LeafDD - Dash Display for Leaf

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Ok I just made an Order Via your Pay Pal Link.. Can you give me an ETA? I am not sure if your still back order on some parts of it its ready to ship. And Thank you. This will help me with my 2011 LEAF and the fun issue Nissan has created for me with the P3227 Flash on my very low mileage pack ..
 
thew said:
Ok I just made an Order Via your Pay Pal Link.. Can you give me an ETA? I am not sure if your still back order on some parts of it its ready to ship. And Thank you. This will help me with my 2011 LEAF and the fun issue Nissan has created for me with the P3227 Flash on my very low mileage pack ..
Yup.. The last dozen LeafDDs will be built and shipped over the next few weeks.. I should be able to ship yours in a week or so.
 
just submitted a paypal order....wish I would have been up on this forum posting sooner, but hopefully I'm not too late to get one of the last few!

Now that I'm getting a replacement battery, I'll be very interested to track the degradation / range. Looks like a great product!
 
Ok, the final dozen are being assembled over the next week (or two).. Two of them are already spoken for.
As I dive into this last batch I thought I'd share a few photos of how I put these things together just for the sake of historical documentation ;)

Start off with the 3D printed shells, the OBD2 Cables (which I clip and wrap the 12 unneeded conductors leaving the 4 I need (GND, 12V, EVCAN-H, EVCAN-L)), as well as the LeafDD PCBs hand soldered by my friend Vo for $10/pop (When she solders, it looks like a machine did it.. when I try SMT soldering it looks like a 12 year old did it).
mki3.jpg


Then the 4 wires are soldered in place and the cable is secured with two zip-ties. BTW, the unpopulated components were for digital lines and serial communication so that the LeafDD could be used as the front hub of a Chademo charger supplying all the signals to the Chademo connector while talking serially to a DC power supply... I just never tried it. That little regulator on the top left is what makes that corner get toasty warm.. If the temp sensor in the 8051 processor detects things getting too warm it will dim the display in software to prevent over heating.
m5gm.jpg


The boards are powered up by a female OBD2 cable supplying 12V and the Silicon Labs 8051 is flash programmed from my laptop. I also do a sanity check on the powered CANH and CANL to verify neither is grounded (Leaf doesn't like that!)
m3oy.jpg


Then I screw on the little nuts and bolts and add the standoffs and header for mounting the OLED board.
n9jn.jpg


And finally add the OLED, screw it in place and solder the 20 pin header on both sides. Power up and test. Ta Da! Then off to my Leaf for in-car testing, a serial number on the back, then packaging for shipping.
j8eb.jpg
 
^ That was an interesting process. It sure is a useful device!

Do you have any idea of what the idle power draw is with the car off? I haven't had mine unplugged since I got it ten months ago, but I think I may do so when I am away from home for two weeks this summer.
 
GregH said:
Ok, the final dozen are being assembled over the next week (or two).. Two of them are already spoken for.
As I dive into this last batch I thought I'd share a few photos of how I put these things together just for the sake of historical documentation ;)
All those nice pics just convinced me to order one. :) Nice work!
 
drees said:
GregH said:
Ok, the final dozen are being assembled over the next week (or two).. Two of them are already spoken for.
As I dive into this last batch I thought I'd share a few photos of how I put these things together just for the sake of historical documentation ;)
All those nice pics just convinced me to order one. :) Nice work!
Agreed. Ordered one too.
Will be interesting to compare EV-CAN GIDS to CAR-CAN GIDS' at low status of charge.
 
dgpcolorado said:
^ That was an interesting process. It sure is a useful device!

Do you have any idea of what the idle power draw is with the car off? I haven't had mine unplugged since I got it ten months ago, but I think I may do so when I am away from home for two weeks this summer.
FWIW, I left mine plugged in while I was out of town for 3 weeks....no problem.
 
This is a great product GregH. I just received mine yesterday (crazy fast shipping!), and it works like a charm. I think you did a very good job of utilizing the LED, presenting a lot of very useful data in a very organized way. Thanks again!
 
I just sent payment for a LeafDD because your product serves to both excite and depress me all at the same time. I will be much better informed about my car, which is great, but now I cannot live in blissful ignorance. Someone plugged his LeafDD into my car yesterday, and unfortunately- if I understand it correctly- I'm close to losing my first energy bar at 12,000 miles (just shy of two years from manufacture date and about 1 1/2 years from purchase). I just wish I had this device when I picked up the car so I could have tracked my battery from delivery.
 
danmeljeff said:
This is a great product GregH. I just received mine yesterday (crazy fast shipping!), and it works like a charm. I think you did a very good job of utilizing the LED, presenting a lot of very useful data in a very organized way. Thanks again!
+1. I already use Leaf Spy Pro, but wanted something I could leave hooked up and not have to start up the app on my phone all the time. Got mine Saturday.

Some comments after having used Leaf Spy for a while:

1. Where/how are people generally mounting it? Anything work nicely? I've tried a couple things so far but it's left the cable dangling around.
2. Wish that the temps on page 2 would also toggle between C and F.
3. Wish that the data on page 2 refreshed periodically, feel like I need a bit more info than on page 1 for normal driving.
4. Wish there was kWh remaining along with an estimated miles remaining, really like that feature on Leaf Spy.
5. Update speed is very quick on the cell-pair voltage screen!

Anyone doing custom firmware on them?
 
drees said:
...Some comments after having used Leaf Spy for a while:

1. Where/how are people generally mounting it? Anything work nicely? I've tried a couple things so far but it's left the cable dangling around...
There is some discussion about mounting beginning about page 8 of this thread; we've all had various ideas. GregH suggested wrapping the cable around the steering column to keep it out of the way and I found that works really well. Mine has not been unplugged since I installed it ten months ago and I have never found the cable in the way.

I decided to mount it over the console and made a mount for it that is Velcroed to the dash. Thought about using metal but figured it would get too hot so I used cardboard instead: white on the front and black on the back for better viewing contrast:
cajb.jpg

The idea is for it to act as a sunshade for the device as well as a holder and viewing backdrop.

ra9j.jpg

(The unevenness of the display brightness is an artifact of the display/camera interaction.)
One change I've made since those pictures were taken was to add another sunshade on the holder right above the Leaf DD. I can read it pretty well in most lighting conditions. On the rare occasions when I want to hide the device while parked I just lower it to the cupholders and put a towel over it. Quite convenient.

Others have put it in the small window by the A pillar, and various other places. You could even try putting it above the mirror.
 
I also wanted a dedicated gauge, and to keep from murdering my poor phone. I learned this weekend, at the local breakfast, that these were going "out of print". So I ordered one. Thanks to Randy for the tip.

I'd also like to hack with the code, but I know I'm not so motivated as to learn 8051 code and to get a development system for it.
 
It looks like the last one just sold.. The last two units are going to North Carolina. Thank you all for a fun year and I hope your LeafDDs continue to serve you well!

Oh, and I did check the power consumption while "asleep" on one of the last units and it was a surprising 16.5mA! Granted it's not really asleep, it just turns off all the OLED pixels (which is most of the power). So while some have left theirs plugged in unattended for 3 weeks I probably wouldn't advise leaving it plugged in for more than a week or two if you're not driving your car.

A few other tidbits.. the temperatures on page 2 are the raw calculated numbers coming from the Leaf.. They come in Centigrade. Also shown are the raw A/D values. I use the raw values to interpolate a more precise temperature which is made available in C or F on page 1. I agree a "live" SOC would be nice on page 2, but I opted to not update the active CAN sampling state machine so that the temps (raw C and A/D) values could easily be jotted down back when we were trying to get the logarithmic scale correct (see the Active CAN sampling thread for the gritty details). I feel odd saying it but I think the GOM actually works fairly well.. Several times I've extrapolated down to "0 miles" (after the --- at VLBW) and come in around 10-15 Gids which is probably as low as I'd like to go. That being said I do monitor voltages and Gids obsessively when <VLBW... I guess if I wasn't obsessive about this stuff I wouldn't have made the LeafDD in the first place :) And finally I stuck with Ah rather than try to derive kWh because while AC kWh into the vehicle are fairly easy to monitor, it can vary greatly during driving depending on how you drive. You could multiply the Ah counter (which is actually SOC * Capacity) times a constant average pack voltage but of course that's not really accurate. You could spend an Ah driving aggressively or mellow and net more or less power due to the battery at that time (based on impedance * current as well as SOC). Long story short, I went with as much direct information from the car as possible. There are probably many ideas for calculating a better SOC meter, a better kWh meter or a better GOM... but I stuck with the raw numbers coming from the car. The only non direct numbers are the interpolated temperature which I tried to match as best as possible to the cars' internal calc, and the Ah counter which as I said is SOC * Capacity (Ah). Oh yeah, and of course Gid%... which is really just a tribute to Gary and the folks who prefer Gids/281.
 
GregH said:
It looks like the last one just sold.. The last two units are going to North Carolina. Thank you all for a fun year and I hope your LeafDDs continue to serve you well!

Oh, and I did check the power consumption while "asleep" on one of the last units and it was a surprising 16.5mA! Granted it's not really asleep, it just turns off all the OLED pixels (which is most of the power). So while some have left theirs plugged in unattended for 3 weeks I probably wouldn't advise leaving it plugged in for more than a week or two if you're not driving your car.

A few other tidbits.. the temperatures on page 2 are the raw calculated numbers coming from the Leaf.. They come in Centigrade. Also shown are the raw A/D values. I use the raw values to interpolate a more precise temperature which is made available in C or F on page 1. I agree a "live" SOC would be nice on page 2, but I opted to not update the active CAN sampling state machine so that the temps (raw C and A/D) values could easily be jotted down back when we were trying to get the logarithmic scale correct (see the Active CAN sampling thread for the gritty details). I feel odd saying it but I think the GOM actually works fairly well.. Several times I've extrapolated down to "0 miles" (after the --- at VLBW) and come in around 10-15 Gids which is probably as low as I'd like to go. That being said I do monitor voltages and Gids obsessively when <VLBW... I guess if I wasn't obsessive about this stuff I wouldn't have made the LeafDD in the first place :) And finally I stuck with Ah rather than try to derive kWh because while AC kWh into the vehicle are fairly easy to monitor, it can vary greatly during driving depending on how you drive. You could multiply the Ah counter (which is actually SOC * Capacity) times a constant average pack voltage but of course that's not really accurate. You could spend an Ah driving aggressively or mellow and net more or less power due to the battery at that time (based on impedance * current as well as SOC). Long story short, I went with as much direct information from the car as possible. There are probably many ideas for calculating a better SOC meter, a better kWh meter or a better GOM... but I stuck with the raw numbers coming from the car. The only non direct numbers are the interpolated temperature which I tried to match as best as possible to the cars' internal calc, and the Ah counter which as I said is SOC * Capacity (Ah). Oh yeah, and of course Gid%... which is really just a tribute to Gary and the folks who prefer Gids/281.

Thanks for all the work you did to design and make these. I was going to get the app that someone else just made for the iPhone, but I figured that I cannot (should not) pull my phone out while driving to see how many Gids I have, etc. Also, with the idle power draw is there a possibility of adding an on/off switch to future batches of LeafDDs?
 
Publius said:
Thanks for all the work you did to design and make these. I was going to get the app that someone else just made for the iPhone, but I figured that I cannot (should not) pull my phone out while driving to see how many Gids I have, etc. Also, with the idle power draw is there a possibility of adding an on/off switch to future batches of LeafDDs?

I NEVER unplug my LeafDD and have NEVER had a problem in almost a year now, which includes stretches of parking at the airport for a week at a time (I have LeafDD #8); I don't think the ghost current draw is much of an issue. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the LeafDD is a wonderful thing :D
 
Likewise with my Lincomatic, which I suspect is less power efficient than the DD... I haven't unplugged it in nearly two years...

Stanton said:
I NEVER unplug my LeafDD and have NEVER had a problem in almost a year now, which includes stretches of parking at the airport for a week at a time (I have LeafDD #8); I don't think the ghost current draw is much of an issue.
 
Thanks for the tips mounting, here's what I've done for now. I do need to get some felt on the back where it touches the dash bezel to avoid rattles and minor scuffing on the dash bezel.

LeafDD-mount-1.jpg
LeafDD-mount-2.jpg
LeafDD-mount-3.jpg
 
Got my LEAF DD Installed, Pics Below, I found a Nice Bell $4.99 suction cup Window Mount for it. :)

So Far I have discovered that since the Re flash I seem to not be charging to Full.
Ill collect data this week and come back for some Group thoughts when I have numbers.

Thanks Greg for a Great Tool!. IF your want to make more, I can help you sell them out on the open Market.. No cost to you.. But I do have the Connections.

Thanks Again.

Next ill Start Tracking some GIDS.
 

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