For all guys complaining about complexity: Renault Zoe is manufactured since 2012, so the design was probably started around 2008. That is the year when Musk joined Tesla...
My Citroen saxo electric from 2004 (designed in 1994) is way more complicated than this ! it uses 120v DC from a NI-Cad watercooled pack and an Brushed 20kw motor
I dug into a much newer design iteration of the Zoe powertrain. In fact it was a Smart EQ where the drivetrain should be identical to the Renault R90 or R110 design (not sure which one exactly). In comparison to your Q90/Q210 revision the motor design seems to be the same but the power stage was much more streamlinied and more easy to take apart. Pretty much any custom semiconductor package got replaced with of the shelf packages. If you like to see comprehensible photos of my teardown just poke me. Great video BTW!
I'm a sparky and don't really know much when it comes to electronics. But I've learnt a lot from watching you, Dave and Clive. Even though I wouldn't know where to start on making something, even if its the most basic thing out there. I've fixed and repair many electronics over the years, but it's just replacing components and doing visual inspections. As I don't own a scope or a frequency generator and only own a few cheap DMM's and a competent tester. Then I'm pretty limited 😕 I struggle even more these days due to my motorbike accident, which gave me a brain injury so I struggle to learn and retain information. I even struggle doing my job, as I spend 3-4 times as long doing things. I haven't had a job since and I need to get back into the swing of things as I enjoy working (all depending on the job that is). Even though I can only do bench work these days due to loosing a leg and not being able to wear a normal prosthetic due to my pelvis being so badly damaged. I also know that people would not want to employ me as companies want to make money. And when you've got someone who's constantly asking the same questing over and over again and taking ages doing it. Then they'll soon make up some BS up to get rid of me. Even though the government has got plans in to employ disabled people. They'll soon pick someone who doesn't have all the issues I've got, anyday over me. Which as you can imagine, really doesn't help with my mental health 😪😔 FML Sorry. Went off on a tangent there 😕
Some lead designer got a huge budget and unlimited play time to make this happen. It is impressive from an engineering point of view but each of those custom parts is a vertical, one-off design that would have added a huge amount of cost, time and assembly complexity to the final product. The art is in using standard parts and techniques while perhaps compromising a certain amount to achieve design goals that can be reused and adapted to future changes. The majority of what you showed here is single-product use that's highly dependent on specific components and materials. Likely no easy way of upgrading or even slightly modifying to adapt to future requirements. Thanks for the depth of the video! It's hard to come across this level of quality tear-downs and insightful walk through of modern electronics. Much appreciated.
It’s a combination of high voltage, automotive, consumer. It better be over-engineered to hell and back. Imagine if instead of your phone battery bursting into flames, it’s your car...
25:27 the metal plates effectively canceling out inductance between snubber capacitor and igbt brick. Only purpose is to save IGBTs from damaging voltage spikes
All Renault Zoe models support 22kW charging via the Type 2 AC connector. Certain models support 43kW charging, these are the “Q” models, for the 22kWh battery the Q210 and for the 41kWh battery the Q90. The new 52kWh battery model only supports 22kW AC but has the option to add 50kW DC charging via a CCS connector. The combination of 22kW Type 2 AC and CCS is quite a good choice and gives you a lot of options when charging. It also means you have a fairly rapid fallback if the CCS isn’t working and there is an AC alternative on the same unit.
Yes. All of the french auto manufacturers do. Since the beginning. If you want to change the bushings in the rear axle of a 60's Peugeot 204 you need literally half a ton of quite esoteric special tools. No chance to get away without. For the rear end of a Mercedes Benz of that vintage you need a few wrenches, a few lengths of pipe and a big ass hammer. If you are fancy, maybe a foot of ready rod and some nuts.
@@albinklein7680 Yes, my father was a service centre for Citroen, and every new model year they would send him, along with the quarter ton of printed catalogues for the new models, the set of new special tools that you would absolutely need to do anything to the vehicles other than check the oil. He had one customer who would put his vehicle on a truck and drive it 5 hours for it's service. Selling a half dozen vehicles in a year back then for the area was a lot, though my mother always loved her Citroen's, always getting to drive a slightly used one that was otherwise in good condition. But to change a wheel bearing without the special spanners would be near impossible, unless you also had your own machine shop, to build the thin wall high strength steel parts needed.
Oh yes. Those thin walled high-strength-/stress parts still scare me a bit after more than 30 years in Business. To change the ball joints in the front axle of a Mercedes sprinter you need about 20 metric tons of pressure. And the 'meat' on the control arm where you have to apply that pressure is about 1.5millimeters. I am really glad that the hydraulic ram with which I do that kind of stuff has a looooooong extension hose...
To return to the topic: The electric renaults of the 90s also needed tons of special tools. I had a Clio electrique once and to check and adjust the electrolyte level in the NiCad Battery cells you needed a vacuum pump, a sh*tload of plumbing and hoses (proprietary connectors iirc.) and a lot of time. And don't forget your safety gear. Caustic potassium hydroxide solution splashing everywhere. That was a real pleasure to do every month or so.
So cool to see car parts! Definitely do more of them, it is very interesting to see what technologies different manufacturers use in their electric vehicles. It is also interesting to know what solutions could be described as "modern" or "old" to see which manufacturers are best at their solutions. Good job, thank you for the video.
The aux contacts on the AMP/TE orange power interconnects are primarily for a software independant disablement of the HV DC in order to protect anyone foolish enough to remove those plugs with the power on! Uuually, the main battery contactors source there 12v power, required to hold them shut, via this safety chain, so as you start to lift the latch and remove the mating half of the connector, the aux contacts open first, which drops out the those contactors and effectievly isolates the system. It then takes a suitable diagnostics tool to software re-enable them (ie just putting the connector back together does not restore power....)
At what point can you consider yourself a b-list internet celebrity? eev-blog, pistonheads, countless others.... Just start uploading stuff or something
still some of the best teardowns on youtube with lots and lots of really good tips to learn about tearing down and understanding the engineering behind this thanks a lot and keep it up
An excellent and informative video. I'm glad that when charging failed on my 2013 ZOE a couple of years ago, the extended warranty covered the replacement of this unit, otherwise the car would have been a write-off.
Absolutely brillant reverse engineering, Mike. For a long time I was hoping to see a proper teardown and analysis of some EV power electronics. Here we go :)
All "AFAIK": The PEB is only connected to the E CANbus I can figure out the other pins on the black connector if you wish. DCDC converter is indeed 1kW (80A) The pre-charge relay is actually in the battery pack. 80 ohms. GREAT video!
There are definitely other CAN buses that go on to the board as there are more CAN transceivers - don't recall if it's one or two in addition to the one that the OBD2 bus links to no idea if they are actually used though
@@mikeselectricstuff I dug into the wiring scheme and lo and behold there is indeed a wire pair that was never mentioned in the tech manuals. The black connector is wired like this: - E CANbus (this does not go to the OBD2. It is gatewayed over the EVC to the V CANbus which is on the OBD2) - X CANbus ( with a direct link to the BCB. I speculate this is used to synchronise things during charging. It might not even be a CANbus, but the teardown suggests it is. This speculation is fed there being ZERO documentation on it's data content, while the other busses are) - 12 V (20 A fused and 7.5 A fused) 2 x 5 wires to the motor assembly (well, 4 + shielding, I am assuming dual position sensors, or single + interlocks, that is not entirely clear)
The zoe doesnt have any permanent magnets in the motor, they didnt want to make themselves dependent on limited neodymium supply from china. I bet it also saved them some money in the motor. Its quite interesting that the zoe charges through the motor, I never knew that before. My mom owns one and its definetly quite loud while charging, especially when you are sitting outside right next to it.
Permanent magnet motors have losses due to magnetic field always being full strength - so average efficiency is compromized (although they are typically more efficient at full power and more compact).
Very interesting! Thanks This makes it pretty clear why they're so expensive (something like £5k if you wanted to replace one as a full unit outside of warranty, I believe) and also a good illustration to counter those who say there's "nothing to go wrong" in an EV (it's less likely as it's all solid state stuff, but plenty that *could* go wrong one way or another). The combination highlights the importance of extended warranty or similar insurance. Seems very well made with decent components which counters some of my previous musings that "it's a cheap EV so it's less reliable" (had a couple of teething troubles with mine but thankfully with good support), sometimes just "stuff happens" and you're unlucky but you can see that there's plenty of stuff that can go faulty and plenty of ££ required to fix it if you're not covered.
Exactly so what is the resale value ? Nil would be my guess... Also I wonder what the insurance say about the number of these things that mysteriously catch fire, no I don't mean electrical faults, i mean someone faced with a £5k repair bill on a car that is worth less than £5k realizing a box of matches only cost 10p.
@@cuckingfunt9353 resale value of mine is about £7k at the moment. I bought it for £6.7k 2 years ago. This is due to increasing demand for EVs especially ones that people can actually afford ;) Risky business insurance fraud as is owning an EV without extending the warranty but, I will be upgrading mine before the 10 year warranty limit is up and then it's someone else's problem. I expect by then there will be plenty of spares around along with HEVRA associated independent repair shops but I also think if it does become an issue we'll see some sort of "comprehensive plus" insurance that covers electromechanical breakdown in EVs Bear in mind £5k is a dealer price for a brand new full unit. Even the main dealers are allowed to open these up now and repair/replace components which should bring the job down a few k.
Very interesting teardown. I helped tesla figure out the manufacturing process for the model 3 drive inverter. It's a wildly different construction, much simpler to this unit. Under NDA I can't go into much detail, but teardowns exist for it
I'm really surprised with the amount of high tech components, processors and other IC's, I expected there would be just some extremely beefy diodes, transistors and inductors, and nothing else :)
With those massive currents involved and the fact that this is an automotive device, it is key to always monitor everything and to fail safely. Since this handles the entire motor control, this is not unexpected. Just have a look at an ECU of a conventional car. It's quite complicated too.
@@0xbenedikt Yeah, I expect ECU to be extremely advanced, but I thought this is just a DC-DC converter with motor driver circuit, and ECU is a separate unit. It makes sense if this basically controlls entire car.
Those rivet plugs are pure evil, considering the rest is nice Torx screws. I work in industrial electronics, its amazing to see them so compact considering the power. Water cooling is a must, some of the VFD's we repair put out 4KW+ of heat.
you say that, but as an auto electrician I see their value (and I think they are shear bolts) .. they protect HV bus bar connections, an in-knowing person could undo a torx cap and stick a screwdriver (or finger i guess) into a live circuit. admittedly sheer bolts are a bit extreme, fittings like the pentagon are often used to protect fixtures the average joe shoudlnt touch. an example is spring detents on gearboxes, undo one of them and you have a ballbearing rolling around your gearbox. these are usually pentagon or security torx or the like or as mike pointed out the pentagon nuts used on certain brake calipers, these allow faster changing of the pads if removed BUT they are never and should never be removed during normal service. You have to remember you need no qualifications to work on vehicles.
@@denisohbrien Yea! Very good point, I forgot to take into account it there is a giant battery across those screws lol. But having absolutely no way of re-opening it is a little stupid, but then, you would just replace the whole module wouldn't you... Maybe they should have made them "triangle" drive, and have the electrical "lightning" symbol embossed into the bottom of it, you at least then have a visual clue of what you are undoing. Well at least until you vaporize your screwdriver in your face 😁
Thanks for taking the inverter apart Mike. I'd love for you to examine other inverters as well. Would be super interesting to look at the different architectures.
I have a 2010 bmw 7series high voltage motor inverter. I can some diagrams for it and it’s mostly working. It’s vin locked but still works. We replaced it due to the hour usage on it and bmw didn’t want it coupled with the new drive unit we installed. If your interested I would like to see it on the channel.
25:10, Circulating currents also cause excess heat, thats one of the reasons metal transformer cores are made from many thin layers instead of one big chunk of metal.
the metal plates effectively canceling out inductance between snubber capacitor and igbt brick. Only purpose is to save IGBTs from damaging voltage spikes
Here are some other inverter teardowns Tesla Model S: ua-cam.com/video/VZVQIeW1xP4/v-deo.html (The actual teardown starts at around 1:40:00) Chevrolet Bolt: ua-cam.com/video/dM6s3sLaTqE/v-deo.html Nissan Leaf: ua-cam.com/video/5bXDnTx2MrM/v-deo.html Mike's is the most in-depth teardown I've seen so far! I'm also impressed by Continental's efforts to overcomplicate this unit.
Also check ou Damien Maguire's yt channel... He has days worth of material on reverse-engineerimg etc... He also does all manufacturers.. Toyota, Nissan, Tesla, Mitsubishi
Divide pipeline trough the electronic core? Relying on just two O-ring's doesn't look like a good solution. Junction could be made outside, providing more realibilty. Great video. Best regards.
No doubt you have seen the Weber automotive deep dive videos. The power semiconductors in this Renault part look very similar to the parts used in the Chevy volt inverter. If my volt electronics ever go bad then I’ll send them your way Mike.
Very nice HW, made by Conti. I worked there at the time this was designed. I wonder why they didn't use a synchronous rectifier on the 80A DC/DC, today it wil probably be worth it to do exactly that because of the lower price of mosfets.
@@albinklein7680 Yes, I'd buy that, MOSFETs aren't as rugged as diodes, and the liquid cooling is already available - most of the time the motor driver is totally dominating dissipation anyway.
I'm about to get my autopilot computer upgraded in the Tesla - from 2.5 to 3.0. If they are willing to let me keep the old unit (I can ask very nicely) - I'd be willing to send it off if you think there's anything interesting worth seeing. I know there have been other teardowns before...probably not too interesting - beefy gpu(s) and support circuitry.
The fact they're coding these things to specific cars is proof these companies want total control over the life cycle of their products. Independent repair becomes a lot more difficult without people like you to reverse-engineer and learn how to reprogram them. Have you heard about the independent repair battles going on in the US right now? Louis Rossman (UA-cam) is covering the subject and going to the hearings.
I think you can programme a new inverter with a chinese copy of nissan consult 3+ (around £550 ). Prior to the chinese copy you had to take to dealer or pay £12k for the programme tool.
@@jonathanburford I think that may be more a corporate lobbying excuse for why they have coded parts in the first place. On the surface it sounds reasonable. In reality it doesn't quite pan out the same. I doubt criminals would be removing parts from cars in order to sell them on (in the case of electric vehicles). I only heard of a few scenarios in one area of the UK where a couple of criminals were stealing body panels off specific cars. Also, catalytic converter theft to get the rare earth metals. But its very doubtful any criminal would go for such high hanging fruit (power converters and the like) when there may be a handbag on display on the passenger seat.
Jim Griffiths criminals steal cars to make quick easy money. Often by stripping high end vehicles for parts and selling them in competent form. More stolen motors are stripped for parts than are resold as ringed motors these days tbh. It’s a very lucrative business. Working in the insurance industry I’ve seen it first hand. Also plenty of examples of parts stolen to order - complete front ends of cars etc.
@@jonathanburford I don't think they give a s**t for stolen parts the more the merier, its about total control and not wanting small shops to repair such parts
small pipes probably a breather, I have repaired leafs where the air con pump (which is a little 3 phase inverter and motor assembly in one unit and runs off the main DC bus) these suffer water ingress from the breather which is similar to that you would find on a hard drive in a computer, a sorta breathable sticker. this obviously trips the main breaker due to leakage from the main DC bus to earth. an external breather would be a much better solution.
That's weird with all those O-ring insulated cooling blocks. I've taken apart a Leaf charger / DC-DC converter and all it has is a single cast aluminium heat sink dividing the entire case in two halves with components directly bolted to it from both sides. Zero O-rings. It's a much bulkier unit though, maybe due to the simpler design.
I constantly see people complaining about removing that solder being a chore. I think that the professional solders just don't have the capacity to put out enough heat. I have a stick direct to mains, no control solder unit, made in Switzerland (that's all i can read on it). The tip, i allowed it to cup from corrosion, and i use a hand pump solder that has its nose cut, such that the tip fits over the offending blob of solder and right up against the solder tip. I dip some heat in, add a bit of regular solder, set up, as tight as possible, then when i see that slight discoloration, i remove the solder iron and press in the pump whilst pushing the release button. I've managed to clean to board, even large connectors from aluminium heat sinks with this method. I think it's just a matter of being just a bit more aggressive.
Nah, a JBC 470 series tip can do this. 250W in a really small tip, can put a solder dot in the middle of 3mm thick copper sheet in seconds. I too was surprised when i tried that soldering station, it can do more than a old 300W+ iron that goes to almost 600°C.
As a frequent wisitor of Your web page i must say that i was more than excited when i discovered that You also had this great UA-cam channel. It's thank to You i also discovered a few other awsome guys like Big Clive for example. A massive thank You for still providing us wid such great kontent!
Wow, I noticed an extremely annoying high frequency by a nearby charging Zoe once. Didn’t know it is by concept and thought it is just a faulty car. That sucks...
Really interesting, Mike. I'm on my third electric car - now an Ioniq. As a retired electronic engineer from the space industry , it is quite frightening to be sitting on top of all this complex electronics, and wondering how all the quality control works, especially as presumably different teams designed the various modules.
Sitting on top of massive fuel air bombs is much more frightening to me, though the QA process for individual assemblies in the space industry can take months for teams of dozens of professionals from multiple organizations and companies to complete. QA failures in the EV market seem to just lead to broken parts and short vehicle working lives. Fires and other life threatening disasters (caused by QA failures) are quite infrequent, especially considering the age of the EV industry and compared to the disaster rates of the entire motor vehicle industry.
To my eye those plugs are not rivets. they are sheer bolts, the method you used to remove the pentagon bolts will remove these too. (unscrew them with a centre punch near the edge)
Amazing economy how they used the motor winding as an inductor good idea. However the motor must be well cooled and this requires elaborate safety circuits to avoid coupling the motor in a false way while running and blowing the power elwctronics.
Wow. Now I can see what all the electronic reps were on about when they came into our company explaining that EVs were causing component shortages throughout the industry. How many MLCC's on these circuit boards?
@@gsharib I just replaced the complete circuit board that has the vin lock chip on from my old Peb into the second hand Peb unit I bought off eBay, very simple and no desoldering chips etc and it worked no problems
@@pauharpe8464 oh I need to replace the inverter as my car won’t go in D and someone mentioned it’s vin lock if I get a used one so confusing as im new to this but thanks for your reply 😊
@@gsharib it was the inverter module that failed in my Peb so I bought a second hand complete PEB on eBay and like I said just replaced the main circuit board with the vin lock chip on (lots of UA-cam videos showing you which board as the vin lock chip on ) the whole process took about 2 hours and worked a charm, my van won’t go in gear also the display just flashed P prior to repair
This is great teardown... The inverter is made by Continental and suppplied to Renault. The design is so poor and convoluted and is just simply complex for the sake of complexity. I have observed Contis other designs too and they seem to like complex integration of components. They don't give much thought to ease of manufacturing. The bus bars embedded in some impregnated black plastic, so typical Conti. Somehow they have too many people working on too many things. No one really talks to guys who manufacture these on the assembly line.
@@tfhAlex94 ya maybe. But it's the culture at conti I guess. Have seen other products from conti which have similar convoluted construction. Guess that's why renault makes it's own inverter now. But maybe it's better now at conti. Dont know
Thanks for the very detailed look into this hell of electronic design. Overengineered is the least to say, especially for cars with such a low budget user profile. My Kangoo suffers from the second PEB error now and I don't want to invest another 3k into a car of 2011, which is in total not much more in worth. Now it is a can-bus failure (says "charging impossible"), as far as my mechanic told me. I still have the old PEB, which had a failure on the power side. Perhaps we can make one out of these two... if anyone has experience doing so, I'd be thankful for a comment.
so - I understand the glueing for mechanical force reasons - as it would pretty fast break the solder joints without - but wouldn't it be smarter to glue the cap to the board instead of the casing? it makes it rather repair un-friendly - so when there's a fault you just can't replace the cap but have to use a whole new assembly - and the not-anymore-working one just get's discarded (and maybe only partial recycled - if at all) - so, although it looks clean using an EV - the needed resources for building the car however are even worse than a "normal" car over it's whole lifespan ... guess the reason is the chemicals behind it - and where and how the base resources are collected
I imagine there is no intention to have the inside of any high voltage modules like this repairable, because of the potentially devastating consequences if the seal is incorrectly replaced, or some isolation is damaged. I would guess the certifications / QC for devices like this are even difficult at a factory let alone at a repair facility. It seems much more likely manufacturers would replace the part, and use the broken part as a core for recycling. I imagine the case and possibly transformers, are reusable, and the bus bars would have some value as scrap, but the electronics would most likely be replaced.
I kinda expected something more elegant, more serviceable, instead its a mess of custom made parts, very complex custom made parts, I wonder what was their constrain - space, density?
This is serviceable! I think as time goes on, we will see more and more people become skilled in the art of electronics repair. Imagine when internal combustion engines first came out! No one had tools for those and no one knew how to work on them.
At 5:05 : water cooled power modules are most likely double sealed, with a drainage port in between seals so the inverter stays dry. Danfoss are doing that with their Shower Power modules, Infineon HybridPack 2 not so much (they specify a single o-ring to the pin-fin baseplate, but I'd expect there to be another gasket and gallery the designer has to take care of. At 28:20 : what you're seeing at the edges of the copper polygons is likely to be "dimples", a pattern common in DCB substrate manufacturing to alleviate substrate cracking and peeling of the copper cladding. doi.org/10.1016/j.microrel.2006.07.057
It's quite amazing how complex such a modest looking module really is. I mean that's quite a lot of advanced electronics in there. I wonder how many hours of R&D they spent on it.
Maybe less would have been more... Besides the overengineered Renault/Conti technology I drive an Audi A2 converted with standard ac-motor and a Curtis forklift controler. Way more reliable and cheaper in case of trouble.
I would have to guess that unlike the Prius, the sales volume isn't quite enough to make it worth developing ASICs. Also note that the Prius ASIC development dates back to 2000 or so when FPGAs were really expensive, nowadays much cheaper FPGAs are available.
Chip Quik SMD removal alloy is great for removing large joints and tricky components without damage. Remove as much tin solder as possible and flood it with Chip Quik to maintain the conduction of heat to the lower layers. A 100w iron and some board preheat helps also, i have a Weller W101D for big automotive stuff. I always keep some Chip Quik for those situations when you need to get something cleanly off an expensive board you just can't risk damaging with excess heat.
I am really amazed why the DC-DC inverter for the 12V-subsystem is that beefy. When I look at my tig-welding inverter; an air cooled German made commercial one which puts out 200 amps@25 VDC at 100% duty cycle; the inductors look almost tiny in comparison. Maybe for EMI/RF suppression?
superdau It is designed to be a Lego brick a car mechanic can just swap. It a fairly cost optimised mass produced part, no one is going to invest the time to repair it at a car dealer, and shipping it back to the manufacturer for repair is just adding to the cost. If it was a military part, the cost vs time equation changes, and it probably would be worth field repairing something like that, especially if of gets your multi-million/billion €/$/£/¥/₽ military aircraft/tank/ship working without waiting for a replacement part...
@@Bin216 refurbished parts will be the main thing indeed. centralized repair and study. This was allready an older part i believe he said. And i don't think the zoe does AC-charging anymore as they are now sold with CCS. Hgher load power and more compatible.
Thanks for this and the charger module tear down. There could be so much more value engineering in these overly complex designs. It will be interesting to see how things change with newer generations and higher production volumes. I know Toyota learned a lot with 3 generations of the Prius. Also, for whatever reason, European designed automotive electronics are famously and needlessly complex often to the detriment of reliability. What the Japanese and Koreans do with one proven reliable black box they share between many car models the Germans do with 5 black boxes that are all unique to each car and each model year and often unreliable.
Kia and Hyundai have shared a lot of OEM parts within their platforms of I.C. cars maybe even coming together to play one parts manufacturer off against another on those, "Just on Time" Contract, but still having many of same O.E.M part makers looking to fill those slots, so i wouldn't doubt that this method for sourcing Electronic parts will be that template for those Parts going into their Hybrids and E.V. cars rolling off those not so far away production lines... electrek.co/2020/06/04/chinese-import-ev-flood-starts-europe-gets-250-mile-28-45k-aiways-u5-suv/
malachy1847 The important part is Kia and Hyundai have been far more intelligent about sharing complex components, using fewer of them, and have more cost competitive and more reliable vehicles than the Europeans as a result. A Kia Stinger can beat almost anything from Germany around the Nuremberg Ring at up to twice the price. the same is true with the Hyundai N cars. Why buy overly complex German cars when they can’t even out perform their much cheaper and more reliable competition even on a track?
you gotta love automotive teardowns for the blend of high budget, high specifications and mass production
For all guys complaining about complexity: Renault Zoe is manufactured since 2012, so the design was probably started around 2008. That is the year when Musk joined Tesla...
My Citroen saxo electric from 2004 (designed in 1994) is way more complicated than this ! it uses 120v DC from a NI-Cad watercooled pack and an Brushed 20kw motor
Absolutely loving the EV related content. Really cool to see the nitty gritty on how these cars actually work.
I dug into a much newer design iteration of the Zoe powertrain. In fact it was a Smart EQ where the drivetrain should be identical to the Renault R90 or R110 design (not sure which one exactly). In comparison to your Q90/Q210 revision the motor design seems to be the same but the power stage was much more streamlinied and more easy to take apart. Pretty much any custom semiconductor package got replaced with of the shelf packages. If you like to see comprehensible photos of my teardown just poke me. Great video BTW!
Yes please!
Yesss pleasssse as fast as you can and will ofcourse. Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke,....
I'm a sparky and don't really know much when it comes to electronics. But I've learnt a lot from watching you, Dave and Clive. Even though I wouldn't know where to start on making something, even if its the most basic thing out there.
I've fixed and repair many electronics over the years, but it's just replacing components and doing visual inspections. As I don't own a scope or a frequency generator and only own a few cheap DMM's and a competent tester. Then I'm pretty limited 😕
I struggle even more these days due to my motorbike accident, which gave me a brain injury so I struggle to learn and retain information. I even struggle doing my job, as I spend 3-4 times as long doing things.
I haven't had a job since and I need to get back into the swing of things as I enjoy working (all depending on the job that is). Even though I can only do bench work these days due to loosing a leg and not being able to wear a normal prosthetic due to my pelvis being so badly damaged.
I also know that people would not want to employ me as companies want to make money. And when you've got someone who's constantly asking the same questing over and over again and taking ages doing it. Then they'll soon make up some BS up to get rid of me. Even though the government has got plans in to employ disabled people. They'll soon pick someone who doesn't have all the issues I've got, anyday over me. Which as you can imagine, really doesn't help with my mental health 😪😔 FML
Sorry. Went off on a tangent there 😕
43kw onboard AC charger using motor windings as inductors... always loved that idea! Thanks for the video mike.
The amount of engineering that went into designing these is mind-boggling!
Some lead designer got a huge budget and unlimited play time to make this happen. It is impressive from an engineering point of view but each of those custom parts is a vertical, one-off design that would have added a huge amount of cost, time and assembly complexity to the final product.
The art is in using standard parts and techniques while perhaps compromising a certain amount to achieve design goals that can be reused and adapted to future changes. The majority of what you showed here is single-product use that's highly dependent on specific components and materials. Likely no easy way of upgrading or even slightly modifying to adapt to future requirements.
Thanks for the depth of the video! It's hard to come across this level of quality tear-downs and insightful walk through of modern electronics. Much appreciated.
It’s a combination of high voltage, automotive, consumer. It better be over-engineered to hell and back. Imagine if instead of your phone battery bursting into flames, it’s your car...
The level of complexity in this inverter is fascinating. Thank you for the upload!
Probably an overkill. Somebody send a Tesla inverter unit to Mike !!
The information in this video is as densely packed as the inverter itself. Great content - thanks Mike!
25:27 the metal plates effectively canceling out inductance between snubber capacitor and igbt brick. Only purpose is to save IGBTs from damaging voltage spikes
All Renault Zoe models support 22kW charging via the Type 2 AC connector. Certain models support 43kW charging, these are the “Q” models, for the 22kWh battery the Q210 and for the 41kWh battery the Q90. The new 52kWh battery model only supports 22kW AC but has the option to add 50kW DC charging via a CCS connector.
The combination of 22kW Type 2 AC and CCS is quite a good choice and gives you a lot of options when charging. It also means you have a fairly rapid fallback if the CCS isn’t working and there is an AC alternative on the same unit.
And there is the q210 with the upgrade battery, I’ve had one. Drove 130.000km in our Zoe, loved it and better range in winter then model 3 sr+
Renault, continuing the tradition of "tool, special" ever since they started making vehicles.
Yes. All of the french auto manufacturers do. Since the beginning. If you want to change the bushings in the rear axle of a 60's Peugeot 204 you need literally half a ton of quite esoteric special tools. No chance to get away without.
For the rear end of a Mercedes Benz of that vintage you need a few wrenches, a few lengths of pipe and a big ass hammer. If you are fancy, maybe a foot of ready rod and some nuts.
@@albinklein7680 Yes, my father was a service centre for Citroen, and every new model year they would send him, along with the quarter ton of printed catalogues for the new models, the set of new special tools that you would absolutely need to do anything to the vehicles other than check the oil. He had one customer who would put his vehicle on a truck and drive it 5 hours for it's service.
Selling a half dozen vehicles in a year back then for the area was a lot, though my mother always loved her Citroen's, always getting to drive a slightly used one that was otherwise in good condition.
But to change a wheel bearing without the special spanners would be near impossible, unless you also had your own machine shop, to build the thin wall high strength steel parts needed.
Oh yes. Those thin walled high-strength-/stress parts still scare me a bit after more than 30 years in Business. To change the ball joints in the front axle of a Mercedes sprinter you need about 20 metric tons of pressure. And the 'meat' on the control arm where you have to apply that pressure is about 1.5millimeters. I am really glad that the hydraulic ram with which I do that kind of stuff has a looooooong extension hose...
To return to the topic:
The electric renaults of the 90s also needed tons of special tools. I had a Clio electrique once and to check and adjust the electrolyte level in the NiCad Battery cells you needed a vacuum pump, a sh*tload of plumbing and hoses (proprietary connectors iirc.) and a lot of time. And don't forget your safety gear. Caustic potassium hydroxide solution splashing everywhere. That was a real pleasure to do every month or so.
So cool to see car parts! Definitely do more of them, it is very interesting to see what technologies different manufacturers use in their electric vehicles. It is also interesting to know what solutions could be described as "modern" or "old" to see which manufacturers are best at their solutions. Good job, thank you for the video.
The aux contacts on the AMP/TE orange power interconnects are primarily for a software independant disablement of the HV DC in order to protect anyone foolish enough to remove those plugs with the power on! Uuually, the main battery contactors source there 12v power, required to hold them shut, via this safety chain, so as you start to lift the latch and remove the mating half of the connector, the aux contacts open first, which drops out the those contactors and effectievly isolates the system. It then takes a suitable diagnostics tool to software re-enable them (ie just putting the connector back together does not restore power....)
Pistonheads is that way->
That's just what was going to say... 🤓
At what point can you consider yourself a b-list internet celebrity?
eev-blog, pistonheads, countless others....
Just start uploading stuff or something
still some of the best teardowns on youtube with lots and lots of really good tips to learn about tearing down and understanding the engineering behind this
thanks a lot and keep it up
Brilliant video and description of this PEB.
It had much more in it than I expected!.
Thanks so much for sharing
An excellent and informative video. I'm glad that when charging failed on my 2013 ZOE a couple of years ago, the extended warranty covered the replacement of this unit, otherwise the car would have been a write-off.
Excellent breakdown. I don't know anything about electronics but I couldn't stop watching.
Love the EV electronics teardowns. Would be cool to see more of inverters and chargers.
Legend. IV been waiting for you to look at the internals of electric cars.
Absolutely brillant reverse engineering, Mike. For a long time I was hoping to see a proper teardown and analysis of some EV power electronics. Here we go :)
Every time you say applied violence I think that it's a great name for the Applied Science spoof channel ;)
Very much appreciating your infos on ev power equipment. keep going on reversing this stuff
This uploaded made my day... Thumbs up before it even started.. can't wait for more EV stuff... Thanks Mike.. 😁
All "AFAIK": The PEB is only connected to the E CANbus I can figure out the other pins on the black connector if you wish.
DCDC converter is indeed 1kW (80A)
The pre-charge relay is actually in the battery pack. 80 ohms.
GREAT video!
There are definitely other CAN buses that go on to the board as there are more CAN transceivers - don't recall if it's one or two in addition to the one that the OBD2 bus links to no idea if they are actually used though
@@mikeselectricstuff I dug into the wiring scheme and lo and behold there is indeed a wire pair that was never mentioned in the tech manuals. The black connector is wired like this:
- E CANbus (this does not go to the OBD2. It is gatewayed over the EVC to the V CANbus which is on the OBD2)
- X CANbus ( with a direct link to the BCB. I speculate this is used to synchronise things during charging. It might not even be a CANbus, but the teardown suggests it is. This speculation is fed there being ZERO documentation on it's data content, while the other busses are)
- 12 V (20 A fused and 7.5 A fused)
2 x 5 wires to the motor assembly (well, 4 + shielding, I am assuming dual position sensors, or single + interlocks, that is not entirely clear)
The zoe doesnt have any permanent magnets in the motor, they didnt want to make themselves dependent on limited neodymium supply from china.
I bet it also saved them some money in the motor.
Its quite interesting that the zoe charges through the motor, I never knew that before.
My mom owns one and its definetly quite loud while charging, especially when you are sitting outside right next to it.
Some older Teslas also use induction motors, no permanent magnets in those either.
Permanent magnet motors have losses due to magnetic field always being full strength - so average efficiency is compromized (although they are typically more efficient at full power and more compact).
Very interesting! Thanks
This makes it pretty clear why they're so expensive (something like £5k if you wanted to replace one as a full unit outside of warranty, I believe) and also a good illustration to counter those who say there's "nothing to go wrong" in an EV (it's less likely as it's all solid state stuff, but plenty that *could* go wrong one way or another). The combination highlights the importance of extended warranty or similar insurance.
Seems very well made with decent components which counters some of my previous musings that "it's a cheap EV so it's less reliable" (had a couple of teething troubles with mine but thankfully with good support), sometimes just "stuff happens" and you're unlucky but you can see that there's plenty of stuff that can go faulty and plenty of ££ required to fix it if you're not covered.
Exactly so what is the resale value ? Nil would be my guess... Also I wonder what the insurance say about the number of these things that mysteriously catch fire, no I don't mean electrical faults, i mean someone faced with a £5k repair bill on a car that is worth less than £5k realizing a box of matches only cost 10p.
@@cuckingfunt9353 resale value of mine is about £7k at the moment. I bought it for £6.7k 2 years ago. This is due to increasing demand for EVs especially ones that people can actually afford ;)
Risky business insurance fraud as is owning an EV without extending the warranty but, I will be upgrading mine before the 10 year warranty limit is up and then it's someone else's problem. I expect by then there will be plenty of spares around along with HEVRA associated independent repair shops but I also think if it does become an issue we'll see some sort of "comprehensive plus" insurance that covers electromechanical breakdown in EVs
Bear in mind £5k is a dealer price for a brand new full unit. Even the main dealers are allowed to open these up now and repair/replace components which should bring the job down a few k.
Very interesting teardown. I helped tesla figure out the manufacturing process for the model 3 drive inverter. It's a wildly different construction, much simpler to this unit. Under NDA I can't go into much detail, but teardowns exist for it
The OBC + 400/12 DC DC in M3 is a beauty. Very simple and thoughtful construction.
"No user serviceable parts inside." This time it's for real!
I'm really surprised with the amount of high tech components, processors and other IC's, I expected there would be just some extremely beefy diodes, transistors and inductors, and nothing else :)
Yeah, likely some embedded engineer used the project as an excuse to gain experience at the company's expense.
With those massive currents involved and the fact that this is an automotive device, it is key to always monitor everything and to fail safely. Since this handles the entire motor control, this is not unexpected. Just have a look at an ECU of a conventional car. It's quite complicated too.
@@0xbenedikt Yeah, I expect ECU to be extremely advanced, but I thought this is just a DC-DC converter with motor driver circuit, and ECU is a separate unit. It makes sense if this basically controlls entire car.
The small pins in the contactors are called HVIL (High Voltage Interlock Loop) connectors, all EVs have them.
Those rivet plugs are pure evil, considering the rest is nice Torx screws.
I work in industrial electronics, its amazing to see them so compact considering the power. Water cooling is a must, some of the VFD's we repair put out 4KW+ of heat.
you say that, but as an auto electrician I see their value (and I think they are shear bolts) .. they protect HV bus bar connections, an in-knowing person could undo a torx cap and stick a screwdriver (or finger i guess) into a live circuit. admittedly sheer bolts are a bit extreme, fittings like the pentagon are often used to protect fixtures the average joe shoudlnt touch. an example is spring detents on gearboxes, undo one of them and you have a ballbearing rolling around your gearbox. these are usually pentagon or security torx or the like or as mike pointed out the pentagon nuts used on certain brake calipers, these allow faster changing of the pads if removed BUT they are never and should never be removed during normal service.
You have to remember you need no qualifications to work on vehicles.
@@denisohbrien Yea! Very good point, I forgot to take into account it there is a giant battery across those screws lol. But having absolutely no way of re-opening it is a little stupid, but then, you would just replace the whole module wouldn't you...
Maybe they should have made them "triangle" drive, and have the electrical "lightning" symbol embossed into the bottom of it, you at least then have a visual clue of what you are undoing. Well at least until you vaporize your screwdriver in your face 😁
Thanks for taking the inverter apart Mike. I'd love for you to examine other inverters as well. Would be super interesting to look at the different architectures.
always a treat, thanks Mike! Super interesting
I have a 2010 bmw 7series high voltage motor inverter. I can some diagrams for it and it’s mostly working. It’s vin locked but still works. We replaced it due to the hour usage on it and bmw didn’t want it coupled with the new drive unit we installed. If your interested I would like to see it on the channel.
The pipe going into the electronics is for pressurized air to keep coolant/water out?
Thanks mike, this ev stuff is so complex and uses packaging techniques that must have taken a lot of debugging, wonder what the prototype looked like.
25:10, Circulating currents also cause excess heat, thats one of the reasons metal transformer cores are made from many thin layers instead of one big chunk of metal.
the metal plates effectively canceling out inductance between snubber capacitor and igbt brick. Only purpose is to save IGBTs from damaging voltage spikes
27:00 the transformer ratio would be sqrt(L1/L2) not L1/L2
This is like progressing from aVe community college to grad school. Love it.
Here are some other inverter teardowns
Tesla Model S:
ua-cam.com/video/VZVQIeW1xP4/v-deo.html
(The actual teardown starts at around 1:40:00)
Chevrolet Bolt:
ua-cam.com/video/dM6s3sLaTqE/v-deo.html
Nissan Leaf:
ua-cam.com/video/5bXDnTx2MrM/v-deo.html
Mike's is the most in-depth teardown I've seen so far! I'm also impressed by Continental's efforts to overcomplicate this unit.
Also check ou Damien Maguire's yt channel... He has days worth of material on reverse-engineerimg etc... He also does all manufacturers.. Toyota, Nissan, Tesla, Mitsubishi
@@rkan2 And him too, of course. I thought I included him.
This is very complex for a limited production car. Its no wonder why car manufacturers were and still are reluctant to build these things.
Limited? It’s been sold top 3 of Europe. I’ve had one and loved it
@@MrGoogle87 Top 3 of a 1% market share is limited.
Fascinating. Thanks! This is interesting and scary in that it is definitely engineered without any concern for repiarability or sustainability.
Nice touch, using the Renault logo's shape as a pattern for the heatsink.
More likely it's the best shape for water to flow around without too much turbulence...
Divide pipeline trough the electronic core? Relying on just two O-ring's doesn't look like a good solution. Junction could be made outside, providing more realibilty.
Great video.
Best regards.
No doubt you have seen the Weber automotive deep dive videos. The power semiconductors in this Renault part look very similar to the parts used in the Chevy volt inverter. If my volt electronics ever go bad then I’ll send them your way Mike.
It reminds me of one of my favorite 'mikeselectricstuff' videos where he shoehorns a new output transistor in a sealed hybrid stepper motor driver.
I noticed the almost total lack of markings on the pcb's. They don't want to make it easy to reverse engineer.
I think they just skipped the silk screening process. Probably not needed since assembly will be automated anyway. saves a bit per board
It's not like they intended anyone to see them after closing the lid.
Thanks for the insight in that crazy contraption! I wanted to have a peek inside these for a long time!
Very nice HW, made by Conti. I worked there at the time this was designed. I wonder why they didn't use a synchronous rectifier on the 80A DC/DC, today it wil probably be worth it to do exactly that because of the lower price of mosfets.
Reliability issues maybe?
@@albinklein7680 Yes, I'd buy that, MOSFETs aren't as rugged as diodes, and the liquid cooling is already available - most of the time the motor driver is totally dominating dissipation anyway.
I'm about to get my autopilot computer upgraded in the Tesla - from 2.5 to 3.0. If they are willing to let me keep the old unit (I can ask very nicely) - I'd be willing to send it off if you think there's anything interesting worth seeing. I know there have been other teardowns before...probably not too interesting - beefy gpu(s) and support circuitry.
Holy fuck is this complex.
The fact they're coding these things to specific cars is proof these companies want total control over the life cycle of their products. Independent repair becomes a lot more difficult without people like you to reverse-engineer and learn how to reprogram them.
Have you heard about the independent repair battles going on in the US right now? Louis Rossman (UA-cam) is covering the subject and going to the hearings.
I think you can programme a new inverter with a chinese copy of nissan consult 3+ (around £550 ). Prior to the chinese copy you had to take to dealer or pay £12k for the programme tool.
Coding also clamps down on the demand for stolen parts until the coding process can be cracked.
@@jonathanburford
I think that may be more a corporate lobbying excuse for why they have coded parts in the first place. On the surface it sounds reasonable. In reality it doesn't quite pan out the same.
I doubt criminals would be removing parts from cars in order to sell them on (in the case of electric vehicles). I only heard of a few scenarios in one area of the UK where a couple of criminals were stealing body panels off specific cars. Also, catalytic converter theft to get the rare earth metals. But its very doubtful any criminal would go for such high hanging fruit (power converters and the like) when there may be a handbag on display on the passenger seat.
Jim Griffiths criminals steal cars to make quick easy money. Often by stripping high end vehicles for parts and selling them in competent form. More stolen motors are stripped for parts than are resold as ringed motors these days tbh. It’s a very lucrative business. Working in the insurance industry I’ve seen it first hand. Also plenty of examples of parts stolen to order - complete front ends of cars etc.
@@jonathanburford I don't think they give a s**t for stolen parts the more the merier, its about total control and not wanting small shops to repair such parts
small pipes probably a breather, I have repaired leafs where the air con pump (which is a little 3 phase inverter and motor assembly in one unit and runs off the main DC bus) these suffer water ingress from the breather which is similar to that you would find on a hard drive in a computer, a sorta breathable sticker. this obviously trips the main breaker due to leakage from the main DC bus to earth. an external breather would be a much better solution.
sorry memory fails me, c-zero / mitsubishi miev . not leaf.
That's weird with all those O-ring insulated cooling blocks. I've taken apart a Leaf charger / DC-DC converter and all it has is a single cast aluminium heat sink dividing the entire case in two halves with components directly bolted to it from both sides. Zero O-rings. It's a much bulkier unit though, maybe due to the simpler design.
yessssss EV parts! this stuff is like alien technology. very interesting. fingers crossed for pyrotechnic fuse next lol
I constantly see people complaining about removing that solder being a chore. I think that the professional solders just don't have the capacity to put out enough heat. I have a stick direct to mains, no control solder unit, made in Switzerland (that's all i can read on it). The tip, i allowed it to cup from corrosion, and i use a hand pump solder that has its nose cut, such that the tip fits over the offending blob of solder and right up against the solder tip. I dip some heat in, add a bit of regular solder, set up, as tight as possible, then when i see that slight discoloration, i remove the solder iron and press in the pump whilst pushing the release button.
I've managed to clean to board, even large connectors from aluminium heat sinks with this method. I think it's just a matter of being just a bit more aggressive.
Nah, a JBC 470 series tip can do this. 250W in a really small tip, can put a solder dot in the middle of 3mm thick copper sheet in seconds. I too was surprised when i tried that soldering station, it can do more than a old 300W+ iron that goes to almost 600°C.
As a frequent wisitor of Your web page i must say that i was more than excited when i discovered that You also had this great UA-cam channel.
It's thank to You i also discovered a few other awsome guys like Big Clive for example.
A massive thank You for still providing us wid such great kontent!
They are extremely nice looking PCBs...
AIsler.net also makes such automotive PCBs for hobbyists and small companies. The PCBs I order from there look the same :D
Wow, I noticed an extremely annoying high frequency by a nearby charging Zoe once.
Didn’t know it is by concept and thought it is just a faulty car.
That sucks...
It's a brilliant idea on paper
@@DrTune ....that failed miserably.
Really interesting, Mike. I'm on my third electric car - now an Ioniq. As a retired electronic engineer from the space industry , it is quite frightening to be sitting on top of all this complex electronics, and wondering how all the quality control works, especially as presumably different teams designed the various modules.
Sitting on top of massive fuel air bombs is much more frightening to me, though the QA process for individual assemblies in the space industry can take months for teams of dozens of professionals from multiple organizations and companies to complete.
QA failures in the EV market seem to just lead to broken parts and short vehicle working lives. Fires and other life threatening disasters (caused by QA failures) are quite infrequent, especially considering the age of the EV industry and compared to the disaster rates of the entire motor vehicle industry.
To my eye those plugs are not rivets. they are sheer bolts, the method you used to remove the pentagon bolts will remove these too. (unscrew them with a centre punch near the edge)
The DC-DC converter in our Fiat 500e can put out about 150A of 12v, I doing a quick google it looks like the Zoe's can do 100A.
Amazing economy how they used the motor winding as an inductor good idea. However the motor must be well cooled and this requires elaborate safety circuits to avoid coupling the motor in a false way while running and blowing the power elwctronics.
Awesome teardown!
Thanks for sharing. 😉👍🏼
Serious engineering there...cheers.
Fascinating! Thanks 😊
Awesome video! MORE OF THIS!!!
Very nice built quality and soldering. I am surprised they didn’t pot or conformal coat the PCB.
It is interesting that Renault at least partially obtains the parts for the drive system from Continental...
Wow. Now I can see what all the electronic reps were on about when they came into our company explaining that EVs were causing component shortages throughout the industry.
How many MLCC's on these circuit boards?
It's hard to come across broken EV parts. Comes across broken renault EV part. Looking at their f1 cars, this was to be expected....
Mike thanks for the video,I replaced my PEB today and just changed the main board with the vin lock on it and worked a treat…thanks
Hiya how did you manage to get around vin lock
@@gsharib I just replaced the complete circuit board that has the vin lock chip on from my old Peb into the second hand Peb unit I bought off eBay, very simple and no desoldering chips etc and it worked no problems
@@pauharpe8464 oh I need to replace the inverter as my car won’t go in D and someone mentioned it’s vin lock if I get a used one so confusing as im new to this but thanks for your reply 😊
@@gsharib it was the inverter module that failed in my Peb so I bought a second hand complete PEB on eBay and like I said just replaced the main circuit board with the vin lock chip on (lots of UA-cam videos showing you which board as the vin lock chip on ) the whole process took about 2 hours and worked a charm, my van won’t go in gear also the display just flashed P prior to repair
This is great teardown... The inverter is made by Continental and suppplied to Renault. The design is so poor and convoluted and is just simply complex for the sake of complexity. I have observed Contis other designs too and they seem to like complex integration of components. They don't give much thought to ease of manufacturing. The bus bars embedded in some impregnated black plastic, so typical Conti. Somehow they have too many people working on too many things. No one really talks to guys who manufacture these on the assembly line.
To be fair this is unit was made 7 years ago so probably a ~10 year old design.
@@tfhAlex94 ya maybe. But it's the culture at conti I guess. Have seen other products from conti which have similar convoluted construction. Guess that's why renault makes it's own inverter now. But maybe it's better now at conti. Dont know
Fascinating stuff Mike, thanks.
When your capacitor is so big, it needs its own capacitors
Those things are designed by engineers with super powers!
The video I have been waiting for :)
As a big fan - happy to see new content !
Yes, french cars require pentagonal tools for special parts, I found some of those bolts already
Very nice video. Always a pleasure to watch.
You don't put out many videos, but they are always good.
Thanks for the very detailed look into this hell of electronic design. Overengineered is the least to say, especially for cars with such a low budget user profile. My Kangoo suffers from the second PEB error now and I don't want to invest another 3k into a car of 2011, which is in total not much more in worth. Now it is a can-bus failure (says "charging impossible"), as far as my mechanic told me. I still have the old PEB, which had a failure on the power side. Perhaps we can make one out of these two... if anyone has experience doing so, I'd be thankful for a comment.
That looks very expensive... I wonder if they ever sold enough of them to get in the green even after people paying a lot for the cars and repairs.
Thank you for this very interesting tear down. hose are the biggest bond wires I have ever seen!
so - I understand the glueing for mechanical force reasons - as it would pretty fast break the solder joints without - but wouldn't it be smarter to glue the cap to the board instead of the casing? it makes it rather repair un-friendly - so when there's a fault you just can't replace the cap but have to use a whole new assembly - and the not-anymore-working one just get's discarded (and maybe only partial recycled - if at all) - so, although it looks clean using an EV - the needed resources for building the car however are even worse than a "normal" car over it's whole lifespan ...
guess the reason is the chemicals behind it - and where and how the base resources are collected
I imagine there is no intention to have the inside of any high voltage modules like this repairable, because of the potentially devastating consequences if the seal is incorrectly replaced, or some isolation is damaged. I would guess the certifications / QC for devices like this are even difficult at a factory let alone at a repair facility. It seems much more likely manufacturers would replace the part, and use the broken part as a core for recycling. I imagine the case and possibly transformers, are reusable, and the bus bars would have some value as scrap, but the electronics would most likely be replaced.
I kinda expected something more elegant, more serviceable, instead its a mess of custom made parts, very complex custom made parts, I wonder what was their constrain - space, density?
The constrain is "sell cars not parts"
@ Pretty sure these days its the other way around...
This is serviceable! I think as time goes on, we will see more and more people become skilled in the art of electronics repair. Imagine when internal combustion engines first came out! No one had tools for those and no one knew how to work on them.
@@RyanVasquez6089 No it isn't, not even close.
Tools for ICE? What a wrench and two 10mm sockets?
Efficiency
At 5:05 : water cooled power modules are most likely double sealed, with a drainage port in between seals so the inverter stays dry. Danfoss are doing that with their Shower Power modules, Infineon HybridPack 2 not so much (they specify a single o-ring to the pin-fin baseplate, but I'd expect there to be another gasket and gallery the designer has to take care of. At 28:20 : what you're seeing at the edges of the copper polygons is likely to be "dimples", a pattern common in DCB substrate manufacturing to alleviate substrate cracking and peeling of the copper cladding. doi.org/10.1016/j.microrel.2006.07.057
It's quite amazing how complex such a modest looking module really is. I mean that's quite a lot of advanced electronics in there. I wonder how many hours of R&D they spent on it.
Maybe less would have been more...
Besides the overengineered Renault/Conti technology I drive an Audi A2 converted with standard ac-motor and a Curtis forklift controler. Way more reliable and cheaper in case of trouble.
Honestly reminds me of satellite power communication electronics
Great video Mike! Crazy to see FPGAs in these things. Seems like overkill.
I would have to guess that unlike the Prius, the sales volume isn't quite enough to make it worth developing ASICs. Also note that the Prius ASIC development dates back to 2000 or so when FPGAs were really expensive, nowadays much cheaper FPGAs are available.
The original Tesla used the same igbt to charge the battery and run the motor ....AC propulsions technology
Chip Quik SMD removal alloy is great for removing large joints and tricky components without damage. Remove as much tin solder as possible and flood it with Chip Quik to maintain the conduction of heat to the lower layers. A 100w iron and some board preheat helps also, i have a Weller W101D for big automotive stuff. I always keep some Chip Quik for those situations when you need to get something cleanly off an expensive board you just can't risk damaging with excess heat.
Chip Quick is awesome. Comes in really handy when you need to remove large QFP components without lifting pads.
cool video, I like to see this EV stuff
I am really amazed why the DC-DC inverter for the 12V-subsystem is that beefy. When I look at my tig-welding inverter; an air cooled German made commercial one which puts out 200 amps@25 VDC at 100% duty cycle; the inductors look almost tiny in comparison.
Maybe for EMI/RF suppression?
5kW load at max? EMI regulation is of course a big part in electric cars. Should be easy to find the regulation.
@@rkan2 yes. 16A-three-phase supply and a water cooled torch.
Overbuilt, remember these things also have to endure constant (often ridiculous) temperature swings, not located indoors all the time.
And the current of a TIG dosent need to bee al that smothe, in contrast to somthing that powers the computers in a car
Wow, this is amazing. If you haven't dug into the IGBT module yet would you sell it on eBay?
This looks way too complex for what it does. Maybe not the electronics, but definitely the mechanical construction. And no serviceability planned...
superdau It is designed to be a Lego brick a car mechanic can just swap. It a fairly cost optimised mass produced part, no one is going to invest the time to repair it at a car dealer, and shipping it back to the manufacturer for repair is just adding to the cost.
If it was a military part, the cost vs time equation changes, and it probably would be worth field repairing something like that, especially if of gets your multi-million/billion €/$/£/¥/₽ military aircraft/tank/ship working without waiting for a replacement part...
@@Bin216 refurbished parts will be the main thing indeed.
centralized repair and study.
This was allready an older part i believe he said.
And i don't think the zoe does AC-charging anymore as they are now sold with CCS.
Hgher load power and more compatible.
Thanks for this and the charger module tear down. There could be so much more value engineering in these overly complex designs. It will be interesting to see how things change with newer generations and higher production volumes. I know Toyota learned a lot with 3 generations of the Prius. Also, for whatever reason, European designed automotive electronics are famously and needlessly complex often to the detriment of reliability. What the Japanese and Koreans do with one proven reliable black box they share between many car models the Germans do with 5 black boxes that are all unique to each car and each model year and often unreliable.
Kia and Hyundai have shared a lot of OEM parts within their platforms of I.C. cars maybe even coming together to play one parts manufacturer off against another on those, "Just on Time" Contract, but still having many of same O.E.M part makers looking to fill those slots, so i wouldn't doubt that this method for sourcing Electronic parts will be that template for those Parts going into their Hybrids and E.V. cars rolling off those not so far away production lines... electrek.co/2020/06/04/chinese-import-ev-flood-starts-europe-gets-250-mile-28-45k-aiways-u5-suv/
malachy1847 The important part is Kia and Hyundai have been far more intelligent about sharing complex components, using fewer of them, and have more cost competitive and more reliable vehicles than the Europeans as a result. A Kia Stinger can beat almost anything from Germany around the Nuremberg Ring at up to twice the price. the same is true with the Hyundai N cars. Why buy overly complex German cars when they can’t even out perform their much cheaper and more reliable competition even on a track?
Amazing! And every single bit in there looks very very €xpensive!
You might want to get in touch with Damien Maguire from the evbmw channel
Continental does some custom silicon with companies like ON Semi and / or TI, so some part numbers are for use on Continental ECUs only