Back from that weekend out, I installed the car harness in the car and tested it.
Contact on, no batteries attached, flip the switch to see the IMA voltage.
113 Volt. Ah, nice.
Then it starts to fluctuate wildly. Then it says -1. What the?
PING says the dash. I flip the switch off and look at the dash.
CHECK IMA SYSTEM.
Oh boy.
I reset the code, try the same with the engine running. But the voltmeter only says 1 or -1.
I know what that means: overload detected.
Now there ain't more than the 200 Volt the meter can show, but maybe its internals got messed up? The box is pretty crowded after all.
Whatever the cause, this won't work.
I remove the harness again, reset the code and go for a test ride.
The IMA system works fine. I did not ruin it, hooray!
But shortly before arriving home another warning pops up:
CHECK OIL LEVEL
Err... oil? It did not use a drop previously? This ain't funny anymore!
Home. Check the oil and the CVT fluid level. Both spot on.
So it sends me false warnings? Did I damage the ECU or what?
I get in to check for this on my computer.
My wife says
Now you know it's not the oil, why don't you reset that code too and do another test drive to see if it comes back on?
Yeah, let's do that first. Shouldn't hurt.
I key on expecting to see the warning light up to reset it with my UltraGauge. But it is gone by itself.
Test drove another couple of miles, lots of IMA support and regen, good throttle response, no codes whatsoever.
I thank my wife for making me do that next run
Finally some good news.
Okay then. I will take the harness apart tomorrow evening to find out what's wrong with it.
I'll sturdy up the volt meter, pair the relay coils with condensers and tidy up the control box interns. Then test again on the bench and hopefully in the car.
Maybe I should not have tested it without the batteries connected.
OTOH, if it shorted then it would have caused a disaster as the batteries, though protected by their BMS, may still yield 55 Ampere.
The harness should be safe to operate without batteries though.
It would defeat its purpose if it wasn't.
Besides, the volt meter could only have caused a minimal draw if working properly, so what caused the IMA fault code?
Tomorrow brings another challenge, so to say