Wow. I can't believe my luck. I have been researching an ev conversion for an old vehicle using Model 3 components for quite a while. This excellent tutorial has answered just about all my questions. Including questions I hadn't thought of yet ! It has fast forwarded my project enough to the point that I am now confident enough to purchase a complete damaged Model 3 and get on with it . Can't wait for the next episode.
@@sydneyg007 If possible, would you be able to make a few comments in the video about expected pack voltage for a Model 3 ? The only real risk I see in buying a damaged car is the battery condition. Everything else seems to be pretty straight forward. I was originally going to buy a pack and drive unit separately hence my question about pack voltages but as you've pointed out, it makes way more sense to buy a complete car. Cheers.
@@billhill4479 I would think it is fairly unlikely for there to be battery condition problems with a model 3 (unless the battery pack has been compromised which is a rarity). If it is an NCM pack (ie not LFP) then I think each cell can be as low as 2.5volts each without to much issue, with 96 cells that is 240 volts when empty or when fully charged to 4.2 volts pack voltage would be 403.2 volts. That's if you are able to check it (and the pyro fuse hasn't been tripped).
That was a really well done tutorial on the penthouse, really like the explanations of each component. Looking forward to see how your able to repackage the battery pack and modules.
Thanks! There doesn't seem to be that much in depth tear downs on the M3 Penhouse and there are a few little tricky bits as you would well know (especially removing the HV output plugs!)
@@sydneyg007 I absolutely agree. I just finished my first one, which was made more complicated due to prior application of another car moving at speed compromising the penthouse body, but this would have been very helpful ahead of time! The next thing I'm curious about - if you're intending to reuse the penthouse assembly and just mount it complete within the car somewhere, how much disassembly is really required? If you do the full teardown, there are a lot of components to get right, but to separate from the battery modules, it seems like you would only need to free the 4 posts, the connectors to the BMS board, and the undermounted connector sockets. The charger/inverter and pcb are in the way, as well as the two contactors, and you obviously want to do the pyrofuse as well.
You look very confident around high voltage. I would have a heart rate of 180 and brown my pants every 30s. Are you qualified or is a 'learn as you go along' kind of thing? And you are disassembling the penthouse like you were the one who assembled it in the first place. You really cranked up the DIY level to 15 on 1-10 scale with this video 🙂
Thanks very much! No i'm not qualified in anything (although I did do an Indian cooking class years back);) It's one of those things that if you fully understand something it is a lot less scary!
It helps that it's DC. It needs a path from one end to the other in order to shock you. AC just wants a ground, so it's much easier to shock yourself with a light switch than even a high voltage DC battery, as long as you're relatively careful.
Thank you so much for posting this, I have a quick question, say for example if you need to replace just a PTC/HVAC/PCS fuse would you take the effort of removing the pyrofuse? This because the 3 fuses are not under high voltage when the contactors are not engaged (if you did the HV isolation check up front). I know it's a safety measure and you separate the pack voltage with the removal of the pyro but just changing the small fuses isn't that big deal if you take your time not to drop any nuts and bolts. This because remove/replacing the pyro can cause extra resistance on the contacts so that's my reason not to mess with it but not sure if it's worth the risk of not removing it. What is your opinion about that? Thanks.
Hey, no problem! Personally I would still just remove the pyro beforehand because it is easy and makes things a bit safer. You are right though, there should be no high voltage at the fuses (even with the pyro still connected). I'm not sure why removing the pyro would cause any resistance on the contactors or do you mean the contact patches of the pyro, either way I don't think it would cause any problems. Also, if you are replacing one of the 3 fuses you would definitely want to know why it has blown in the first place - something has gone wrong if one of them has blown!
@@sydneyg007 Thank you for your quick response. Sorry because I was a little unclear I meant the contact patches of the pyro, Tesla manual says to check resistance if pyro is reinserted so apparently it can give issues. About the blown fuse you are absolutely right but I need to replace a PTC heater but there is a big chance the fuse is also toast so i'm trying to do some homework up front :-)
@@gtech6 Yeh, right. Yes, I have seen the "Hoki resistance" test in the procedures. I'm not sure how likely extra resistance would be caused by replacing the pyro assuming it is torqued back up to correct specs but I guess it's possible. Easy to check the PTC fuse in place beforehand with a multimeter and definitely not worth removing the pyro to do that!
Hello, I have a 2021 Model YLR with the lead acid 12 volt battery. Is the PCS that you removed from the penthouse the same as the DC to DC converter? I've been looking for videos on how to replace my DC to DC converter just in case it fails. My car is approaching 50,000 miles and almost out of warranty. Looks like i would have to remove my 2nd row seats to be able to remove the cover on my penthouse in order to swap out the PCS. Could you please confirm if my understanding is correct on replacing my DC to DC converter? Do i need to purchase a used PCS from ebay for what I'm trying to accomplish for replacing my DC to DC converter? And is it just plug and play? Do I have to worry about any software or firmware issues? Thanks!
Hi. Yes, the PCS also handles the DC to DC (i.e. charges the 12 volt from the 350volt!). It would be very unusual to have to replace this but if you had to it is the big box at the top of the penthouse (yes, under the rear seat). Fairly straight forward to replace although the plastic clips for the coolant connections can be a little fiddly until you make up a little helper tool. I think (but am not 100%) that all PCS's are interchangeable (other than the single phase 110v USA versions to the 240v 3 phase versions). I had to use Tesla toolbox after replacing to run a can bus update (which gets the correct software onto the new PCS), but I think you can now do this on the service ui in the car now. To be honest though I wouldn't be worried about it failing!
Thanks so much for the reply. On my vehicle, I installed a 1000 watt power inverter which I hooked up to the penthouse 12 volt terminals. It's been working great and I try to keep it to 800 watts load when I'm using it. I have the 12 volt lead acid battery so it doesn't give me any errors unlike the 16 volt lithium version which has a more sensitive bms. I use it for cooking sometimes and when we have a power outage at the house. Hopefully it doesn't hurt my DC to DC converter but I wanted to know how I could replace it just in case. Thanks for the help!
Nice! You've obviously worked out the correct way to get a higher output 12v feed (straight from the penthouse). The DCDC has a very high output so you should be fine! @@arisnavarro
I would say that the coil voltage would be 12volt (like the rest of the low voltage circuit). Don't know if it has an economiser but would assume it would.
Good explanation! Pyrotechnic fuse links both sides of the battery (200V per side.) 👍🏾
Damn you. I’ve watched enough to realise this is possible and I possibly do have the skills to do the job.
Oh dear. Sorry! But I'm not going to disagree with you!
@@sydneyg007 haha
Wow. I can't believe my luck. I have been researching an ev conversion for an old vehicle using Model 3 components for quite a while. This excellent tutorial has answered just about all my questions. Including questions I hadn't thought of yet ! It has fast forwarded my project enough to the point that I am now confident enough to purchase a complete damaged Model 3 and get on with it . Can't wait for the next episode.
Thanks. Glad it helped! Will put up a video of getting into the modules soon...👍
@@sydneyg007 If possible, would you be able to make a few comments in the video about expected pack voltage for a Model 3 ? The only real risk I see in buying a damaged car is the battery condition. Everything else seems to be pretty straight forward. I was originally going to buy a pack and drive unit separately hence my question about pack voltages but as you've pointed out, it makes way more sense to buy a complete car. Cheers.
@@billhill4479 I would think it is fairly unlikely for there to be battery condition problems with a model 3 (unless the battery pack has been compromised which is a rarity). If it is an NCM pack (ie not LFP) then I think each cell can be as low as 2.5volts each without to much issue, with 96 cells that is 240 volts when empty or when fully charged to 4.2 volts pack voltage would be 403.2 volts. That's if you are able to check it (and the pyro fuse hasn't been tripped).
@@sydneyg007 Thanks for the advice. Really appreciate it.
Great tutorial! I wish I saw this before my first pack teardown.
Thanks! That's exactly why I wanted to do these videos! There aren't enough channels (like yours) that have practicle information on these things!
That was a really well done tutorial on the penthouse, really like the explanations of each component.
Looking forward to see how your able to repackage the battery pack and modules.
Thanks! There doesn't seem to be that much in depth tear downs on the M3 Penhouse and there are a few little tricky bits as you would well know (especially removing the HV output plugs!)
@@sydneyg007 I absolutely agree. I just finished my first one, which was made more complicated due to prior application of another car moving at speed compromising the penthouse body, but this would have been very helpful ahead of time! The next thing I'm curious about - if you're intending to reuse the penthouse assembly and just mount it complete within the car somewhere, how much disassembly is really required? If you do the full teardown, there are a lot of components to get right, but to separate from the battery modules, it seems like you would only need to free the 4 posts, the connectors to the BMS board, and the undermounted connector sockets. The charger/inverter and pcb are in the way, as well as the two contactors, and you obviously want to do the pyrofuse as well.
@@12x2richter I've done a video on that exact thing (episode 9)! th-cam.com/video/jtU8xIDGym4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=UuazfdFmH5XJKh0f
You look very confident around high voltage. I would have a heart rate of 180 and brown my pants every 30s. Are you qualified or is a 'learn as you go along' kind of thing? And you are disassembling the penthouse like you were the one who assembled it in the first place. You really cranked up the DIY level to 15 on 1-10 scale with this video 🙂
Thanks very much! No i'm not qualified in anything (although I did do an Indian cooking class years back);) It's one of those things that if you fully understand something it is a lot less scary!
It helps that it's DC. It needs a path from one end to the other in order to shock you. AC just wants a ground, so it's much easier to shock yourself with a light switch than even a high voltage DC battery, as long as you're relatively careful.
Thank you so much for posting this, I have a quick question, say for example if you need to replace just a PTC/HVAC/PCS fuse would you take the effort of removing the pyrofuse? This because the 3 fuses are not under high voltage when the contactors are not engaged (if you did the HV isolation check up front). I know it's a safety measure and you separate the pack voltage with the removal of the pyro but just changing the small fuses isn't that big deal if you take your time not to drop any nuts and bolts. This because remove/replacing the pyro can cause extra resistance on the contacts so that's my reason not to mess with it but not sure if it's worth the risk of not removing it. What is your opinion about that? Thanks.
Hey, no problem! Personally I would still just remove the pyro beforehand because it is easy and makes things a bit safer. You are right though, there should be no high voltage at the fuses (even with the pyro still connected). I'm not sure why removing the pyro would cause any resistance on the contactors or do you mean the contact patches of the pyro, either way I don't think it would cause any problems. Also, if you are replacing one of the 3 fuses you would definitely want to know why it has blown in the first place - something has gone wrong if one of them has blown!
@@sydneyg007 Thank you for your quick response. Sorry because I was a little unclear I meant the contact patches of the pyro, Tesla manual says to check resistance if pyro is reinserted so apparently it can give issues. About the blown fuse you are absolutely right but I need to replace a PTC heater but there is a big chance the fuse is also toast so i'm trying to do some homework up front :-)
@@gtech6 Yeh, right. Yes, I have seen the "Hoki resistance" test in the procedures. I'm not sure how likely extra resistance would be caused by replacing the pyro assuming it is torqued back up to correct specs but I guess it's possible. Easy to check the PTC fuse in place beforehand with a multimeter and definitely not worth removing the pyro to do that!
Hello,
I have a 2021 Model YLR with the lead acid 12 volt battery. Is the PCS that you removed from the penthouse the same as the DC to DC converter? I've been looking for videos on how to replace my DC to DC converter just in case it fails. My car is approaching 50,000 miles and almost out of warranty. Looks like i would have to remove my 2nd row seats to be able to remove the cover on my penthouse in order to swap out the PCS. Could you please confirm if my understanding is correct on replacing my DC to DC converter? Do i need to purchase a used PCS from ebay for what I'm trying to accomplish for replacing my DC to DC converter? And is it just plug and play? Do I have to worry about any software or firmware issues? Thanks!
Hi. Yes, the PCS also handles the DC to DC (i.e. charges the 12 volt from the 350volt!). It would be very unusual to have to replace this but if you had to it is the big box at the top of the penthouse (yes, under the rear seat). Fairly straight forward to replace although the plastic clips for the coolant connections can be a little fiddly until you make up a little helper tool. I think (but am not 100%) that all PCS's are interchangeable
(other than the single phase 110v USA versions to the 240v 3 phase versions). I had to use Tesla toolbox after replacing to run a can bus update (which gets the correct software onto the new PCS), but I think you can now do this on the service ui in the car now. To be honest though I wouldn't be worried about it failing!
Thanks so much for the reply. On my vehicle, I installed a 1000 watt power inverter which I hooked up to the penthouse 12 volt terminals. It's been working great and I try to keep it to 800 watts load when I'm using it. I have the 12 volt lead acid battery so it doesn't give me any errors unlike the 16 volt lithium version which has a more sensitive bms. I use it for cooking sometimes and when we have a power outage at the house. Hopefully it doesn't hurt my DC to DC converter but I wanted to know how I could replace it just in case. Thanks for the help!
Nice! You've obviously worked out the correct way to get a higher output 12v feed (straight from the penthouse). The DCDC has a very high output so you should be fine! @@arisnavarro
hello
Who knows the parameters of the contactor from tesla model 3, what voltage is needed for the coil and is there an economizer in it?
I would say that the coil voltage would be 12volt (like the rest of the low voltage circuit). Don't know if it has an economiser but would assume it would.
Worst quantity if you would know anything about akumolators!.. 10years behind... thats why now they but from byd "blade "
Bugger that. Get back to tge dozer