User:Arsharpe/drafts/berlingo fault finding1

Resetting The Control Unit

A resolution to some problems is to reset the control unit as follows,

1. Turn off the engine
2. Remove the main fuse of the traction batteries (situated behind the block of the electronics, cfr. photo 1 - To)
3. Undo the negative terminal of the 12v service battery (the screw in green plastic, cfr. photo 1 - B)
4. wait 5 minutes.
5. Reattach the negative terminal of the 12v service battery (photo 1 - B)
6. Photos 1 re-insert the main fuse of the traction batteries (- To).

IMPORTANT!! DO NOT INVERT the POINTS 2-3 And 6-7!!

photo 1) under the cowling of a Citroên Saxo electric car

The car charges to 50% and then the Electrical Fault lamp lights. It cannot then be charged any more

Cause

The cooling system pump is the most used part of the vehicle. In fact it works both during the charge phase and when the car is moving. They normally need replacing after about 20'000 Km. The result is that the temperature in the traction-batteries increases beyond the specification and the electronic control panel blocks the charging.

Official solution

Leave the car where it is and call the ACS (swiss roadside assistance) to have your car towed to a garage…In practice you’ll be left without your car.

Proposed solution

Switch on the pump? And open the bonnet. You will find the pump to the right of the radiator. When it is working the pump emits the classic buzz of these vehicles. If you can’t hear it, try dabbing the pump engine with a monkey wrench, and the pump will start working again. The light will anyway stay on and you will not be able to re-charge. The mechanic will say that a reset of the control unit will be needed, and therefore you will definitely have to drive your vehicle to the garage.

See ??? for process to reset control unit.

Therefore you will have at least two or three weeks to replace at your leisure, and without “troubling” the ACS (swiss roadside assistance), the water pump. Conclusion: every ca. 20' 000 Km you have to spend ca. 250.-CHF in order to replace the entire pump (mostly labour with only a small amount of parts). This is just because it is not possible to replace the brushes in the pump engine!!! (any such engine has slots for the brushes which can be replaced). Could the vehicle have been equipped with a pump with induction motor, maybe twice as much expensive, but which will in fact not require any maintenance for the duration of the car’s life?

The cooling fan does not stop.

This can seem like a faulty water temperature sensor (which also happens in conventional vehicles...).

Official solution

If capacities the car in garage, you sostituiranno scatoletta containing the electronics of management of the impeller (scatoletta in embedded black plastic through a support on the right of the block in aluminium). I do not know the exact cost of replacement, but it is surely not cheap.

Proposed solution

Perform a "reset" of the electronic control panel as described in case a) above (points from 1 to 6). Like magic, and without any cost, the pump will work normally. In fact in most cases it is probably a bug in the water cooling system software.

Conclusion

in general, if you believe you have an issue with electronics, try solving it with the reset method (see points 1 to 6 in case a above). Most probably, if you take your car to a garage, they will connect the control unit to the diagnostic equipment and, although in a different way, they will do the same (they will reset the control unit).

The charger enters in short circuit and becomes unusable. For the rest the car works perfectly.

When connected the car to the taken one of loads, the valve jumps.

Official solution

They will say that it must completely replace the block of the electronics, why draft to you of an only difficultly repairable unit. Cost of the operation: 9000 CHF for the block of electronics + job etc.!!!!

Proposed solution

1. Remove, extracting it completely and store in a safe place, the main fuse of the traction batteries (cfr photo over, fuse A) (in the picture). This operation is most important in order to avoid risk of electrocution !!
2. Make sure that the recharge cable is disconnected from the vehicle.
3. Remove the cover of the electronic block, simply remove the screws along the edge (it is not necessary to drain the cooling water as it is in a different circuit).
4. At this point the situation looks like photo 2:
photo 2) the block of the open electronics
5. A filter is installed on the 220 v input circuit before connecting with the actual charger. In this case the filter has gone short circuit and is burnt. It has been enough to remove the filter and to connect the charger directly, and everything started to work perfectly. And this in two hours of job and without any replacement parts.
photo 3) the filter damaged and in short circuit

Conclusions

1. we do not think that all the battery charger failures are due to the short circuit of the filter, however also in this case the "foreseen cure" in garage was the complete substitution of the electronic block, for the “moderate” price of 9000 CHF......
2. As can be seen from the photos, the electronics are not structured in a single block, but are placed in several separate cards (charger, electronic of power, inverter, card of regulation.....) surely individually replaceable or, even better, repairable…

The motor goes in jerks or it does not recharge in reduction

Official solution

Complete substitution of motor block (3000 CHF + job etc....)

Proposed solution

This behavior can be caused by components other than the motor, for example oxidation of the accelerator potentiometer. In the general the problem due to wear in the carbon brushes of the traction motor, and, unfortunately in some cases, also from the wear of the manifold.

The motor mounted on the models Peugeot and Citroên is a Leroy-Somer, and even if it is produced specifically for these two Companies, it is subject to the direttive generali di manutenzione rilasciate da L-S per tutti i suoi motori DC (general maintenance directives released by L-S for each of their electric motors) (do not trye to contact Leroy-Somer about this produc, they will say that it is an exclusivity of PSA, and therefore they are in duty bound not to disclose any data or information...). As explained in the directives cited, to second of I use, the motor commutator needs regular repaire to ensure good operation. In term of costs this translates mostly to labour hours, as no parts need to be replaced. In order to allow the turning of the commutator, the rotor must be extracted from the motor, and therefore the motor needs to be completely removed.

This job has been executed on a motor with ca. 60' 000Km of distance, and has given optimal turns out to you. After a year the machine works better than from new..... Because this job takes a relatively long time to complete, we have prepared an offer for EcoVelClub associates: Currently we have a spare motor, deposited near the Garage Brambilla di Camorino, our mechanic of confidence. EVC associates who have commutater problems will be able to go to our mechanic of confidence (the same one that has already executed the job a year ago), who will take apart their motor and will reassemble the motor repaired for a cost of ca. 350 CHF. The EVC will later on have the motor which was taken apart rectified, and they will make it available again to the associates. For more information please contact us at comitato@ecovelclub.ch

Conclusions

The brazen and crazy policy of Peugeot regarding this problem does not need further comments. Also the press have had the opportunity to deal with this issue. The answers received from Peugeot have always been superficial, or even ungrounded! The better thing is to try one solution alternative that scavalchi the same producer, without falling in pathetic exchanges of accusations and refutation. The attitude of Peugeot is clear in the fact that the company has decided to completely withdraw and to destroy a defective motor replaced under warranty, rather than yield it to us (we were even available to pay for it …)

Substitution of the carboncini, you knew it?

Those of you who have been informed, since the beginning, of the necessity to replace the carboncini (small carbon elements???) of the traction motor of every ca. 25' 000 Km, please leave a message in the forum.....

Frankly, even I when I bought my electric car, was fooled by Peugeot advertisement at that time: - "a electric motor will go a million kilometers without servicing!!" – This slogan could have served to cover the fact you had to pay 220 CHF a month for the batteries, but which surely was not good to justify when in the water pump and battery maintenance invoice (see case A) you get charged also for the “carbon elements” replacement (250 CHF plus labour). Now, we realize that the “carbon elements” are built to the maximum precision to allow the motor to work at its best, anyway we think that 250 CHF for 4 small carbon pieces is too much.

Proposed solution

The Casram, Company from Ticino Canton, are a good electric motor brush manufacturer. If you want to purposely replace the brushes (4 pieces) with the produced equivalent Casram (devised for us), you can order the part number 05.103226, at the price of CHF 81,55 (Vat and enclosed expenses), that is to ca. 1/4 of the proposed price from Peugeot. To make sure you can check check the detailed invoice presented by Casram.

Conclusions

If you want to avoid problems with the brushes (case c)), replace them, and do not wait for them to be replaced suddenly during a scheduled service. Replacing the carbon brushes every ca. 15000 Km will avoid many troubles with the comutator. Moreover, using the Casram products, it will cost you less than replacing them with the original products every 25000 km.

Where Can I Get My Batteries Serviced

You can have your batteries serviced at any PSA electric car dealer. Therefore you can go to a Citroen dealer (and viceversa)

Like resolving the problem of the autonomy lessening (cause cold batteries) in winter

In winter the batteries deliver little energy, in particularly cold days. It has even been found to have a max speed of 15 Km/h when the charge state pointer indicates still 35%. The reason is that the cold inhibits the reaction of the batteries, and the maximum is less than in summer.

There is a simple solution to this: The water cooling system is an important element in this type of vehicle; it avoids the power electronics overheating, the charger and the batteries. Normally the NiCd elements, in order not to deteriorate, shall not be warmed up to more than 45-50 °C.

In winter, the cooling system is too affective, and cools the batteries too much. A solution to this is (as used on the old vehicles), is to cover the radiator. Since the radiator never exceeds temperatures of 40 °C, you can wrap it with a simple plastic bag, after disconnecting the cooling fan. With the reduced cooling system effectiveness, and the heat dissipated from the electronics is used in order to heat slightly the batteries, allows you to have a perfectly comparabile performance with that of summery. The operation is not critical, in how much is the electronics that the batteries ulteriorly are protect from temperature sensors that will block the vehicle if they overheat. You must only make attention to two items:

• not left to support the plastic bag on the Webasto, to the left of the radiator. In fact, if used the heating, the webasto rather catches up elevated temperatures.
• do not disconnect the pump of circulation of the water. In this case you would risk to damage the electronics.

This winter sagacity has allowed me to cover the Claro-Airolo distance with the same consumption of energy, as in summer (+24 °C) that in winter (-3°C).

If turn the key in ignition position, STOP light is relit endured and the car cannot move

At the moment of the ignition, the vehicle performs some safety checks:

• check that the driver’s door is shut. If the door is open, or the switch is damaged, the car will not move. Check the state of the door and the switch.
• check that accelerator is at “zero”. In order to avoid a uncontrolled departure, the electronics control that the potenziometro connected to the accelerator it is found in position zero. Check that the pedal of the accelerator is not pressed and that goes back to the end (mat). In case of problems check the state of the potentiometer.
• if the two solutions described above do not resolve the problem, try to move the vehicle slightly by hand. If this does not work, then the problem is more serious than the previous one (could be the traction battery main relay, if you do not feel the classic “clunk” when the ignition is switched on).

Avoiding Problems With Batteries

Not everything that happens to the batteries is due to the memory effect. The true memory effect, i.e. a slow reduction of the batteries capacity, can be countervailed by executing a series of complete charges and discharges, and it is not an irreversible effect.

In the relationship written up from the Danish committee for the vehicles electrical workers, clearly it is documented like the series of batteries STM5-100 produced from SAFT between 1984 and the 2000 had a serious problem related to the quality of the separator used to in the cells. This phenomenon often leads to a shortcircuit of the battery element, with remarkable loss of power in a few weeks. The details of the investigation can be found in the following link, unfortunately at the moment in English. Anyway, from the conclusions you can understand how Peugeot and Citroen have adopted also in the Scandinavian countries the same “pass the bucket” policy!!

The described phenomenon is more common in the case of the use of batteries with an insufficient level of electrolyte. To this purpose recording is necessary on the modality of gauge of the level of water in the batteries: All the customers of Peugeot and Citroen electric vehicles know that, at relatively regular periods, the battery liquid level indicator switches on, and the car batteries need to be serviced. However, the indicator light does not depend directly on the level of the liquid in the batteries, but from the number of recharge cycles from the mains charger. In practice the factory has estimated the hypothetical electrolyte evaporation from the batteries during a cycle of recharges, therefore establishing approximately the reduction in level for each recharge. This is a practical system given the technical complication of measuring the level in 20 batteries, but does not keep in mind a factor that can be a important; the partial charges. In fact, if you load the car to es. to 95% and then you stop, the counter will not record a complete charge.

Imagine executing 50 consecutive recharges to 95%: for the control level the batteries are still full of liquid..... but you in truth travelled to dry! (with the possibility that the problem described above has taken place....).

In order to contrast this problematic one, you can use the following expedients:

• try, where possible, to discharge and to recharge completely the batteries (improves also the performance)
• avoid long periods of vehicle inactivity. It is demonstrated that the vehicles the electrolyte uses you regularly has little problems than battery (evaporates even if the vehicle is firm)
• Check the liquid level at least once every 4 months, even if the indicator is not light.
• Verify that the production date on your batteries is after 2000, the year in which SAFT finally decided to correct the battery manufacturing defect. Eventually you can try to turn to the official importer of batteries SAFT for the Swiss

Diagnostic Unit

Finally a diagnostic apparatus at a reasonable price is available that, connected to the CAN-bus of the vehicle, allows reading of the parameters of the traction batteries (voltage, amperage, temperature, distributed power and average consumption for Km, hours of overcharge of the traction batteries). The apparatus allows the battery maintenance charge to be started and resetting of the water indicator. The apparatus has been developed by Evan Tuer, and it can be acquired by visiting http://www.tuer.org.uk/evs2/evlite.html and is supplied with a instruction manual detailing how to maintain the traction batteries. The translation of the handbook to Italian, for work at our club, is supplied in pdf format from following link: evlite3.pdf. In order to allow the associates of the EcoVelClub to perform the battery maintenance, we have acquired a unit located near our garagista of confidence, Sig. Brambilla, to Camorino. Our club also has been equipped with a new modern unit for the production of demineralized water. This is located near the garage of the Sig. Brambilla to Camorino, and allows the production of fresh demineralized water. This therefore guarantees the maximum quality of water for the batteries.

photo 4) the Evlite installed on my Peugeot 106 and.

The apparatus allows the reading of the traction battery parameters, and to execute the maintenance services.

The EVlite, including connector adapter to top up the battery liquid and the customs, costs approximately 87- CHF The purchase is possible visiting the page of Evan Tuer http://www.tuer.org.uk/evs2/evlite.html or through our club directly.

IMPORTANT: To prolong the battery life, we advise to refill with distilled water every 500 Ah of overcharge rather than every 1000 Ah as recommended by the Peugeot service. The number of overcharge hours is available from the EVlite.