# Soliton in the EU



## mora (Nov 11, 2009)

Sorry, no link in this post but here is what I recall:

it must have had something to do with TÜV approval in Germany. I know there are unmodified Solitons on the road here in Finland that have passed vehicle certification tests. Local authorities require EMC tests for conversion made to cars newer than 2004. Older than that and no EMC tests are required. I believe this rule doesn't apply in other countries in EU and some might have even more strict rules of EMC (Germany I suppose, hehe).

Solitons don't pass required EMC tests without modifications. There was a company (maybe in Germany?) that sold modified Solitons which could pass all the necessary tests.

I saw Solitons being sold at www.ev-power.eu at pretty competitive prices. I'll definitely put one to my next conversion.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Www.rebbl.nl has the soliton + emc shielding kit which.passes dutch RDW (car inspection authority) inspection. Should work for most if noy all EU countries.


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## marc02228 (Jan 15, 2011)

Thanks for the replies...
So, if I convert a car that was built before 2004 I can use the standard controller or did I understand that wrong?


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## mora (Nov 11, 2009)

That 2004 year thing is finnish regulation. You should ask your local authorities or vehicle inspectors if EMC tests are needed.


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## brainzel (Jun 15, 2009)

Hi Marc,

in germany there is an exactly date about the april (?) 2003.
Important is not the date of build but date of approval.
After this date, the inspector must request an EMC (EMV), previously it's an option.

There are some ongoing conversions in germany with the Soliton, but I don't know anyone passes the TÜV until now.

I emailed Rebbl some times, but the comunication is a little tough.
The "EMC-case" from rebbl is not worth the money, so I was told.

Michael


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

marc02228 said:


> Somewhere I read, that there are some legal issues to use an Soliton controller in the EU. Which was the reason, why Kostov don't sell it anymore.


Actually, the legal issues apply to all EV motor controllers, not just the Solitons. Rebbl offered to pay for the expensive EMC/safety tests to get CE approval for the Soliton1 and the Soliton Jr in exchange for the exclusive right to sell them both in the EU. We accepted their offer, the Solitons passed, and now they are the only DC motor controller specifically approved for on-road use in the EU. Kostov has since agreed to only sell controllers to non-EU destination countries and so far as I know both sides are keeping their end of the bargain.

At any rate, my understanding is that the two controllers came pretty close to passing the EMC test as-is despite me not specifically designing them to do so, so only a rather basic filter kit is required. I do not actually know what Rebbl specifically does to the controllers to make them compliant. They view that as proprietary information, and while I don't blame them - they said the testing process cost them 39.000 euros - my not knowing what they've done to my controllers puts me in a difficult spot should a customer have a technical support issue that may be caused/affected by their EMC kit.


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## brainzel (Jun 15, 2009)

Have I understood correctly: the only way to get a document for the EMC tested Soliton in europe is to buy at Rebbl or make an own inspection?

That would not be a door opener upcoming german projects. Although no good info for ongoing builds who got there controllers from USA, Czechia or Bulgaria.

Btw a EMC/EMV inspection of a whole car is about 3.000 - 5.000 Euros. ~5.000 Euros by the TÜV himself as part of the "street legal inspection".

There must be one conversion aproved by the TÜV to make it easy for any following build, as a reference.

Send me a Junior, I build it into my conversion, drive to the inspectors and get it done! ;-)

Michael


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

brainzel said:


> Have I understood correctly: the only way to get a document for the EMC tested Soliton in europe is to buy at Rebbl or make an own inspection?


As far as I understand your crazy rules, yes. Either buy an "approved" controller from Rebbl, which is supposed to come with a CE "declaration of conformity" to allow you to skip the inspection process, or use whatever controller you want and go through the inspection process.



brainzel said:


> That would not be a door opener upcoming german projects. Although no good info for ongoing builds who got there controllers from USA, Czechia or Bulgaria.


I do not understand what you are saying here.



brainzel said:


> There must be one conversion aproved by the TÜV to make it easy for any following build, as a reference.


According to your garage entry here, *you* passed TUV inspection?!



brainzel said:


> Send me a Junior, I build it into my conversion, drive to the inspectors and get it done! ;-)


That would violate our agreement with Rebbl and it sounds like it would be a much more expensive option, anyway?!


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## brainzel (Jun 15, 2009)

Yes, I passed the german TÜV december 2010, but with another controller. The Soliton Junior would be my favorite and the next step of improvement.

IMHO: If a part passed the european regulation to be build in a car, it gets a sign/number ECE-Prüfzeichen / mark or "E". In germany it's "E1".
This number is registrated in a central register and is necessary for every part that belongs into a car.
Btw, that's the reason why imported porsches must change every f.ex. headlight glasses etc.

If a part gets through this process, the manufacture could enclose/send a .pdf or sheet and the buyer could build it in or take it to the "TÜV" to registrate it to the car.

So if Rebbl or anyone else passed the ECE, it should be sufficient to know these number respectively hold the .pdf / sheet in your hand for the inspection.

This only has to be done once for all cars before 2003.
After 2003 unfortunately everyone must make a EMC/EMV test for the whole car.

Michael


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

brainzel said:


> Yes, I passed the german TÜV december 2010, but with another controller. The Soliton Junior would be my favorite and the next step of improvement.


I thought you were asking if anyone else had gone through TUV testing and could provide any helpful tips or at least relate their experience, hence my confusion when you said, _"There must be one conversion aproved by the TÜV to make it easy for any following build, as a reference."_

Makes sense now.



brainzel said:


> IMHO: If a part passed the european regulation to be build in a car, it gets a sign/number ECE-Prüfzeichen / mark or "E". In germany it's "E1".


Huh!? You are being required to get an *e* mark?!? Only medical devices have to go through a more complicated and difficult set of EMC and safety tests!!! I find it hard to believe that any of the existing motor controllers on the market - which were not designed for CE compliance in the first place, much less the much more stringent "e" mark - would pass that sort of testing without some fairly extreme measures (encasing everything in sheet metal, twisting all of the battery cables together, putting the motor cables inside a grounded conduit, ferrite common mode filters on both battery and motor cables, as well as all of the low-voltage wiring, etc and so on...)

Which CE directive were you told applied? 2004/104/EC?



brainzel said:


> So if Rebbl or anyone else passed the ECE, it should be sufficient to know these number respectively hold the .pdf / sheet in your hand for the inspection.


As far as I know, Rebbl passed EMC and safety testing with respect to a CE compliance mark, not the much more stringent "e" mark. 



brainzel said:


> This only has to be done once for all cars before 2003.
> After 2003 unfortunately everyone must make a EMC/EMV test for the whole car.


I'm not sure I understand this one, either, but it seems like bad news no matter how I interpret it. Are you saying that just one example of a particular car which is 2003 or older needs to be tested and then as long as you use the same components and layout you can "scoot by" with a quick inspection?


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## brainzel (Jun 15, 2009)

I'm not an engineer or physicist, hope someone take the ball and plays with us, Tess 

Curtis had a document, which was OK (we wrote about it month ago).
They write in their documentations for controllers f.ex. "Erfüllt die CE Richtlinien für EMV." ("Meets the CE standards for EMC.")

I called Curtis Germany the day I went to the inspection and they mailed it directly to the inspector. Hope to find a copy at home, so I could show it to you here.

EMV, EMC, ECE, CE, EC, E, E1 ... life could be so easy ... *sigh*


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## brainzel (Jun 15, 2009)

Tesseract said:


> I'm not sure I understand this one, either, but it seems like bad news no matter how I interpret it. Are you saying that just one example of a particular car which is 2003 or older needs to be tested and then as long as you use the same components and layout you can "scoot by" with a quick inspection?


Yes, so I'm told by the inspector himself.
It makes a different for TÜV if it is a single/private conversion, a small series or a mass-market product.
If I would like to convert a car from 1999 (before 2003) with a soliton and a warp9 and anyone passed the TÜV before with exact the same components, I could take these previous built as a kind of reference and would have cood chances to get a quick inspection.

I know four german converters who aren't sure how to pass the inspection with their already build in solitons if time get's closer to the inspection, because of missing certificates (and no one really knows which they would need at least).


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## marc02228 (Jan 15, 2011)

> If I would like to convert a car from 1999 (before 2003) with a soliton and a warp9 and anyone passed the TÜV before with exact the same components, I could take these previous built as a kind of reference and would have cood chances to get a quick inspection.


So, there are other rules for converted cars that were originally built before 1999? 

What about the Motor, COMPLETE batterie pack, etc... 
This all seems really strict to me right now, I'm gonna try to contact the TÜV for some information. Or just get some red license plate and drive without any certificate


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

brainzel said:


> ...("Meets the CE standards for EMC.")
> 
> I called Curtis Germany the day I went to the inspection and they mailed it directly to the inspector. Hope to find a copy at home, so I could show it to you here....


I am familiar with the declaration of conformity. This is a document that a company can theoretically produce all by itself, though there is usually quite a bit of actual testing done to support the claim of compliance.

An "e" mark is an entirely different matter. The manufacturer must submit the product to a third party testing agency and they will issue a unique serial number to the product which persists as long as no changes are made to the hardware or software (any changes require additional testing to prove they did not affect compliance). Thus, obtaining an "e" mark is substantially more costly and time consuming, typically costing upwards of $100K US and taking 18-24 months.




brainzel said:


> ...If I would like to convert a car from 1999 (before 2003) with a soliton and a warp9 and anyone passed the TÜV before with exact the same components, I could take these previous built as a kind of reference and would have cood chances to get a quick inspection.


Ah, that's not as bad as I thought. Rebbl has at least 3 cars which were converted by Rebirth Auto in the US then shipped over to the Netherlands. I'm not sure of the exact model year of the cars, but they are all 2004 or earlier, I believe.



brainzel said:


> I know four german converters who aren't sure how to pass the inspection with their already build in solitons if time get's closer to the inspection, because of missing certificates (and no one really knows which they would need at least).


If they bought their controllers from Rebbl then they ought to have received a "Declaration of Conformity" document similar to the one you got from Curtis. If they DIDN'T buy them from Rebbl, well... they might be in for some real trouble.


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