Current Ways

Using a Current Ways charger with an Lithiumate BMS.

The Lithiumate BMS (rev 1.25 and up) interfaces with Current Ways chargers through the CAN bus.

Wiring

Connect the CANH and CANL lines of the BMS to the CANH and CANL lines of the charger.
The CAN bus needs two terminations, one at each end of the bus. The BMS has an internal termination. The charger does not.

Charger Configuration

The charger is factory preconfigured to operate with the BMS.

Notes on the CurrentWays GUI application

• The application is not very helpful and may not be worth setting up: it doesn't tell you what voltage and current the BMS is requesting; it just tells you the actual voltage and current, but the Lithiumate already tells you that
• The application lets you set-up Staged charging, but you must not do so when using a BMS
• If you open the "settings" dialog, minimize it afterwards (do not close it) else the GUI application will fail
• Do not click the "Get info" button in the "settings" dialog: it will corrupt the application
• The application is not required to set-up J1772 charging (it works out of the box) nor does it report the state of the J1772 charging connection
• The CD that comes with the charger does not include the DLL file for the Peak PCAN CAN adapter (required to run the GUI application), which you can get here instead

BMS Configuration

Configure the BMS to operate with the charger.

1. Turn on sending messages to this charger:
   • Rev 1.32 and older:
     1. Turn off messages to other chargers: Home / Set-up / More / CAN bus / Communication with other devices / (other chargers) / No
     2. Turn on messages to this charger: Home / Set-up / More / CAN bus / Communication with other devices / Current Ways charger / Yes
   • Rev 1.33 and newer:
     1. Select messages to this charger: Home / Set-up / More / CAN bus / Communication with other devices / Chargers / Current Ways
2. Set up receiving the charger current from this charger:
   1. Set-up charger current CAN messages: Home / Set-up / Current sense / Source current / CAN message / ...
      1. ... ID: set to 271h
      2. ... 1st data byte: set to 4
      3. ... Length: set to 3: 2 bytes, low-hi (little-endian)
      4. ... Offset: set to 0
      5. ... Units: set to 100 [mA/count]
      6. ... Direction: set to Yes: + = into battery
   2. Reset the BMS controller for changes to the CAN message ID to take effect (Cycle power off and on, or press H / 6/ 7)
3. If required, change the CAN speed to match the CAN speed of the charger:
   1. Home / Set-up / Set-up / More / CAN bus / Can Bus rate

Extra chargers

Two CurrentWays chargers may be placed in series, to achieve a total voltage of up to 900 V.
There is no need for a center tap to the battery; therefore, this lets a single BMS handle the entire pack, and evaulate the SOC of the entire pack (unlike Brusa chargers, which require a mid battery connection to the center tap between the 2 chargers, and may require two BMS, one for each battery half).

Additionally, multiple CurrentWays chargers may be placed in parallel, to achieve higher power.
A single BMS controls the Master charger, which in turn controls the slave chargers.