EVCS automatic switching between 1p and 3p

Question

question

luphi asked Nov 17, '23

EVCS automatic switching between 1p and 3p

In https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/215013/single-phase-charging-on-three-phase-setup.html

@Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) describes a not officially supported method to make that work with the existing EVCS models. On the hardware side, the 4p contactor has to be replaced by 2x2p contactors. 1st contactor for P1 and N, 2nd contactor for P2 and P3. The 2nd contactor will be switched by the 2nd relay, which is not in use in the original setup.

These contactors might work: https://www.se.com/de/de/product/A9C20842/installationssch%C3%BCtz-ict-40a-2s-220-240v-50hz/ They are a bit wider, but should fit. Probably the DIN rail needs to be extended.

On software side, the modbus register 5056 hat to be set to 2

But before I'm going to invest in the contactors (btw, street prices are far below the list price), I wanted to play with the modbus register, to see, how the EVCS behaves. The documentation says, range is 0-2 and default is 1. But when I read it, the value is 65535 and I'm not able to change it.

$ mbpoll -1 -0 -a1 -r5055 -c2 evcs
mbpoll 1.0-0 - FieldTalk(tm) Modbus(R) Master Simulator
Copyright © 2015-2019 Pascal JEAN, https://github.com/epsilonrt/mbpoll
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type 'mbpoll -w' for details.

Protocol configuration: Modbus TCP
Slave configuration...: address = [1]
                        start reference = 5055, count = 2
Communication.........: 172.23.1.15, port 502, t/o 1.00 s, poll rate 1000 ms
Data type.............: 16-bit register, output (holding) register table

-- Polling slave 1...
[5055]:     65535 (-1)
[5056]:     65535 (-1)

Can please anyone confirm or proof me wrong.

Cheers... luphi

evcs

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Answer 1 · 2023-11-17T18:23:12Z

Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) answered · Nov 17, 2023 at 06:23 PM

You can change it

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Answer 2 · 2023-11-18T11:43:23Z

luphi answered · Nov 18, 2023 at 11:43 AM

Hello @Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff), thank you (again) for your quick response, but I can't change it. When I try, it says "Written 1 references" but when I poll again the value stays unchanged.

By the way, other registers like 5017 (max current) are working fine.

$ mbpoll -0 -1 -a1 -r5056 evcs 2
mbpoll 1.0-0 - FieldTalk(tm) Modbus(R) Master Simulator
Copyright © 2015-2019 Pascal JEAN, https://github.com/epsilonrt/mbpoll
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type 'mbpoll -w' for details.

Protocol configuration: Modbus TCP
Slave configuration...: address = [1]
                        start reference = 5056, count = 1
Communication.........: evcs, port 502, t/o 1.00 s, poll rate 1000 ms
Data type.............: 16-bit register, output (holding) register table

Written 1 references.

$ mbpoll -0 -1 -a1 -r5055 -c5 evcs
mbpoll 1.0-0 - FieldTalk(tm) Modbus(R) Master Simulator
Copyright © 2015-2019 Pascal JEAN, https://github.com/epsilonrt/mbpoll
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type 'mbpoll -w' for details.

Protocol configuration: Modbus TCP
Slave configuration...: address = [1]
                        start reference = 5055, count = 5
Communication.........: evcs, port 502, t/o 1.00 s, poll rate 1000 ms
Data type.............: 16-bit register, output (holding) register table

-- Polling slave 1...
[5055]: 65535 (-1)
[5056]: 65535 (-1)
[5057]: 65535 (-1)
[5058]: 65535 (-1)
[5059]: 65535 (-1)

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Answer 3 · 2023-11-22T16:53:59Z

luphi answered · Nov 22, 2023 at 04:53 PM

nobody with any ideas? Any help is really appreciated.

Cheers... luphi

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented · Nov 22, 2023 at 05:56 PM

It should work, I have just tested

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luphi Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented · Nov 23, 2023 at 07:22 AM

Thank you for double checking. So, what am I doing wrong? Do you use a different modbus tool to change them? Since I can change other registers, I don't believe, it's a tool issue. Have you had the same default values 65535? I only have these values for the 5 registers, listed above.

Sorry for all the questions, but still can't make it work.

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Answer 4 · 2023-11-23T07:46:30Z

Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) answered · Nov 23, 2023 at 07:46 AM

can you give me the vrm portal ID?

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luphi commented · Nov 23, 2023 at 08:06 AM

send by email

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Answer 5 · 2023-11-23T17:10:38Z

luphi answered · Nov 23, 2023 at 05:10 PM

Hello Lucian, thank you for your help. it's working now.

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Answer 6 · 2023-12-10T06:00:16Z

kds answered · Dec 10, 2023 at 06:00 AM

Did you install the contactors finally ?

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Answer 7 · 2023-12-10T11:05:25Z

luphi answered · Dec 10, 2023 at 11:05 AM

Yes, I did. In theory everything should work. I'm really exited to test it out. Unfortunately the car is not yet delivered. The dealer promised he will get it next week....

What I was missing, was modbus register 5100, which enables/disables phase switching. Setting it to 1 makes the registers 5055-5059 changeable.

From hardware perspective, I was indeed going for the contactors mentioned above. (less than 40€ per contactor including shipping in Germany). I had a DIN rail laying around, so I replaced it too, to fit the size of the new contactors.

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jochenku commented · Feb 16 at 04:50 AM

Thank you for the heads-up on this modification, I'm strongly interested in doing it, too, now that solar excess is slowly becoming available again.

Might you be willing to share the exact specifications or even a link to the newly installed contactors/relays? That would be great...

Thanks a ton and best regards,

Jochen

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Answer 8 · 2024-02-14T18:56:49Z

hbraak answered · Feb 14 at 06:56 PM

I impleteted the phase switching for the EVCS NS and made a tiny documentation. Comments are appreciated!

BR

Heiko

EVCS_Phasenumschaltung.pdf

evcs-phasenumschaltung.pdf (1.2 MiB)

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented · Feb 14 at 08:08 PM

Nice :)

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kudos50 commented · Feb 15 at 07:51 AM

Very nice ! Was planning on opening it up soonish to figure things out. Having this is way better :-)

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Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ kudos50 commented · Feb 15 at 07:58 AM

Just one mention, remember that it is a feature still in beta. And it is not supported yet

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hias0815 commented · Apr 17 at 11:37 AM

Any updates/Results of testing with enough sun?

Is it working as expected?

Regards

Matthias

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Answer 9 · 2024-02-15T07:04:38Z

19andy89 answered · Feb 15 at 07:04 AM

Hello

That's good news

Does the switching of the phases work automatically?

or does the switchover have to be done via Modbus?

Does the car also accept the switch?

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Answer 10 · 2024-02-15T19:48:24Z

hbraak answered · Feb 15 at 07:48 PM

Up to now, I tested only the manual mode.

When I switch the Manual Mode via Modbus 5055 from 1 to 0(three phase) during charging the EVCS stops charging, switches to 3-Phase an starts again within a couple of seconds (Parameter 5101 might be the corresponding).

Sun is missing...also next days here in cologne. Testing the auto mode seems to take a while.

May be Lucian can give an explanation to the parameter 5057 - 59 in the Modbus TCP Register List?

Best Regards

Heiko

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webblaster commented · Apr 13 at 08:44 AM

Hello Heiko,

any further experience with the mod?

Greetings from Lindenthal

Felix

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hbraak webblaster commented · Apr 28 at 06:38 PM

works pretty good, parameters I attached below the last post.

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Answer 11 · 2024-02-16T06:14:33Z

luphi answered · Feb 16 at 06:14 AM

they build the switching hysteresis, I assume:

- switching from 1p to 3p if surplus >(5057)W for (5059)s

- switching from 3p to 1p if surplus <(5058)W for (5059)s

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hbraak commented · Feb 16 at 12:34 PM

Thanks!

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Answer 12 · 2024-04-24T15:04:57Z

luphi answered · Apr 24 at 03:04 PM

To be honest, I'm not sure, if it is really correct, what I wrote.

I configured 5059 to 10s and 5057 to 4500W. The EVCS is charging since a couple of minutes now with 16A@1p and ~2kW are send to the grid, but it's not switching to 3p :-(

My assumption was, that the EVCS sums up the current charge current + the energy send to the grid and if that is bigger than the value of register 5057, it would switch to 3p. Unfortunately that doesn't happen. Does it really requires 4500W (4800W by default) in addition to the ~3600W 1p charging to switch to 3p?

@Lucian Popescu (Victron Energy Staff) would you mind to clue us up.

Cheers, luphi

1713971166136.png (122.5 KiB)

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Answer 13 · 2024-04-28T18:26:33Z

hbraak answered · Apr 28 at 06:26 PM

Here are my parameters for phase switching. Ich works pretty good. My E-UP only can charge via two phases.

BR

Heiko

screenshot-2024-04-28-202254.png (39.3 KiB)

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luphi commented · 6 days ago

Thanks for sharing.

Does that mean, I should multiply your values by 1.5 ?

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