered some battery side terminals that another C-Car owner has proposed.

I purchased another SW202 switch, but with 48 volt coils. I will no longer need to use relays to provide 12 volt power to the coils.

I’ve composed a document asking the community for help setting up a maker space and talked to a couple people about it.

Hello,
I need help setting up a “Maker Space” within, or near the town of Front Royal, Virginia.
A maker space is a collaborative workspace with a wide variety of equipment available to use that would otherwise be inaccessible to the general public due to costs, electrical requirements, zoning, noise, ventilation, and space. A maker space may consist of a wood shop, machine shop, electronics workstation, 3D printers, computers, embroidery machines, and even Lego building blocks. This educational building’s purpose will be to have fun making stuff, and learn from others making stuff.
I attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1994, majoring in Industrial Design Technology on a scholarship. I long for the days having access again to a large workshop with a very wide range of industrial equipment. I also went to Mineral County Technical Center in West Virginia for Carpentry, and loved the computer lab along with the art, shop, and mechanical drafting classes throughout middle and high school. My profession took off with the information technology (IT) industry programming software, but I have always retained my creativity making things at home.
Like many others, I often find myself justifying the need to purchase a new tool, machine, or a large surplus of supplies that may have limited use to me. Afterwards, these products collect dust in the garage until someone “borrows” it, to then collect dust in their own garage. As tools, materials, and past projects accumulate, it becomes difficult to find space to store them while keeping my workspace clear of debris.
Some maker spaces not only provide a workshop, but also rent out storage and artist spaces for your own personal work area or show room within the building, providing members 24/7 access. In addition, many offer classes and training, including STEM educational programs.
I can not do this alone. I have a goal, but this is bigger than me. My intent is to set this up as a non-profit organization. Because a maker space can expand and offer such a wide range of equipment and materials to adults and children, I am looking for help from the community.
● Form a board of directors and a mission
● Draw out makers already within the community
● Identify community needs & interests
● Provide ideas & imagination
● Find funding & sponsorship
● Consolidate and acquire equipment, tools, and materials
● Find a location for light industrial use
Please contact me if you can help,
Lewis Moten
(###) ###-####
********@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/lewis.moten
Lewis Moten, October 15, 2020, Maker Space Proposal

This evening has been full of research. I was looking at how to get different devices to communicate together with an Arduino or two monitoring temperature, voltage, speed, and so on. I then started looking to see if Arduino could somehow emulate a cars OBD2 drive so I could pretend I had a modern car that reported on what was going on under the hood

One thing led to another and it was a pretty nice eureka moment coming to the understanding of what CAN Bus and OBD2 (OBDII) actually were – and that I could just use CAN itself to communicate to each Arduino device on its network, and expose that on the standard adapter that everyone plugs into.

Set into car

I recall seeing things in the head unit regarding CAN bus. I started looking into how to resolve the “Set into car” button where it would tell me “No original vehicle setting function”. I went into Factory Settings and then looked at the first item – protocol settings. From within, I saw the title of the app was actually “CAN set”. I was onto something!

Quite a few of the brands were unfamiliar. Raise, Hiworld, BNR, XBS, XINPU, Daojun, Oudi, Ruishengwei, HCY, Hechi, Ansheng, Bagu, Luzheng, Anyuan, NFCK, LH, CML … okay, all brands were unfamiliar. I’m assuming some of these are the Pronunciations of Chinese words. Perhaps Oudi is actually Audi, or maybe these are different protocols that sit on top of CAN bus.

I started poking around and saw “Raise” had an entry for “Electric car”. I selected that and went with the only option JRYG-M2 which had a can ID of 1034001.

I was able to go back to the car settings and click “Set into car”. Sure enough, it went ahead and showed me a new screen for an electric car.

I had quite a few icons that led me to see temperatures, voltages, torque, current, etc. It was all blank – but it was something. It was waiting for communications to be sent over the CAN bus.

CAN bus RAISE Electric car JRYG-M2 car settings

Wires

Rudimentary steering wheel controls on breadboard

Now we are at the last part – where are the wires to hook up the CAN bus? I think this is where the steering wheel controls for KEY1 and KEY2 come into play. I think without CAN, these two wires are treated the same, simply for generic SWC with a 0-5k resistance to ground. I suspect that KEY 1 and KEY 2 are CAN High and CAN Low wires.

Implementation

I’m under the impression that I just need to look at the OBD2 format of a few setting sand test sending it over the CAN bus to verify it the device starts picking it up. Once that part is done – actually acquiring the data is a fairly heavy task as well.

Playing with CAN is another project on its own. I think eventually I’ll look into playing with CAN modules later. I’ve seen quite a few gadgets to hook up Arduino’s over the network using an TJA1050 CAN controller interface chip. One model I’ve seen is LDTR-WG0210, compatible with the ISO 11989 standard.

Update

I just received a reply from the seller with a manual for A2222 Android Products Operation Manual: Android Interface Instruction. It’s much better than what came with the device. I’ve worked out quite a bit of it on my own already, but it’s nice to see a confirmation that I went in the right direction. This is what they say about features related to canbus:

Support steering wheel control (don’t support cars need a canbus)

They also replied directly this is a universal double din car stereo, and that if my car needs a canbus, it will not support the steering wheel control.

I think I’m out of luck. I was hoping I could choose to either have those two KEY wires for either SWC or CAN bus – like you could only choose between the two, but used SWC by default until the canbus settings were setup. It would have made more sense of why the same resistance on both of the KEY wires couldn’t be mapped to two separate steering wheel controls.

I could go ahead and try to experiment later with canbus just to make sure, but by that time, I may just go with another radio that does support it.

5pcs CAN Bus Module Transceiver TJA1050 Controller Schnittstelle Board for Arduino

MCP2515 CAN Bus Module TJA1050 receiver SPI For 51 arduino Diy Kit MCU ARM controller

MAX6675 Module + K Type Thermocouple Thermocouple Sensor Temperature Degrees Module for arduino

1PCS NEW SN65HVD230 CAN Board Network Transceiver Evaluation Development Module

DS18B20 Temperature Sensor Module Kit Waterproof 100CM Digital Sensor Cable Stainless Steel Probe Terminal Adapter For Arduino

Super Mini ELM327 Bluetooth Interface V2.1 OBD2 II Auto Diagnostic Tool ELM 327 Work ON Android Torque/PC

Products seen (not purchased) during research

The Chez

Tag Archives: Network

J1772 Inlet