Hi folks,
I'm at a loss. I have a 2016 Zero SR electric motorcycle. A couple of years ago I ordered a high-powered charger kit on IndieGoGo from a company that had been around for quite a while. It was three 3.3 kW AC chargers in a custom belly pan, with all the wiring and a control box for plug-and-play installation. I was led to believe that I would be able to adjust the chargers for whatever situation I was in so that I could charge with anything from a regular wall socket to a 3-phase Type 2 EVSE. Past versions of these chargers could be connected via Bluetooth to a mobile phone and have the settings changed at will. However, when I received it it turned out to be hardcoded to run the chargers full blast. That means I can _only_ charge from 3-phase 10 kW+ EVSEs, which is far from ideal. There were other problems as well, including insufficient cooling that caused the chargers to overheat and throttle down to a trickle after only a few minutes, meaning I couldn't actually complete a charge session in one go. It took 3 or 4 tries with cooling pauses between in order to fully charge the battery pack. I got fed up with it and went back to totally stock.
The problem is that the company that made the kit promptly left the market and completely ceased all support. They stopped responding to any contact. That leaves me with a charge kit that cost me several thousand dollars just sitting collecting dust, and a bike that is otherwise awesome that is only good for commuting and day joyrides and can't be road-tripped as I was hoping to do when I ordered the kit. (The factory charger takes 8.5 hours to charge, vs. 45 minutes to an hour with the kit.)
I can solve the overheating by not using the belly pan that came with the kit (it was too deep anyway and caused some clearance issues with speed bumps) and mounting the chargers in another location with better airflow complete with heatsinks and fans. However, the control issue is far beyond my capability. I'm good with basic electronics and have played around with Raspberry Pis and even dabbled with ESP8266 (I have plans for a LOT more of that) but when it comes to analyzing signals and protocols and programming them I'm completely out of my depth. But I don't know where to turn for help.
What I really need is to make a new control box with a few buttons and knobs that will allow me to set the modes of the chargers quickly and easily without having to get out my phone or another device and go through the hassle of connecting and fiddling with that other device. Especially since using touch screens with motorcycle gloves is a far from optimal experience.
There are some things I know: I believe the chargers were based on, if not made by, Elcon. The control box connects to them via 4 wires. The control box doesn't care how many or which chargers are running, the control wires are simply connected in parallel to the chargers and whichever chargers are physically connected to power will run at whatever settings the control box is sending out. I believe it's a CAN Bus protocol. The communication is probably not even 2-way; the controller just sends out the settings and the chargers' internal control circuitry takes care of the rest.
Can anybody help me, or give me some idea of where I can go to get help reverse engineering the control protocol and programming an ESP8266 or similar to control the chargers? I would be happy to pay a reasonable fee for any help. I can't afford to pay a large percentage of what the kit cost, though. Any help would be immensely appreciated.
