I just had EVCS NS installed. I’ve updated it to the latest firmware (v2.08) and it is not behaving as expected… (btw I have Cerbo GX communicating with the charger)
I’ve have it in Auto Mode with:
Min charging current: 8A (so about 1900W)
Allow battery/grid power for auto mode: Enabled
Allow low excess solar power for auto mode: Disabled
Battery/grid power timeout: 15min
The annoying thing is that charging starts even with very low solar. When there is about 500W from solar it start charging. What is the point of having “Allow low excess solar power for auto mode: Disabled” if it is not doing what it suppose to do?! In auto mode it should wait for enough solar to start, isn’t ? Or I have it wrong? Anyone else have the same issue?
If so, then the EVCS needs to occassionally start, because the 500W Solar visible “could be a throttled value”, and as soon as consumption increases, solar would be unthrottled.
(Not sure about the exact conditions on when and how that happens, but just something to consider)
‘Battery powered’. Available sun power threshold for start : 100W
‘Battery powered’. Low excess power threshold: 500W
So with the low excess enabled the threshold is higher than without it??? If the minimum current that EVCS can deliver is 6A then the minimum sun power required is around 1400W (6A x 230V = 1380W)! Why “available sun power threshold” is so low and “lower excess power threshold” is higher?!?! It doesn’t make sense at all! I’m trying to understand the logic behind it, Victron can you comment on that, please.
Well this is likely because to know how much excess solar there is the charger needs to turn on and increase load on the pv to see if it then ramps up production (as it was dialled down). I.e. when battery is full and can’t export to grid the solar will dial down and only make what the loads are using. If you configure the EV charger start charging SoC to a high value where the solar is dialed down then this could be say 300W so then in this state the EV charger would never start if it simply relied on the amount of pv being made now. There is no way to know how much excess pv power is not being made as there is nowhere to put it without trying out by adding load on system and seeing if the pv ramps up.
That is why the new Victron Solar Sense 750 is such a cool device to have in your system as it allows the system to know how much power it could be generating if the solar wasn’t dialed down as it measures actual sun intensity hitting the it’s sensors which you mount right next to your solar array.
Sorry, but it doesn’t make sense what you are saying… the start point value for “allow low solar excess” is higher than with this option disabled! It doesn’t make sense to have start point at 100W for normal operation and 500W with “low solar excess” enabled… it would make more sense if it is the other way round.
Anyway… my system is grid-tied with not export limit so there is no throttling… the charger knows how much solar it needs… and should wait for enough solar to start charging, but it doesn’t it is starting way to early!
I understand that the product is design to work as a “stand alone charger” (without any GX device, which make sense), but on the other hand it is part of the Victron product line… so if it is integrated with the system it should use all the data available. At the moment it looks like it is using the GX data to stop charging (if there is not enough sun it will stop charging), but it is not using the same data to start? And the result is that it is start charging with very low sun… using the batteries/grid to get minimum charging power… then timeout (because there is not enough sun) stop charging… wait a moment and start charging again and using batteries/grid again… and the whole cycle repeat. So the “auto mode” is completely useless!
So overall the integration with the other Victron product line is rather poor, which is very disappointing because that was the whole point to buy this charger to integrate it with the existing Victron system?