Dumped Porsche Mobile Charger Plus for Wallbox Pulsar Plus

[DerekS]

I took @daveo4EV 's advice and just gave up on the Porsche charger once it started throwing charge errors at 100% power. I threw it in my trunk for an emergency, and I will get it repair when Porsche inevitably sends out repair notices.

My use case for charging is:

• Charge to 85% on a daily basis
• Avoid charging between 3PM and 8PM due to higher rates

My wife's Tesla is quite simple in this regard; if you plug it in before 8PM it will simply wait, then immediately start charging at 8PM up to the desired level.

To get this functionality in Porsche, I had to configure timers and profiles:

• Profile set to 25% minimum charge, preferred time 8PM->3PM
• Timer set to 6AM every day, 85% target charge

Half my requirements (8PM->3PM) are on the profile, and the other half are on the timer (85%).
I had to use both to get the behavior I wanted, and it still wasn't quite as elegant as the Tesla.

The car would basically try to estimate when to start charging and defer it to as late as possible.
Now and then it would miss the target charge by a percentage point or two, but at least it was close.

Enter the Wallbox, which has its own time-of-use scheduling feature at the charger level.
I can just delete all timers and profiles and let the charger run everything, right?

Well...not so much. The Wallbox can control charging time windows, but it has no awareness of the car's State of Charge. It would just blow straight through to 100% if I did this.

So my current plan of attack is:

• Wallbox set to charge 8PM->3PM
• Porsche profile set to 85% minimum charge (no time window)
• No timers

It remains to be seen if the car will stop at 85% given this configuration. I expect it probably will.

However there is already a minor problem with this approach; when the Wallbox is waiting for it's scheduled time, the Porsche treats this as a charging error. It goes red, sends an error push notification to the app, etc. Not ideal.

If this ends up irritating enough to me, I will end up changing back to my original model plus the Wallbox:

• Wallbox set to 8PM->3PM
• Profile set to 25% minimum, 8PM->3PM
• Timer set to 6AM, 85% target charge

This in effect puts both devices under time-window control.
It should stop charge errors from being reported unless I plug in below 25%.
It has the disadvantage of the "just-in-time" scheduling I had with the Porsche unit.

Anyway we'll see how it goes. Pics of before/after. Please don't mock my garage floor, I know I need to get it epoxied.

 

[tbinmd]

We have a chargepoint homeflex mounted in the garage. It’s on time of day schedule in sync with the lowest power rates. The car has an 85% profile. When outside the charging time, the homeflex will not provide power and the car gets a charging error. You just leave the car plugged up and ignore the error. Then later at night when the rates drop, the charger kicks in and passes power to the car. They must renegotiate the connection. The car stops at 85%. Been doing this for several months now without issue.

I would expect everything will work fine for you.

 

[Bill33525]

Cherry red is awsome. In the 50's Candy Apple Red was popular. I have a '21 etron, the charger looks the same as the Porsche unit but has thicker wires in and out and runis 15 degrees cooler. Amazing that Porsche and Audi don't distribute the same EVSE. At home I use the Chargepoint Flex home charger which has thicker wires than either of the supplied EVSE units.

 

[RingoDingo]

Your garage is so clean! Where did you put the 8 giant plastic bins of your wife’s childhood drawings, old quizzes and homework and dried up roses that your mother in law dumped on you when she moved out of her house?

 

[DerekS]

Your garage is so clean! Where did you put the 8 giant plastic bins of your wife’s childhood drawings, old quizzes and homework and dried up roses that your mother in law dumped on you when she moved out of her house?

I literally had 1/2 a garage full of that crap at one point - you couldn't get two cars in the garage. I ended up with a move to CA for a job, and moving has a way of shedding stuff that isn't absolutely essential. I highly recommend it for getting rid of junk of this sort.

 

[Kayone73]

We have a chargepoint homeflex mounted in the garage. It’s on time of day schedule in sync with the lowest power rates. The car has an 85% profile. When outside the charging time, the homeflex will not provide power and the car gets a charging error. You just leave the car plugged up and ignore the error. Then later at night when the rates drop, the charger kicks in and passes power to the car. They must renegotiate the connection. The car stops at 85%. Been doing this for several months now without issue.

I would expect everything will work fine for you.

Can you share exactly how you set up your 85% profile?

I have a Wallbox Pulsar Pro as well installed with a program from 9pm -6am but I find when i have that program on it conflicts with the programmed timer and charging profiles set in my car.

 

[McgR]

I have the same Wallbox. I have set a timer on my Taycan 85% at 7h30 without AC. No timer on the Wallbox and I have set it to 10A (max 32A - 22 kw 400v). It starts charging at night. I think you should be fine like this avoiding charging between 3 pm - 8 pm without setting a profile.

 

[DerekS]

Can you share exactly how you set up your 85% profile?

This is my current setup. No timers.

 

[Kayone73]

This is my current setup. No timers.

Excellent will give that a try

 

[ciaranob]

We have a chargepoint homeflex mounted in the garage. It’s on time of day schedule in sync with the lowest power rates. The car has an 85% profile. When outside the charging time, the homeflex will not provide power and the car gets a charging error. You just leave the car plugged up and ignore the error. Then later at night when the rates drop, the charger kicks in and passes power to the car. They must renegotiate the connection. The car stops at 85%. Been doing this for several months now without issue.

I would expect everything will work fine for you.

Have my Flex for 8 months now (one of the early adopters) - full of all the features others seem to obsess about and it just works flawlessly - some folks I guess just like to experiment For me, its simply charge and forget.

 

[Jhenson29]

I guess I kind of understand the frustration with the timer making it charge as late as possible, but I still think it would work fine if you just set a timer for 6am@85% and nothing else, as long as you don’t typically need to recharge in the middle of the day.

If you charge at 9.6kW, it wouldn’t start until after midnight.

Even if you turn it down to 32 amps, it starts near 11. You have to start getting below 5kW to make it start charging before 8pm.

Green line is 9.6kw.
Purple is 7.7kW.

So, I’m still not convinced a profile was ever needed for your use case.

 

[ciaranob]

Have my Flex for 8 months now (one of the early adopters) - full of all the features others seem to obsess about and it just works flawlessly - some folks I guess just like to experiment For me, its simply charge and forget.

Also forgot to mention with my ChargePoint HomeFlex hardwire setup and 60A breaker I consistently (i.e. 100% consistently) get 10.5kW charging to the car. Zero complaints

 

[DerekS]

I guess I kind of understand the frustration with the timer making it charge as late as possible, but I still think it would work fine if you just set a timer for 6am@85% and nothing else, as long as you don’t typically need to recharge in the middle of the day.

If you charge at 9.6kW, it wouldn’t start until after midnight.

Even if you turn it down to 32 amps, it starts near 11. You have to start getting below 5kW to make it start charging before 8pm.

Green line is 9.6kw.
Purple is 7.7kW.

So, I’m still not convinced a profile was ever needed for your use case.

I do agree with you - I guess the control freak in me didn't like "trusting it?"

 

[Klepper]

I bought the same Wallbox Pulsar Plus charger to replace the PMC+. I am waiting on it to be delivered.

 

[DerekS]

I bought the same Wallbox Pulsar Plus charger to replace the PMC+. I am waiting on it to be delivered.

So far I am gruntled. It works just fine and has a lot more stats available than the PMC+. You can view them with an app or my.wallbox.com website.

Install was easy, 2 screws into a stud, done.

I do wish the NEMA cable was a bit shorter; I really had to mount the box high to accommodate it. The manual suggests 8 inches from the top of the NEMA plug outlet cover to the bottom of the Wallbox, but I had to go a little higher. It was giving the plug too much curve and actually pulling it out of the socket.

Not a big deal.

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