LEAFSCAN™ - The Ultimate Instrument for your LEAF!

[jkirkebo]

If price is reasonable, put me down as another enthusiastic customer! I would love to see battery temperature and the battery aging parameters that Nissan hides from us.

Same here, I'm getting one if the price is reasonable. I already have the SOC-meter but it should be easy enough to sell since there are over a thousand Leafs on Norwegian roads already since deliveries started november 2011.

 

[edatoakrun]

...I prefer audible cues for certain things (such as application of friction brakes).

Actually, if it had audible, the one thing I'd like is an optional "battery capacity remaining" chime, which I'd set at about 10% capacity intervals.

Looking forward to the time DC is available, and it will be possible to forget to look at the range/capacity info, every few minute, while driving on the freeway...

But not essential, at all.

I'd probably buy one, if the production model does half of what it looks like it will.

At the right price (hint) I think the vast majority of LEAF drivers worldwide, would be interested.

 

[garsh]

Would be nice to know how much the friction brakes are being engaged...

+1
Is that data available?

 

[dgpcolorado]

...Some of the parameters include true SOC (with 5 digit precision!), Volts, Amps, Individual Lithium Ion battery cell parameters, battery health, temperatures, number of charges, number of QC's, indicator light history, software revision listing, motor torque/Horsepower, total kilowatts used/charged, last drive kW, last charge kW, and many more! ...

SOC with five digit precision? Pardon the question from a non-EE but, unless you are measuring actual Coulombs, I thought that extrapolating SOC from Volts, Amps, and the like was something of a fuzzy, moving target, given the chemical nature of batteries. Isn't five digits more like the "illusion" of precision?

Regardless, I want one!

 

[foobert]

Phil -- nice work, getting on the right track for what we need.

With all due respect to the amount of work you've put into this, I find that the SOC to be a rather backwards number to be displaying.

What do we really care about? "How far can we go given current conditions". Does SOC help, well, sure, but, let's review what we have to do to answer that simple question:

• Cool, my state of charge is 33.927%. Now, how far can I go?
• Let's see, what's the batter capacity? Something like 21KWH, maybe less due to temperature and lifetime degradation.
• OK, let's assume 20KHW.
• Hmmm, I'm averaging 3.2 KWH/mile for this charge, so,
• 20 * 0.33927 * 3.2 =??
• Get out the calculator...
• Ohh, 21.7 miles.
• But wait, I just started climbing a big hill
• ohh, and I just turned on the heater.
• ...

Most of these things are trivial to calculate, but, something I'm really NOT going to do in the car while driving.

Thus, I'd much rather see KWH's of charge remaining (1 decimal place only, please), and, say a 30-second rolling average of range left (KWH_remaining*rolling_average_mile_per_kwh). A very simple algorithm to understand such that we can use to quickly adjust our driving to achieve the distance we need to. If it gets too fancy or complex, then we end up with another GOM that is trying to be too clever to be useful.

Also, the power in/out bar graph: Meh. It's redundant with information already available. I'd rather see that screen real estate used for something we don't have access to.

I hope you find this feedback constructive. As it looks right now, I would not be inclined to buy one.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I will echo what I've said in the past, and expressed in the previous post. The "real" SOC (calculated, of course, since it needs the rested battery OCV to adjust to something more accurate) will show some number greater than zero while the car does an auto shutdown from turtle.

So, I'm not sure what the SOC will offer us over the Gid count (watt/hour). The final result, for me, needs to be 100% at full, and 0% at empty of available power to the driver. It could be some composite of SOC and Gids maybe. I don't really know until I get to play with it a bit.

Yes, I like it to actually be a range meter, and if that's not possible, so that it has a way to output the data we need to calculate range (battery temp, capacity, etc) to another device dedicated to that.

Anxious to get my hands on one of these.

 

[edatoakrun]

Yeah, Phil, why didn't you add a range meter?

Seems pretty lame to me, that you can't you also figure out, how to predict future driving conditions...

 

[Ingineer]

I personally would like to see amount of friction*rpm displayed on the bar instead of regen (since we have traction power and regen already behind the steering wheel).

Also, one feature I'd like to "creep" in there is a simple piezo-electric speaker. I prefer audible cues for certain things (such as application of friction brakes).

So what you want is essentially a parameter for "brake power wasted", right? I'll definitely add it to the list!

There's already an annunciator, which is wide-range mini-speaker like a smartphone ringer instead of a crappy piezo that can only make a narrow range of tones. You'll be able to choose parameters for audible feedback, and have sliding frequency tone feedback.

As I've already stated, the bargraph(s) are selectable, so you can choose from the list of parameters, and have multiples. The idea is that you have several customizable pages that you can choose from, and you get to build them as you decide. Along with that, there are built-in pages. There's even an alarm function where you can have a parameter trigger a certain page.

At some point there will be a framework to build your own logic/formulas to make custom readouts, but this is not built yet.

Yes, LEAFSCAN will be available world-wide, but you'll have to cover shipping, duties, etc.

-Phil

 

[Ingineer]

I personally would like to see amount of friction*rpm displayed on the bar instead of regen (since we have traction power and regen already behind the steering wheel).

Would be nice to know how much the friction brakes are being engaged...

Any data-logging capabilities planned?

Yes, I'm going to take TickTock's suggestion and add a special "power lost to brakes" parameter. There's already brake pressure, but that doesn't tell you anything other than how hard they are being driven. If we calculate the power lost by subtracting regen from hydraulic pressure times speed, we can derive this.

As I already stated in the first post, there will be logging to SD card.

-Phil

 

[EVDrive]

Count me in. I hope you can get high quality parts at a volume discount so it doesn't break the bank for us to pick one up. I really like the idea of knowing when we are using the friction breaks. I wonder every time I slow down if they are on or not. Looking forward to seeing how much the battery charges from regen down big hills etc.

Excellent work!

 

[Ingineer]

SOC with five digit precision? Pardon the question from a non-EE but, unless you are measuring actual Coulombs, I thought that extrapolating SOC from Volts, Amps, and the like was something of a fuzzy, moving target, given the chemical nature of batteries. Isn't five digits more like the "illusion" of precision?

Regardless, I want one!

The Leaf's Battery ECU does the coulomb counting, I simply read it's calculation. It is a pretty accurate system, but it also corrects itself periodically, which is the number one excuse from Nissan's chief vehicle engineer on why we don't have SOC displayed. He said they were worried that a SOC jump may confuse (read: piss off) customers, so they elected to only give us 12 bars. The only time I see it jump any more than a few decimal places is during startup after the car has been sitting. I can get into how this works another time and definitely in another topic. Please; if you have discussion about this or other topics that are not related to LEASCAN, please start a new topic!

Thanks!

-Phil

 

[Ingineer]

Obviously, Nissan with it's vast engineering capability and talent couldn't get the "psychic" range-meter up to snuff, so I'm not going to try. This is one reason why I want to make a framework for people to add their own gauges to LEAFSCAN. This way we can work together on complex things like this, and maybe get something better.

As a long-time EV driver, I think the best range-meter is all this gunk behind my eyes! As long as I know where the battery level is, *I* know how I am driving, and can predict where I'm going. This is why I like the SOC shown in high-resolution. Watching it, you quickly learn how fast the Leaf sucks SOC down. Not only will this make you a better driver, but it also eventually teach you how to manage your range all by yourself!

We all already have this skill to some degree. For instance, when you walk into the bathroom and see how little TP is left on the roll, you probably have a good idea of how much you are going to need for this particular "outing"! Experience tells you when to load another roll to avoid "anxiety". :shock:

Now eventually the computers in the car will learn how to do this, but right now they don't have a clue where you are going, what the weather is like, or even how many people are in the car. For now let's just update your built-in wet-ware and give it enough information to get the job done. You'll find it easier than you think after a short time with good information!

-Phil

 

[CWO4Mann]

Obviously, Nissan with it's vast engineering capability and talent couldn't get the "psychic" range-meter up to snuff, so I'm not going to try. This is one reason why I want to make a framework for people to add their own gauges to LEAFSCAN. This way we can work together on complex things like this, and maybe get something better.

As a long-time EV driver, I think the best range-meter is all this gunk behind my eyes! As long as I know where the battery level is, *I* know how I am driving, and can predict where I'm going. This is why I like the SOC shown in high-resolution. Watching it, you quickly learn how fast the Leaf sucks SOC down. Not only will this make you a better driver, but it also eventually teach you how to manage your range all by yourself!

We all already have this skill to some degree. For instance, when you walk into the bathroom and see how little TP is left on the roll, you probably have a good idea of how much you are going to need for this particular "outing"! Experience tells you when to load another roll to avoid "anxiety". :shock:

Now eventually the computers in the car will learn how to do this, but right now they don't have a clue where you are going, what the weather is like, or even how many people are in the car. For now let's just update your built-in wet-ware and give it enough information to get the job done. You'll find it easier than you think after a short time with good information!
-Phil

I'm with you 100% on this statement, Phil. Once you become trained on your vehicle and your autonomic system takes over a bunch of functions, your own wetware will provide a lot of the "I wonder if..." answers, like the analogy to the toilet paper roll, and that funny feeling you get when you are hovering inside ground effect and just know that you are getting too close to the trees without actually "seeing them wave at you".

As far as purchasing one, you can definitely count me in no matter if the price is "reasonable" or not. I'm a techy sort and would be most happy with one.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[QueenBee]

As a long-time EV driver, I think the best range-meter is all this gunk behind my eyes! As long as I know where the battery level is, *I* know how I am driving, and can predict where I'm going. This is why I like the SOC shown in high-resolution.

And on that note I'm sure you've already considered one of the display pages to be a conversion of SOC to miles remaining based on the user inputting their miles per KW.

 

[EricBayArea]

P.S. You probably have this covered with other people you know but if you need a beta tester I'm nearby and happy to help.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i know its early for pricing, but put it out at $200 and i am in. this is way better than Scangauge at $150.

 

[TomT]

I've had experience with limited production runs of electronic devices - which this is by definition - and I doubt it can be done at that price... I'd happily love to be proven wrong however!

i know its early for pricing, but put it out at $200 and i am in. this is way better than Scangauge at $150.

 

[TEG]

I hope you can have it show EVSE pilot signal details, and J1772 voltage when charging...

 

[jkirkebo]

Does it show efficiency ? Not usable for the US crowd I guess which already have good resolution on the miles/kWh display. Our early european cars show kWh/km instad, with one (!) digit after the decimal point. So if I do 135Wh/km I get 0.1kWh/km in the display, if I do 152Wh/km it shows 0.2kWh/km. Utterly, completely useless. Newer Leafs have two digits after the decimal point. Better, but still too low resolution for me.

So I wish for a Wh/km display. Three digits and none after the dec.point, then it will show 135Wh/km like the dash should have done. I'd also like km/kWh and total possible range derived from starting SOC and efficiency so far, plus remaining range derived from current SOC and efficiency so far. Also remaining range from current SOC + efficiency the last 5 minutes would be nice.

Basicly, a dependable GOM (turtle mode not included in calculations).

I'd order one at once for a price of $350 or less. If more than $400, I'd have to think about it.

 

[jkirkebo]

Can also be used to set the "secret" dealer-only settings.

Do you have any examples of such setting ?

Are there anything useful, like default eco-mode, more regen in eco or D etc. ?

What about speedo calibration ? Mine reads 8% high, but avg.speed and distance is correct. I'd love a 100% correct speedometer...