Not strictly an OVMS related problem - but a problem many of us has, or will, run into: The 12V charger defect...
Problem:
Twizy beeps 3 times... Display shows the battery icon and "STOP":
I had this problem for close to a year. In the end I was charging the 12v battery with an external charger everytime I charged the main battery.
I then had to get my Twizy through inspection... so I needed to fix this.
My local Renault dealer had no idea what to do - they couldn't even "talk" to the car... they said. Anyway thanks to dexter/Michael I found a post that seemed like it solved my exact problem. So I implemented the fix found by mario234: Link to twizy-forum.de fix for charger malfunction (You need an account and the site is in german.
It was a bit of a long shot - but it seemed legit and it ended up working.
I have created a tutorial .pdf in english. Anyone interested can grab it here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bfIfEPVV46zPlmC_ATfmwROznE0M3BZ7/view
(It is version 1.0 and has very few images - suggestions for version 1.1 are welcome!)
My Twizy is now charging as it should, has no warning light and went through vehicle inspection without any problems :)
Awesome! I've posted a reference on the german forum.
Regards,
Michael
Cheers ofktoubro!
Thanks to your tutorial and of course user mario234 in the afore mentioned German forum I was able to fix this particular problem in my Twizy! I decided to take a lot of pictures and I have created a more elaborated picture journal in English here.
Regards,
Harrie
Hi,
Thanks for pointing out the existence of this infamous charger failure !
I've been through the hotglue removal routine, cut the through the trace, and measured the resistance with a decent multimeter (Voltcraft VC830) : it reads a super stable 270 kOhms, ie more than the 250 kOhms target value to be reached by adding an extra resistance :(
Any ideas what might be the going on here ? The charger is also a 2012 version, with the same symptoms of beeps + STOP + battery warning lights leading to discharge of the 12V battery.
Kind regards !
Hi,
Well the first thing I can think of: are you sure your 12V battery is OK? And: what voltage does it read when the STOP+battery icons light up? And does it do so when your traction battery is (nearly) full? You might also want to share your experiences in the afore mentioned German forum (using deepl.com)...
Hi Harrie,
The symptoms were exactly those described by others, low voltage at battery except when accelarating for instance (most visible at night with headlights on), changed 12V battery twice to make sure it wasn't the source of pb. I can't do any tests now because I bought a new charger and sold the Twizy, so left with the old charger that I'd like to try and repair rather than just throw away if its just a question of adding a resistance...
Indeed I deepled my observation on the german forum :)