Soul 2015 - Check EV system (error) / battery cooling failure?

[spirit]

Hello all, I saw several users described already the similar problem but their cases seemed to be different from mine. "Check EV system" is very generic error message.
I have a problem with the car (kia soul EV 2015). When driving in a hot day it can simply turn off and refuse to turn on again with a error message on display "Check EV system". After some time (a few minutes) it turns back on but soon turns off by itself again with the same error message. Two dealerships that I asked to fix the problem failed to do that, so I have to find the root cause on my own.
Having a reasonable assumption that the problem might be hidden in the HV battery cooling system (I will describe in details where this assumption comes from as a second message to the topic) I checked the blower in the trunk. It is the blower which intakes air from the cabin and use it to cool the battery a bit. I was surprised that the blower was not spinning. It was a hot summer day (~30 degrees under the sun) and the cooling fan was not working. I measured the voltage which comes to the blower - it was zero. Fuses are ok.
There are four cables which come to the blower: power, ground, PWM (for controlling the speed) and the fourth for measuring the current speed. So the voltage between power and ground was zero. I think it explains why the fan was not spinning and I had problems with the car during hot days.

However I still have questions for further clarification. Do I understand right that the battery cooling fan should always have power voltage on it? I think that the fans whose speed is controlled by PWM are always powered even when they are not spinning. Otherwise I might have measured the voltage at the time the cooling was not required for the battery (yet it was 30 degrees outside and I had just driven the car).
I also would like to check if the fan is not deflective. I would like to give power voltage to it without any control wires such as PWM. I expect it to spin at its maximum speed in this case. Do you know which power it consumes? I could not find any specifications but I think it is 12V DC.

[spirit]

Why I think it's the battery overheating:
The problem occurs on hot days only (sunny summer days). The error goes away after some idling (natural cooling - even chilling)))).
With the fact above I think it's definitely overheating. However it might be either engine either battery.

Second fact. The error might occur on mild summer days (cloudy weather with 15-20 C degrees outside) if the car has been charging prior to driving. In other words if I disconnect the car from an outlet (1 level I use at my place) while it is charging then the error might occur even in milder weather conditions. Given that during the charging the engine does not heat up (at least I think so, please correct if I am wrong) the battery rests the only candidate for experiencing problems.

[IanL]

.....
I also would like to check if the fan is not deflective. I would like to give power voltage to it without any control wires such as PWM. I expect it to spin at its maximum speed in this case. Do you know which power it consumes? I could not find any specifications but I think it is 12V DC.

It seems likely, as the service manual requires the auxiliary battery to be disconnected to remove the fan. See https://www.ksoulev.com/cooling_fan_rep ... -3013.html You may get more clues in the manual, but it is not very impressive in my view.

[notfred]

I strongly recommend using something like Soul Spy on an Android phone with a Bluetooth OBD-II dongle to look at what the battery is doing in terms of temperatures and whether it thinks the fan should be on.

[spirit]

.....
I also would like to check if the fan is not deflective. I would like to give power voltage to it without any control wires such as PWM. I expect it to spin at its maximum speed in this case. Do you know which power it consumes? I could not find any specifications but I think it is 12V DC.

It seems likely, as the service manual requires the auxiliary battery to be disconnected to remove the fan. See https://www.ksoulev.com/cooling_fan_rep ... -3013.html You may get more clues in the manual, but it is not very impressive in my view.

Hello IanL. The described test procedure might help me with diagnostic btw. However the software looks fancy. Is it accessible only for the dealerships? What does it mean "Connect the GDS to DLC?

[spirit]

I strongly recommend using something like Soul Spy on an Android phone with a Bluetooth OBD-II dongle to look at what the battery is doing in terms of temperatures and whether it thinks the fan should be on.

Hello notfred. Oh yeah, I thought about this kind of monitoring. Can you suggest a device which can show the required data? There are plenty of products on the market whose price varies from 20$ to 200+$. A hard choice(((.

[notfred]

https://evranger.com/en/soul-ev-spy-users-guide.html

Q: Which dongles does the Soul EV Spy app work with?
Only Konnwei KW-902 ELM327 v 1.5 is supported.The app does not work with ELM327 v2.1
dongles, Some testers have reported partial / intermittent data with other ELM327 v1.5 clones, but
they are unsupported, so you cannot expect the app to work with those.

[IanL]

What does it mean "Connect the GDS to DLC?

I think the GDS is a PC running proprietary KIA/Hyundai software. The DS probably stands for Diagnostic System.

The DLC is the OBD2 port in the car - the Diagnostic Link Connector.

[spirit]

I made use of kia soul spy software - it's cool and works with a torque I borrowed from my neighbor (not recommended one). This week is said to be cold - a lot of rains so perhaps it will take more time for further debugging. However thanks to the app I can already object one of my previous statements: during the charging process the engine is heated considerably whereas the battery don't get heat up. So the root cause of my problem might also be the engine.

[spirit]

I think I am closer to the root issue now. Again, thanks to notfred for pointing out the awesome kia soul spy app. The problem is not the HV battery overheating. I think that motor overheating is more likely.

Today I was testing the car and I was able to heat the engine up to 100C degrees. I think it was 103 actually. I opened the hood and looked under it. The radiator fan was not spinning. The coolant pump was working however it was working at low pace. I assume that the intensity of the coolant pump is adjustable and depends on the motor temperature.
I went back to the garage, switched off the car and plugged it in to my level 1 charger. The engine coolant mechanism ignited at the full capacity. I noticed how the coolant pump started first slowly at the same pace as it was working when driving. But eventually it accelerated considerably. Soon the radiator fan turned on. So at this point I understood that the radiator fan switch on/off depends on the coolant liquid temperature in the radiator (like in good old cars). So I am not sure what the flag "vmcu.radiator_fan_request_of_motor" in the kia soul spy app for.
I disconnected the car from the charger and ignited it - the coolant pump was very slow again. I switched off the car and plugged in the charger back - coolant pump worked at its maximum capacity. This time the radiator fan did not turn on - perhaps because by this point it was not hot enough.
Do you guys have ideas what to do next? To me it looks like the coolant pump is not well controlled when the car is in drive mode.