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james-simpson asked

Problem reliably scheduling EVCS charging overnight

Hi,

I've managed to get the Victron EV charging station scheduling to work, however it doesn't work reliably. We have a cheap overnight tariff. Sometimes it seems to charge, sometimes not and we don't discover until it's too late and have no charge to get to work in the morning!

Are there any known bugs with this (as recently implemented), or am I missing a setting somewhere? The car is plugged in and locked, and the mode is set to scheduled. It states "waiting start" on the picture. There is an appropriately programmed "scene" which has an "Awaiting" status. But the charging doesn't happen reliably, only sometimes.

I have made some changes in my router settings to give the EVCS and Cerbo GX static IP addresses to ensure they could communicate consistently, is this a requirement for reliable scheduling? Are there other things I need to check or am I missing something please?

Thanks for your help.

ev charging station
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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·
Hi, no, we don't have any bug reported with the scheduled charging. What you can try is to manual start charging, then stop without disconnecting the car, then leave it prepared for scheduler scene. There are vehicles that are going into a deep sleep if, after connecting the cable, charging is not starting. So by doing this, you can prevent it for going into deep sleep.
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james-simpson answered ·

OK thanks will try that

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jochenku answered ·

Hi dear Victron team,

I'm having a similar issue. My EVCS is working perfectly in MANUAL and AUTO mode. Hook up the car, press START and the charging begins.

In the winter time with little or no excess PV the plan was to use scheduled charging during night time. But whatever I do the car will not charge. The charging scheme is set up and activated in the EVCS but to no avail.

Am I missing something here or is there still an issue with scheduled charging in the latest FW? Any advice would be much appreciated.

If you need any further information kindly let me know..

Best regards, Jochen

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·
Settings/general, can you check the time zone? Please post a picture here. Also from de settings/scheduler.
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jochenku answered ·

Hi Lucian, thanks for the quick reply.

I attach the desired screenshots and probably you are on the right track. Beside the Time Zone field the EVCS displays SYNC ERROR and on the Scheduler Tab the status is AWAITING, although it should be active (screenshot taken at 06:20, second session just for testing purposes). See below.

I tried to reenter the timezone but the sync error remains. Any ideas? What is the correct syntax and reference time for Germany in the summer?

Best regards, Jochen

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·
Do you have any kind of firewall or something that is blocking the NTP ? Can you have a look on your router?
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jochenku avatar image jochenku Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·

I have to check this. Could you kindly elaborate a bit further what the time zone setting is needed for and what the sync error means?


Besides be advisesd my Complete Installation is located in my Garage (Cerbo GX and EVCS) and due to the long distance between garage and house (no stable WLAN connectionnpossible) the Cerbo GX is connected to my main router via LAN (and probably an ethernet hub/switch in the basement).


That means the EVCS’s WLAN is connected to the Cerbo‘s AP/hotspot. Would the router‘s setting (firewall erc) in this constellation even have any influence?

I will check in the evening anyway and report back.

Best regards, Jochen

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ jochenku commented ·
Oh, that's the reason then. The charging station does not have internet connection, and it can't sync the time and date. And without time and date, scheduler is not working.
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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·
We have discussed, and we believe we can solve cases like yours, by making the time available on the GX device, so the EVCS can read it. But it will take some time, software on both devices requires modifications.

Until then, try to connect the EVCS to your Wi-Fi network, so it can sync the time.

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jochenku avatar image jochenku Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·
Thanks a lot, i will try to. Does the connection need to permanent or is a onetime (or at least sporadical) connection eg. via handy hotspot sufficient?
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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ jochenku commented ·
permanent connection
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jochenku avatar image jochenku Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·

Hello again and thank you for all the helpful advice yesterday.

After returning home I transferred an surplus WLAN repeater to the garage (set up as LAN bridge) and the time was syncronized right away in the EVCS and scheduled charging workes as intended. Great!

A kind suggestion for the ECVS manual: Could you add the required syntax for the Time Zone ("2" does not work while "+2" does) and which time zone is the reference (probably GMT?). Right now the manual only states 'select time zone' which to me is a bit vague.

Thanks again and best regards, Jochen


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jochenku avatar image jochenku jochenku commented ·
@Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff)

Hello again!

After the changeover from daylight savings time to 'normal' time last night I was surprised/shocked to find out, that the EVCS was still running on DST.

I manually had to change the timezone from '+2' to '+1' in order to get the correct local time displayed in the ECVS and thus make scheduled charging work correctly.

Is that the desired system behaviour? That would be pure anachronism! In that case the feature to get the system time from the GX device (which does the changeover automatically and correctly) should be prioritized in order to be available before the next changeover in March 24. Please.

Best regards, Jochen

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ jochenku commented ·
noted


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