LEAFSCAN™ - The Ultimate Instrument for your LEAF!

[garygid]

Part 145802 at http://www.obd2cables.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
is a short splitter cable, about $19.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Part 145802 at http://www.obd2cables.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
is a short splitter cable, about $19.

Thanks Gary. Problem solved.

 

[Ingineer]

Why would you want both a Gid meter and Leafscan? The Leafscan shows all the same data available on Gary's meter, and is likely more visible in sunlight.

Be warned that multiple unterminated CAN spurs could eventually affect the Leaf's CAN bus, which could actually disable your car, so use caution before going crazy with wiring. CAN is really robust, but is designed to be laid out in a Bus, not a Star topology. Adding a bunch of dead-end stubs could start to corrupt data because of the standing waves.

-Phil

 

[TonyWilliams]

Why would you want both a Gid meter and Leafscan? The Leafscan shows all the same data available on Gary's meter, and is likely more visible in sunlight.

Well, I already have it. Maybe I'll retire it when my very own LEAFscan arrives.

 

[Deleted member 3147]

Hey Phil. I know you're busy but I have an interesting question: can you read the current GPS location over the CAN buses? If so maybe you could do a charge timer geo-fenced to a specific charger location. That would be a great addition.

 

[TomT]

I suspect that there will be a robust used resell market for Gary's meter after Leafscan comes out - due to the significantly lower price - for those who only need and/or want the info that Gary's provides and want to save some money. So, I expect you would have no problem selling it. That is what I plan to do. With the filter addition, the meter is perfectly readable even in full, direct sunlight, by the way.

Why would you want both a Gid meter and Leafscan? The Leafscan shows all the same data available on Gary's meter, and is likely more visible in sunlight.

Well, I already have it. Maybe I'll retire it when my very own LEAFscan arrives.

 

[thimel]

Beautifully done, Phil, congratulations.

(Also looking for someone to assist with injection molding case design, die creation, and a decent production molding shop)

-Phil

Phil,

Responding to a very old (and perhaps no longer needed) request of yours.

I looked into two ways of manufacturing plastic housings for the leafscan: injection molding and 3D printing. I'm no expert on these things, but the web is wonderful and I thought it would be good to see if the 3D printer might be easier and cheaper than injection molding.

For injection molding, I found a site: http://www.custompartnet.com/estimate/ which estimates costs for injection molding (and will do it for you). An example they had of a stop watch casing would cost $25,000 for 1000 parts. Using another estimation method from the same site, I specified a 3x4x7/16 inch object where the plastic fills 16% of the volume. This gave an estimate of about $12,000. In both cases, the cost is completely dominated by the making of the die. The marginal cost per part is less than $1.

For 3D printing I found a site: http://www.redeyeondemand.com/ which gives instant quotes for 3D printing. For this I made a 3D CAD drawing of a 5 sided box with the dimensions given above and 1/16 inch thick walls. The cost came to $35,000 for 1000 parts. The price per part did vary with quantity, but by less than a factor of two. So the marginal cost in this quantity range is $35.

A third possibility is to buy a 3D printer kit for about $1000 and make the cases yourself. The pain here would be having to manually remove the finished parts and restart the machine after ever 4 or so parts are made.

Note in all cases, the part was made out of black ABS plastic. I expect the quality (surface finish) of the 3D part is poorer than for the injection molded one.

Conclusion: If you want industry to make them and you expect to make more than about 500 leafscans and can get the die right on the first try, that is the way to go. If you want to minimize your risk, then 3D printing should be considered.

 

[MichaelS]

Hi Phil,
For another data point I'd like to offer this idea.

I have a product that I sell that uses a small box with a belt clip. I purchased the box from Serpac and they drilled the two holes that I needed for a reasonable fee. The cases ended up casting me under $4 each in the quantity of 1500.

There are many companies that make standard cases and might have something that works.

Michael

 

[SparkyEV]

I'm in, and I'm happy to pay a deposit. Thanks for putting this together!

 

[CWO4Mann]

I'm in, and I'm happy to pay a deposit. Thanks for putting this together!

I just waiting to get the go-ahead to send a check.

Dave

 

[UkrainianKozak]

I'm in too for full price prepayment, (unless the price is really really high)
Phil, do you have a rough ETA for the first release? Or somewhere to track progress instead of flipping through 30 pages of forum conversations?

 

[Lightnme]

I was considering a Leaf Scan as well; mainly for the SOC status, and to get Volts & Amps is a plus with more accuracy.

Jim

 

[garygid]

The Pack Volts and Amps (that the SOC-Meter displays) are taken from CAN bus messages that seem to have values available at half-volt and half-amp resolution (not sure what accuracy). The SOC-Meter averages 20 readings to cut down the noise and estimate one decimal place. It then multiplies the two derived values to get "instantaneous" Power (energy usage rate), which it also displays.

Perhaps Ingineer knows of more Accurate values, or higher resolution values, but these are probably sufficient for most uses?

 

[TomT]

I've certainly found the resolution sufficient for all my purposes. Remember that more precision does not necessarily give you more accuracy...

The Pack Volts and Amps (that the SOC-Meter displays) are taken from CAN bus messages that seem to have values available at half-volt and half-amp resolution (not sure what accuracy). The SOC-Meter averages 20 readings to cut down the noise and estimate one decimal place. It then multiplies the two derived values to get "instantaneous" Power (energy usage rate), which it also displays.

 

[thimel]

Phil,

The company where I got the online quote for 3D printing of a box about the size you might want contacted me with personalized quotes. They look much better. For 3D printing of the box I described in my previous post, the cost would be $10.32 in quantities of 1000.

It turns out they also do injection molding and provided a quote for that. It is $5,200 for tooling and then $1.64 per part in quantities of 1000 or $1.22 per part in quantities of 3000.

Remember that the design I gave is certainly not the exact box you want and that this company just happens to be what Google found for me. Nevertheless, these prices look much better. I'm happy to investigate further or pass more details on to you if it is useful.

 

[ElectricVehicle]

Phil - I'm up for a prepayment also. Just let me know when and how much.

 

[Coffee_Slurry]

I want one! Name your price.

I don't know how Kickstarter works on the vendor end, but others have used it with success to gauge interest and pre-fund manufacturing. Maybe it's a fit here.

 

[spleenster]

I want one! Name your price.

I don't know how Kickstarter works on the vendor end, but others have used it with success to gauge interest and pre-fund manufacturing. Maybe it's a fit here.

I would agree - this seems a perfect fit for Kickstarter.

 

[garsh]

I would agree - this seems a perfect fit for Kickstarter.

Phil already runs a business. He doesn't need anything like Kickstarter.
We just need to be patient and wait for the hardware to be ready. Then he'll let us know how to order.

 

[Spies]

Phil already runs a business. He doesn't need anything like Kickstarter.

I hate to take this off topic but while Phil may not need crowd funding for raising capitol or gauging interest it has nothing to do with already running a business.