[HN Gopher] Zombieverter: Open source VCU for reusing salvage EV...
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Zombieverter: Open source VCU for reusing salvage EV components
Author : trainsarebetter
Score : 69 points
Date : 2025-05-05 19:00 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (openinverter.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (openinverter.org)
| pornel wrote:
| It's cool that it has/claims support for DC fast charging. All
| the custom conversions I've seen are AC only.
| bartvk wrote:
| Very cool. Sometimes, DC fast charging is more accessible than
| AC.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| It's CHAdeMO - much simpler - and not CCS2
| mdaniel wrote:
| I am for sure not educated about the difference between CCS
| and CCS2 but it does say it's not _just_ CHAdeMO https://open
| inverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU#:~:text=ccs%2... and
| further down they cite a BMW i3 which I had and it fast
| charged to my satisfaction
| scrappyjoe wrote:
| The child comments are a bit all over the place, but I can
| clarify.
|
| At present, the Zombieverter supports:
|
| Chademo CCS by interfacing with the BMW i3 LIM CCS by
| interfacing with the open source FOCCCI CCS controller.
|
| The FOCCCI CCS controller is an associated project. See
| https://openinverter.org/wiki/Foccci
|
| FOCCCI is the newest kid on the block, but it has been
| successfully integrated into several conversions now.
| drzaiusx11 wrote:
| This is a great resource with pragmatic solutions for reusing
| commodity EV parts.
|
| Worth a read through for folks like me that are mechanically
| inclined but don't know/have time to figure out how the various
| puzzle pieces in an EV "talk" to each other (because of their
| proprietary nature.)
| aetherspawn wrote:
| Hey, my startup is currently working on something like this.
|
| We use a production VCU hardware with custom software and
| currently support most of the VCU functions you would find in a
| production vehicle, including in-built CCS2 and NACS charging on
| the single controller.
|
| We are looking to raise to go to the next stage, would love to
| hear from potential customers or interested angels?
| NortySpock wrote:
| Cool! I am not a "car guy", but I have (with my father-in-law)
| changed my own oil and replaced the shocks on my (ICE) car.
|
| I appreciate the somewhat open-source nature of car repair
| work, and I would hate for EVs to become all proprietary,
| locked down systems that are not repairable. At least the
| standardization of PCs means I can kitbash some parts together
| into a usable daily driver. Not so for EV's, it seems.
|
| So, from the perspective of someone who may be a single-unit
| customer in 10 years when I want to revive an old Prius or Bolt
| or whatever used car comes my way, I wish you all the best.
|
| In terms of ideas or advice -- I assume you've seen or talked
| with the RichRebuilds youtube channel or other EV repair
| youtube channels to see what they need in a VCU... If they like
| it and praise your product on their channel that might get you
| some buzz / street cred. Beyond that I assume it's just a
| matter of becoming golfing buddies with the CTO or electronics
| head of a automotive startup (Slate and Telo recently came up
| in my news feed. They might be too far along to switch VCUs for
| their first car, but if they had teething issues they might be
| interested in swapping to you for their second car...)
| neilv wrote:
| Given that battery fires and automobile crashes happen, and that
| there are business and legal cultures around that for _stock_
| vehicles...
|
| Does this "ZombieVerter" have a high chance of being blamed for
| an incident involving death/injury or very expensive property
| damage?
| fuelled6532 wrote:
| Dude, I built my own fuel system for my car.
|
| I just put 43 liters of _gasoline_ in the tank this morning.
|
| The rail is as much as 65psi, and it's inches from a hot
| exhaust manifold.
|
| It's fine. People can be competent.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| It's a special case, but in times like this I think about the
| antique cars. There are still Model T owners out there
| driving around with oil-soaked _cotton_ brakes. That 's the
| same material my pants are made out of. And it's not one
| brake per wheel, it's _one brake for the entire car_! Also,
| the wheels are made from wood.
|
| This is not only street legal, but insurable too.
| scrappyjoe wrote:
| Well, if you modify a vehicle, generally you need to take it
| back to your DMV / TUV / MOT for inspection. Those are the
| bodies responsible for determining that your car is road legal.
| And if you don't have a proper BMS, emergency cutoff, adequate
| cooling and engineering, it won't be certified road legal. Not
| sure why an EV conversion should be treated any differently to
| an ICE conversion.
| neilv wrote:
| And when you're sued and/or criminally charged, your lawyers
| can bring that up that your vehicle passed inspection (unless
| it was still being built in your garage), before the lithium
| battery fire that involved the "ZombieVerter that you built
| from plans you found on the Internet".
|
| Even if it can eventually be proven (to the judge/jury) that
| the ZombieVerter performed perfectly, and that you were not
| at all negligent or reckless, that's going to be drawing
| suspicion and blame.
|
| While defense costs bankrupt you.
| lotharcable wrote:
| > Does this "ZombieVerter" have a high chance of being blamed
| for an incident involving death/injury or very expensive
| property damage?
|
| No.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| It's always a little jarring to me to see a seemingly competently
| laid out automotive grade PCB, with a cheap as dirt Amazon
| special D1 mini ESP board lovingly stapled in one corner.
|
| Best rating you can get on those ESP modules is "blue PCB".
| scrappyjoe wrote:
| The D1 board on the Zombieverter is just a piggyback board to
| allow web interface access to the VCU. Once you've set
| everything up, you can remove the board. It makes configuring
| the Zombieverter significantly easier since you don't have to
| mess around with serial cables.
|
| If you like, you can leave it on and monitor your EV data via
| the web interface. But if the D1 flakes out the VCU will be
| unaffected.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| Ah, that makes more sense then, good idea! I have personally
| blown up a laptop by having the USB section of a board it was
| plugged into hang around too close to an exposed 24V supply.
| scrappyjoe wrote:
| I've got one of these, and it works great! The core developers
| behind this work very, very hard on it, and I am amazed that it
| works to the degree that it does. Like, there are cars on the
| road running with this VCU.
|
| Two weaknesses of the project are spotty / outdated / unclear
| documentation and support. This is not because the community
| doesn't care, it's because keeping the documentation up to date
| is hard. And support is hard, because you have like 3 core
| commenters on the forum answering 90% of questions. They know the
| stuff inside out, but they take strain from having to answer 'my
| hello world is broken' type questions over and over again.
|
| It's hard to demonstrate this to software people. You know the
| endless 'works on my machine' swamps people would get stuck in in
| the bad old days? Imagine that, but you also have no assurance
| that the machine the person is using has a hard drive connected,
| or a cooling fan. You have to cover _all_ the hardware related
| root causes before you can even begin to address and software
| related issues people run into.
|
| I think the best support this community could get is more
| resources dedicated to documentation and support. That would also
| serve to make the learning curve less steep.
|
| EDIT: I think it's also worth saying that once you set one of
| these once, it becomes very easy. It's just figuring it out the
| first time that's hard. If anyone buys one and has trouble, hit
| me up and maybe I can help.
| solarkraft wrote:
| I thought "This sounds a lot like the logical next step to what
| Damien Maguire has been working on" and sure enough it is!
|
| This man has been working for years on repurposing old EV
| hardware and using it to electrify cars, sometimes in really
| wacky (and extremely entertaining) ways on the Youtube channel
| "evmbw" - I suggest giving it a watch! Some of the cars are
| _really_ scrappy, but he obviously knows very well what he's
| doing.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| I love the line in one page: 'If you combine a LHD transmission
| with a RHD inverter (or vice versa) you might end up with a motor
| that is juddering, not spinning. IN this case you need to swap
| any two phase cables of both MG1 and MG2. '
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