Wido den Hollander – Page 5

Building Ceph .deb packages

Once in a while I have to build Ubuntu packages (.deb) for Ceph to test some of the Pull Requests I write.

I always forget on how to build these packages and probably other people do so as well.

I build Ceph on my laptop using a Docker container with a few commands.

docker run -v /home/wido/repos/ceph:/usr/src/ceph -ti ubuntu:18.04 bash

I have the Ceph repository checked out locally in /home/wido/repos/ceph which I then map into the Docker container.

Once in the container it’s fairly simple:

apt update
apt -y install dpkg-dev
cd /usr/src/ceph
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc -b -j 4

This will now yield a list of packages you need to install. Once you’ve installed them:

./do_cmake.sh
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc -b -j 4

Now be ready to wait for a long time as this can take 2 hours as it does on my laptop.

After the build succeeds you’ll find the .deb files in /usr/src

Exploring the CAN bus of my Tesla Model S

The CAN bus of a Tesla vehicle can show some interesting information about the state of different components in the vehicle.

Using a CAN bus cable, Bluetooth adapter and a App on your mobile phone you can gain much more insight on your Tesla vehicle.

I own two Tesla vehicles:

S85 from September 2013 (pre face-lift)
S100D from September 2018

Somewhere around 2015 Tesla switched to a different connector for the CAN bus so I needed two different cables. I bought my cables in Germany at EMDS.

EMDS also sells a cable for Model 3. I haven’t used this one as I don’t own a Model 3.

The CAN bus connector in a Model S can be found under the MCU’s main screen in the vehicle. You need to pull down the ‘chubby’ and there you will find the connector:

I am using the TM-Spy app on iOS for reading the values on my iPhone.

For Android there is Scan My Tesla which also seems to be a very good app. I don’t have an Android device, so I was not able to test it.

I was mainly looking for these values:

Usable Full
DC Charge Total
AC Charge Total

After 253.543km of driving my battery has 75.6kWh of remaining capacity where this was ~81kWh when it was new. (The 85kWh battery was actually a 81kWh battery….)

Tesla also throttles a vehicle’s SuperCharging capabilities after more than X amount (I don’t know the exact value) of DC charging. My car seems to be affected as I SuperCharged a lot.

Charge Total is not a total sum of AC+DC, but from what I’ve read early firmwares did not count AC and DC charging in different values.

Interesting information though! I encourage everybody to use this information to gather more information about their vehicle’s state.

Happy exploring!

Replacing the eMMC in my Tesla Model S

Tesla’s vehicles are awesome. I own a S85 from 2013 and a S100D from 2018. I’ve driven 260.000km and 70.000km with these two vehicles and I love it.

There is however a design flaw in the early Tesla models which can become a very expensive reparation if not performed in time.

Version of of the MCU (Media Control Unit) which was installed up until early 2018 in Tesla S/X runs and is a ticking time bomb.

The problem is the Flash Memory (eMMC) which holds the Operating System of the computer. This wears out over time due to writing data to it.

Writing happens when you use the car. It caches Spotify, Google Maps and many more things. Even when the car is parked the MCU stays running and writes to the eMMC chip.

Eventually this chip will wear out. Before it does it becomes very slow and this results in the MCU becoming super sluggish, unresponsive, the screen reboots at random moments, bluetooth issues, etc, etc.

A lot has been written about this, so I won’t write to much. Short: Tesla will charge you around 2000 EUR/USD for a new MCU.

I choose to replace this eMMC chip myself and this was a lot cheaper! Total cost was <500 EUR.

Around the world there are a couple of companies doing these replacements. I replaced my eMMC chip together with Loek from Laadkabelwinke.nl (Netherlands): https://www.laadkabelwinkel.nl/tesla-mcu1-emmc-vervangen-reparatie

On Tesla Motors Club there are various topics about these replacements, one for example: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/preventive-emmc-replacement-on-mcu1.152489/

I highly recommend everybody with a Model S/X to replace this eMMC chip before it fails.

The chip will wear out and this causes all kinds of problems. I can’t stress this enough. Replace the chip before it’s too late!

In Europe I would recommend to go to Laadkabelwinkel.nl and have them replace the chip.

Enjoy your Tesla!