Smith Electric

16529 Views 89 Replies 17 Participants Last post by Gerardo, 22 d ago

Solarrx

Discussion Starter · Oct 29, 2020

I recently bought at auction a 2012 Smith Electric D75 ex FedEx step van. I am desperately looking for an owner’s/shop manual for it. None seems to exist! It would also be great to find someone close enough to come by and check it out. I live in Anaheim, CA. I have not been able to even start It as of yet, but I used the charger cable from my 2013 RAV4 EV and it seems to have charged up. Can anyone out there help me?

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remy_martian

· #2 · Oct 31, 2020

lol. I was looking at those.

There's good reason why these are farmed out to suckers at auctions...can't get parts, unless you buy two or three or four (if there's a common failure that kills them...).

Was too rich for me - would need to gut and replace the controls. I guess it actually charging is a bonus....I would have expected the batteries were cycled to death, daily, over 8 years.

This would all be pretty straight forward if people located manuals for current vehicles and archived them here, wouldn't it?

paaa

· #3 · Feb 13, 2021

Don't know if its applicable but its the wiring diagram for 2007 Smith Edison van with Enova inverter.

jgilly69

· #4 · Feb 27, 2021

Solarrx said:
I recently bought at auction a 2012 Smith Electric D75 ex FedEx step van. I am desperately looking for an owner’s/shop manual for it. None seems to exist! It would also be great to find someone close enough to come by and check it out. I live in Anaheim, CA. I have not been able to even start It as of yet, but I used the charger cable from my 2013 RAV4 EV and it seems to have charged up. Can anyone out there help me?

If you take the cover off the top of the dash you should find a key! Did you ever get it started? I managed to buy one and am also looking for a manual or some sort of wiring diagram.

Solarrx

Discussion Starter · #5 · Apr 16, 2021

jgilly69 said:
If you take the cover off the top of the dash you should find a key! Did you ever get it started? I managed to buy one and am also looking for a manual or some sort of wiring diagram.

Can you share your secret for getting your van to run? I am stumped! Thanks

jgilly69

· #6 · Apr 22, 2021

Solarrx said:
Can you share your secret for getting your van to run? I am stumped! Thanks

I had an error on my van stopping it from booting from the startup smith screen. If there are any faults the screen will just display the "Smith logo". I ran the scanner software and found I had the high voltage interlock error. Tracking that down can be a pain in the butt. Its referred to as the Evil loop. It really is just that a loop that goes into every connection on every system. I think I sent you the plans that show the loop, look for the interlock wires.

But the very very first thing I would do is remove each of the orange high voltage disconnect "pucks" and place them back on, but when you place them on make sure you pull the "handle outwards, then rotate them closed otherwise they will not connect the interlock at the connector. I managed to fix my loop issue with a loose wire, but still had a HV interlock issue which caused by one of the orange pucks. That was one of the root causes of the failure to start up.

I will see what I can do to get you the software. You will need a CAN adaptor specifically a PEAK USB CAN Adapter IPEH 002021. They are on Ebay used for about $150 and will work with the software. Someone local may have one you can rent or borrow. Also you will need a functioning laptop.

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Solarrx

Discussion Starter · #7 · Apr 22, 2021

jgilly69 said:
I had an error on my van stopping it from booting from the startup smith screen. If there are any faults the screen will just display the "Smith logo". I ran the scanner software and found I had the high voltage interlock error. Tracking that down can be a pain in the butt. Its referred to as the Evil loop. It really is just that a loop that goes into every connection on every system. I think I sent you the plans that show the loop, look for the interlock wires.

But the very very first thing I would do is remove each of the orange high voltage disconnect "pucks" and place them back on, but when you place them on make sure you pull the "handle outwards, then rotate them closed otherwise they will not connect the interlock at the connector. I managed to fix my loop issue with a loose wire, but still had a HV interlock issue which caused by one of the orange pucks. That was one of the root causes of the failure to start up.

I will see what I can do to get you the software. You will need a CAN adaptor specifically a PEAK USB CAN Adapter IPEH 002021. They are on Ebay used for about $150 and will work with the software. Someone local may have one you can rent or borrow. Also you will need a functioning laptop.

Thank you John! I appreciate the insight.

SmithEV

· #8 · May 4, 2021

Did you ever get it started? I bought one too (Smith Step Van) but I got it started. The only problem I have seems to be a battery fault. I will post a pic soon because I need help with the batteries since only 3 out of the 4 seem to be good. From the schmematic posted prior, it looks like the batteries are in a loop? I'm wondering if I could bypass theban battery for now because it's going to be rather difficult removing the battery banks without a forklift, and I'm almost considering taking off the aluminum floor boards inside the van in order to get access to the batteries from the top.

Solarrx

Discussion Starter · #9 · May 4, 2021

SmithEV said:
Did you ever get it started? I bought one too (Smith Step Van) but I got it started. The only problem I have seems to be a battery fault. I will post a pic soon because I need help with the batteries since only 3 out of the 4 seem to be good. From the schmematic posted prior, it looks like the batteries are in a loop? I'm wondering if I could bypass theban battery for now because it's going to be rather difficult removing the battery banks without a forklift, and I'm almost considering taking off the aluminum floor boards inside the van in order to get access to the batteries from the top.

I did not get it running and decided to remove the batteries for sale. Half the batteries did charge when in the van, the other ones need to be checked out. If you end up needing to replace any batteries, I will sell individual ones for $500 each. Good luck on your project!

Reactions: 1

SmithEV

· #10 · May 4, 2021

jgilly69 said:
I had an error on my van stopping it from booting from the startup smith screen. If there are any faults the screen will just display the "Smith logo". I ran the scanner software and found I had the high voltage interlock error. Tracking that down can be a pain in the butt. Its referred to as the Evil loop. It really is just that a loop that goes into every connection on every system. I think I sent you the plans that show the loop, look for the interlock wires.

But the very very first thing I would do is remove each of the orange high voltage disconnect "pucks" and place them back on, but when you place them on make sure you pull the "handle outwards, then rotate them closed otherwise they will not connect the interlock at the connector. I managed to fix my loop issue with a loose wire, but still had a HV interlock issue which caused by one of the orange pucks. That was one of the root causes of the failure to start up.

I will see what I can do to get you the software. You will need a CAN adaptor specifically a PEAK USB CAN Adapter IPEH 002021. They are on Ebay used for about $150 and will work with the software. Someone local may have one you can rent or borrow. Also you will need a functioning laptop.

jgilly69, will you help me out with the software process? I'd like to run the scanner software like you did and everything. I know that BenjaminNelson guy on youtube just made a video about hooking his Smith Electric batteries to some PC software - he had the Valence batteries from a Smith box truck not the step van (d75 Newton Step Van).

Also, jgilly69, how did you check your orange pucks? My battery pack has four of the orange puck style ones and I just ohmed mine with a Fluke meter and they seemed fine. Also, I did find that if you don't open the latches on these pucks all the way then they won't go back in the same way and you'll have issues since they're not inserted properly - kinda like you said. When I think of "high voltage interlock" from the fault you read from the software, I'm thinking about the pucks as the interlocks? Either way, I'm not getting that fault, the van moves and everything, but on the battery interface 1 of 4 battery rings(?) is yellow while the others are green -it's the third one in from the left that's yellow. Right now,I can't figure out which if the two battery packs the bad ring is on? I wan't to avoid removing both packs.

Solarrx, I'm interested.

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Smithy

· #11 · May 4, 2021

SmithEV said:
jgilly69, will you help me out with the software process? I'd like to run the scanner software like you did and everything. I know that BenjaminNelson guy on youtube just made a video about hooking his Smith Electric batteries to some PC software - he had the Valence batteries from a Smith box truck not the step van (d75 Newton Step Van).

Also, jgilly69, how did you check your orange pucks? My battery pack has four of the orange puck style ones and I just ohmed mine with a Fluke meter and they seemed fine. Also, I did find that if you don't open the latches on these pucks all the way then they won't go back in the same way and you'll have issues since they're not inserted properly - kinda like you said. When I think of "high voltage interlock" from the fault you read from the software, I'm thinking about the pucks as the interlocks? Either way, I'm not getting that fault, the van moves and everything, but on the battery interface 1 of 4 battery rings(?) is yellow while the others are green -it's the third one in from the left that's yellow. Right now,I can't figure out which if the two battery packs the bad ring is on? I wan't to avoid removing both packs.

Solarrx, I'm interested.

View attachment 122590

Hi Smith.
I have one of these as well, been driving it for 2 years.
I've encountered this a couple times and I believe it is with the modules becoming un balanced. Or the vcu running out of memory. Not sure. Some diag. Software would be handy.
My solution which has worked for me is disconnect the 24v battery for a bit. Reconnect. Charge batteries to full capacity. Disconnect 24v wait a bit. Reconnect and turn on. Sometimes going through the routine a couple of times.
Hope this helps

Reactions: 1

jgilly69

· #12 · May 5, 2021

SmithEV said:
jgilly69, will you help me out with the software process? I'd like to run the scanner software like you did and everything. I know that BenjaminNelson guy on youtube just made a video about hooking his Smith Electric batteries to some PC software - he had the Valence batteries from a Smith box truck not the step van (d75 Newton Step Van).

Also, jgilly69, how did you check your orange pucks? My battery pack has four of the orange puck style ones and I just ohmed mine with a Fluke meter and they seemed fine. Also, I did find that if you don't open the latches on these pucks all the way then they won't go back in the same way and you'll have issues since they're not inserted properly - kinda like you said. When I think of "high voltage interlock" from the fault you read from the software, I'm thinking about the pucks as the interlocks? Either way, I'm not getting that fault, the van moves and everything, but on the battery interface 1 of 4 battery rings(?) is yellow while the others are green -it's the third one in from the left that's yellow. Right now,I can't figure out which if the two battery packs the bad ring is on? I wan't to avoid removing both packs.

Solarrx, I'm interested.

View attachment 122590

I think you have a low voltage cell in that pack. I would keep it on the charger and it will bring that one pack up... slowly abet slowly. I watched the final charging from the controller and it ramped down to 1-4amps, which allows the onboard balancers to take over. I have a zip file with the scanner software but cant seem to upload it to the site. Please send me a message and I will send you an email.

I have some better specific drawings to the stepvan file is huge! 26MB

jgilly69

· #13 · May 5, 2021

I was given a nice gift related to these trucks and vans! Please message me and I will try to hook anyone up with a smith van or truck.

SmithEV

· #14 · May 5, 2021

jgilly69 said:
I think you have a low voltage cell in that pack. I would keep it on the charger and it will bring that one pack up... slowly abet slowly. I watched the final charging from the controller and it ramped down to 1-4amps, which allows the onboard balancers to take over. I have a zip file with the scanner software but cant seem to upload it to the site. Please send me a message and I will send you an email.

I have some better specific drawings to the stepvan file is huge! 26MB

Smithy, thanks a lot for the info! I will definitely be trying this.

jgilly69, I think I had a similar experience with a ChargingPoint charger where it ramped down like that but I wasn't sure what was happening. I'm going to be getting my own charger very soon and conduct this experiment. If this is all there is to it, then I guess I will be home free! My initial problem and why it wouldn't start at Copart was that one of the two 12-volt batteries for the 24-volt system was dead and bad, I tried recharging it with a jump but it would die out again so I replaced it with a new one and now it starts up like normal and keeps a charge, but I have to issue with the one string of batteries on the main traction battery packs. My final goal is to charge the batteries with solar like those fellas at "Route del Sol" on youtube with the blue Navistar - but not even sure how to go about that and this is still a learning process for me.

Either way, my email is : [email protected] for anybody willing to get in touch and exchange information. Jgilly69, I will anxiously be waiting for an e-mail.

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jgilly69

· #15 · May 5, 2021

SmithEV said:
Smithy, thanks a lot for the info! I will definitely be trying this.

jgilly69, I think I had a similar experience with a ChargingPoint charger where it ramped down like that but I wasn't sure what was happening. I'm going to be getting my own charger very soon and conduct this experiment. If this is all there is to it, then I guess I will be home free! My initial problem and why it wouldn't start at Copart was that one of the two 12-volt batteries for the 24-volt system was dead and bad, I tried recharging it with a jump but it would die out again so I replaced it with a new one and now it starts up like normal and keeps a charge, but I have to issue with the one string of batteries on the main traction battery packs. My final goal is to charge the batteries with solar like those fellas at "Route del Sol" on youtube with the blue Navistar - but not even sure how to go about that and this is still a learning process for me.

Either way, my email is : [email protected] for anybody willing to get in touch and exchange information. Jgilly69, I will anxiously be waiting for an e-mail.

I have given a ton of thought about charging while mobile and its just an absolute pain in the ass to do with these step vans. The charging from the 240VAC line is pretty straight forward but it will not charge while the unit is running since the CanBus needs to see the battery BMS give the proper canbus codes to start the onboard charger and the whole unit processes the charge with the battery balance etc.... You could setup you own onboard charger and maybe tie it into a high voltage AC line which is a direct connection to the "Smith Power" box under the firewall cover. It would only work when all the contactors are on. - I was thinking that maybe a Thunderstuck EV 370VDC charger could do it but you need to feed it with 240VAC at 40amps or whatever you can to that charger which would require lots of extras...

So if you went AC Side for charging with onboard - you could easy place 2kwh of solar on the roof and then just run that to a off grid inverter with its own battery storage, then feed the stepvan batteries with a level 1 ESVE charger at say 16amps slow and low? It would take forever to get charged. It would be much simpler to add a gas powered generator that can pump out 40amps and just burn that thing for 2-4 hours to recharge.

If you can feed it with 350VDC + power when running you could theoretically increase your range by quite. You can get access to the DC Bus under the firewall grey box. food for thought I guess...

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SmithEV

· #16 · May 5, 2021

jgilly69 said:
I have given a ton of thought about charging while mobile and its just an absolute pain in the ass to do with these step vans. The charging from the 240VAC line is pretty straight forward but it will not charge while the unit is running since the CanBus needs to see the battery BMS give the proper canbus codes to start the onboard charger and the whole unit processes the charge with the battery balance etc.... You could setup you own onboard charger and maybe tie it into a high voltage AC line which is a direct connection to the "Smith Power" box under the firewall cover. It would only work when all the contactors are on. - I was thinking that maybe a Thunderstuck EV 370VDC charger could do it but you need to feed it with 240VAC at 40amps or whatever you can to that charger which would require lots of extras...

So if you went AC Side for charging with onboard - you could easy place 2kwh of solar on the roof and then just run that to a off grid inverter with its own battery storage, then feed the stepvan batteries with a level 1 ESVE charger at say 16amps slow and low? It would take forever to get charged. It would be much simpler to add a gas powered generator that can pump out 40amps and just burn that thing for 2-4 hours to recharge.

If you can feed it with 350VDC + power when running you could theoretically increase your range by quite. You can get access to the DC Bus under the firewall grey box. food for thought I guess...

JGilly,

Very good ideas here with the AC charge. Myself, I figured it would be more difficult to charge while in motion than when stopped, so I figured I'd pull over for a day and charge... Frankly, I did not know where to begin with this part but you've given me some very good pointers here - I did have to look up CanBus. I'm not a bad electrician but know nothing about EVs, so I kind of assumed from the gate that I would have to hook the solar panels into the same terminals as the charge port plug on the truck? I'm assuming it has to be AC that comes in through there so I would have to convert the DC from the solar panels into AC onboard somehow? I'm also thinking that there may be some logic involved where the voltage has to be a certain value for it to charge? I haven't tried charging it with 120V yet? Will that work?

I've gotten into the grey Smith Power box under the firewall - trying to find a location to get battery voltage from the battery packs but separately, being that I was trying to distinguish which battery pack had the charge issue. It wasn't a good spot to check because of how the bus ties into the orange power cords, so I started to think that I needed to find out about the software and how to plug in. Is there a communication port or something outside of the batteries? Perhaps under the dash?

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jgilly69

· #17 · May 5, 2021

SmithEV said:
JGilly,

Very good ideas here with the AC charge. Myself, I figured it would be more difficult to charge while in motion than when stopped, so I figured I'd pull over for a day and charge... Frankly, I did not know where to begin with this part but you've given me some very good pointers here - I did have to look up CanBus. I'm not a bad electrician but know nothing about EVs, so I kind of assumed from the gate that I would have to hook the solar panels into the same terminals as the charge port plug on the truck? I'm assuming it has to be AC that comes in through there so I would have to convert the DC from the solar panels into AC onboard somehow? I'm also thinking that there may be some logic involved where the voltage has to be a certain value for it to charge? I haven't tried charging it with 120V yet? Will that work?

I've gotten into the grey Smith Power box under the firewall - trying to find a location to get battery voltage from the battery packs but separately, being that I was trying to distinguish which battery pack had the charge issue. It wasn't a good spot to check because of how the bus ties into the orange power cords, so I started to think that I needed to find out about the software and how to plug in. Is there a communication port or something outside of the batteries? Perhaps under the dash?

What model stepvan or truck do you have?

If it is a Copart GEN2000 (A123 System) stepvan there is a little cover below the dash, there are four communications ports. (3) are Serial connection (1) is a specialty plug. The three serial ports are all canbus - VCAN, BCAN and TCAN... VCAN = Vehicle Can Bus- All the stuff you would think of ABS, Controls, Controller. BCAN = Battery Canbus this is what communicates to the VCAN. TCAN is telemetry canbus and it connects to the SmithLink Software via 3G cell which from what I can tell is offline. If you get the little

There is SOOO Much to these units and many many different systems and check and balances. When it comes to charging the charge connector uses a resistor that tells the controller what the maximum charge rate is, without this the unit will just charge at MAX which is 60Amps. I have been charging with a 32amp charger and it is consistently pulling 44amps when connected, almost the maximum I can output with the corded charge cable I have. Once it goes thru the end of charge cycle it drops down to 1-2 amps and the onboard balancing happens. I recommend you buy one of these - PEAK USB CAN Adapter IPEH 002021

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jgilly69

· #18 · May 5, 2021

Battery data sheet for those who are interested...

SmithEV

· #19 · May 6, 2021

4

So, I went and started charging the batteries earlier today and it charged for 8-hours when the charger decided it was done and "charged"- but my yellow bar battery wasn't charged yet and has always remained at 4 bars:

So, I decided to charge it a second time to see if the yellow bars would come up, and they didn't after 5-hours of more charging at low output - they stayed the same. It seems that it would charge very low as it cycled around through the charged batteries and then it'd spike in intervals when it came out to the yellow bar battery? Anyhow, my next step is to hook in a PC like you'd done, JGilly, and see what type of feedback I get? I'm guessing the BCAN port, JGilly? Also, JGilly, what is the fourth alternate port you mentioned that is next to the three? I looked through that stockpile of info you provided but haven't found it just yet. What I did find and wanted to confirm was what the red fault symbol meant on the battery interface, and as I assumed it meant "battery fault".

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jgilly69

· #20 · May 6, 2021

SmithEV said:
So, I went and started charging the batteries earlier today and it charged for 8-hours when the charger decided it was done and "charged"- but my yellow bar battery wasn't charged yet and has always remained at 4 bars:

View attachment 122598 View attachment 122599

So, I decided to charge it a second time to see if the yellow bars would come up, and they didn't after 5-hours of more charging at low output - they stayed the same. It seems that it would charge very low as it cycled around through the charged batteries and then it'd spike in intervals when it came out to the yellow bar battery? Anyhow, my next step is to hook in a PC like you'd done, JGilly, and see what type of feedback I get? I'm guessing the BCAN port, JGilly? Also, JGilly, what is the fourth alternate port you mentioned that is next to the three? I looked through that stockpile of info you provided but haven't found it just yet. What I did find and wanted to confirm was what the red fault symbol meant on the battery interface, and as I assumed it meant "battery fault".
View attachment 122600 View attachment 122601

You might have too much of a voltage deviation between each of the 4 strings....IE 1&2 = 375V, 3 is 350v and 4 is 375V so the contactors for each string 1, 2 & 4 would turn on, but the contactor for #3 would stay open. When you start up is there 8 distinct clicks? its tough to hear but if you only hear 6 or so that would be a good indication. It might be worth it to discharge the van down to get it near the voltage of the other packs. Worst case you have a bad cell and its charging to fast, not allowing the other cells to charge up causing a low voltage pack/ disconnect.

The 4th port is for communications to the controller and programming, specific software is required (P146.exe and P176.exe). I believe it is pin # 9 & 10 that are Canh and CanL for your canbus connection. I was able to connect to this and pulled some Canbus signals down. With the software and cable you can read and program the truck on this port via Canbus and Rs232.

Hope this all helps!

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