Mobile charger remote control

[davenrea]

Hoping there is someone a bit clever out there! I want to be able to control my mobile charger via my solar energy manager. It can either give a dry contact relay out or it can send an http command. For instance when i have excess solar i send http://192.168.10.31/relay/0/?turn=on&timer=120 to my existing charger. The issue with the existing charger is when it switches off the car come up with an error and when it switches on doesnt start again

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[satchurator]

Bat signal to @AndiL for expertise on this.

 

[AndiL]

There are 2 options with the PMCC or PWCC (Not the PMC+ !!):

1. Get the Porsche Home Energy Management System, it has build in support for this (works only with Taycan)
2. If you are a more DIY guy, use the open source software https://evcc.io/ But you will need a way to tell the software how much excess power you have at any given time (works with most EVs)

If you want to do this with PMC+, only option 2 works.

Note: You should never ever shut down the EVSE while the car is connected, and never never ever when it is charging. Do not control charging by shutting the charger on/off, never ever.

 

[4EVer]

Hoping there is someone a bit clever out there! I want to be able to control my mobile charger via my solar energy manager. It can either give a dry contact relay out or it can send an http command. For instance when i have excess solar i send http://192.168.10.31/relay/0/?turn=on&timer=120 to my existing charger. The issue with the existing charger is when it switches off the car come up with an error and when it switches on doesnt start again

Alternatively get a Myenergi Zappi charger which does it all for you. Mine works flawlessly although you will still get an error message at times when there is no surplus coming from the solar, but it does initiate and start charging again when there’s excess.

 

[davenrea]

There are 2 options with the PMCC or PWCC (Not the PMC+ !!):

1. Get the Porsche Home Energy Management System, it has build in support for this (works only with Taycan)
2. If you are a more DIY guy, use the open source software https://evcc.io/ But you will need a way to tell the software how much excess power you have at any given time (works with most EVs)

If you want to do this with PMC+, only option 2 works.

Note: You should never ever shut down the EVSE while the car is connected, and never never ever when it is charging. Do not control charging by shutting the charger on/off, never ever.

I think from reading i will have the PMC+ as it came with the vehicle so unless someone reading wants to earn some money setting up https://evcc.io/ i'm a bit stuck.

 

[davenrea]

Alternatively get a Myenergi Zappi charger which does it all for you. Mine works flawlessly although you will still get an error message at times when there is no surplus coming from the solar, but it does initiate and start charging again when there’s excess.

Do you / does anyone know if the Victron EV Charging Station will work with the Taycan?

 

[davenrea]

There are 2 options with the PMCC or PWCC (Not the PMC+ !!):

1. Get the Porsche Home Energy Management System, it has build in support for this (works only with Taycan)
2. If you are a more DIY guy, use the open source software https://evcc.io/ But you will need a way to tell the software how much excess power you have at any given time (works with most EVs)

If you want to do this with PMC+, only option 2 works.

Note: You should never ever shut down the EVSE while the car is connected, and never never ever when it is charging. Do not control charging by shutting the charger on/off, never ever.

Andreas

Reading the manual for the PMC+ charger it says it will work with the Porsche Home Energy Management System, as the open source software is beyond me I am tempted to try one. Do you know from experience the Porsche Home Energy Management System will not control the PMC+ charger?

As for option 2 i dont need to tell the software how much excess power i have only tell the charger to switch on or off as i have just under 100kwh battery bank on the solar.

I'm certainly not doubting your comment "Do not control charging by shutting the charger on/off," is there a reason and what about when there are power cuts (think the future might bring some of them!)

 

[AndiL]

@davenrea With the Porsche Home Energy Management System there is no way to tell the PMCC to stop charging. I also think this is the wrong way to do it, you should tell the car instead.

The reason for not pulling the power of the charger while the car is charging, is that you might damage the charger and the OBC in the car. That‘s the absolute worst way to control charging.

Could you please describe what you are trying to achieve?

 

[davenrea]

@davenrea With the Porsche Home Energy Management System there is no way to tell the PMCC to stop charging. I also think this is the wrong way to do it, you should tell the car instead.

The reason for not pulling the power of the charger while the car is charging, is that you might damage the charger and the OBC in the car. That‘s the absolute worst way to control charging.

Could you please describe what you are trying to achieve?

Andreas

Basically i am just trying to turn the charging on and off remotely. I have a large solar system of 160 panels and just shy of 100kwh on battery storage. When my battery system is at a preset level I want to be able to turn the car charger on and then off when it drops below that. I control the system with node red and turn heating and hot water on and off with relays. Before I had the Taycan I had an iPace and a Garo charger which had a dry contact input for turning it on and off and i was able to use a Shelly relay to control it.

Thanks for your help

Cheers

DAve

 

[AndiL]

Hi Dave,

this is quite a specific setup and need that won't be possible with any standard hardware. And as I said, turning it on and off is highly discouraged. Would you remove the power plug of the TV while it runs (before turning it off via the remote) frequently? I doubt the power supply will like that very often. And the EV is not consuming a few hundred Watts, it is a few thousand normally. It might have worked, as it would for the TV. But for how long?

So you don't want to charge the EV with excessive PV energy, as that goes (really all ??) directly into the battery. And you want to charge the EV always with the full available power?

 

[davenrea]

The problem with using the current sensor is there is no exporting of power a lot of the time. If the solar batteries are between 15% and 95% charge then the system is disconnected from the grid. At nominally 80% charge I have loads that are turned on for heating and hot water, this can be as much as 27kw depending on predicted weather, water tank temperatures and other loads and i dont have to bring them on all at the same time. The home energy manager has an esense input to let you control it with dry contect, hte PMC+ manual say it can work with the Home Energy Manager but some including you say it can't. At present my thought process is to use the cars timed charging so it is switching on for five periods in the day and only allow power to the mobile charger if i have enough solar / battery that way the car has disconnected and it is no different to switching the mobile charger off at the plug that i can see.

 

[AndiL]

Which product do you mean by "home energy manager" ? The Porsche Home Energy Manager?

The PMCC works with the Porsche Home Energy Manager, with support for PV surplus charging and cost effective charging (with timers) and overload protection. The PMC+ also works with the Porsche HEMS, but only support overload protection.

In both cases, there is no way for you to control any of that. What that "esense input" is and what it is doing, I sadly have no idea as I don't have that device myself.

 

[davenrea]

Which product do you mean by "home energy manager" ? The Porsche Home Energy Manager?

The PMCC works with the Porsche Home Energy Manager, with support for PV surplus charging and cost effective charging (with timers) and overload protection. The PMC+ also works with the Porsche HEMS, but only support overload protection.

In both cases, there is no way for you to control any of that. What that "esense input" is and what it is doing, I sadly have no idea as I don't have that device myself.

OK, so been reading too mnay EV charger manuals, the esense is on the Zappi charger!! I fear it is back to the drawing board!!

What are your thoughts on removing the power input from the mobile charger plus when the car is not charging but plugged it?

 

[AndiL]

If you want to programmatically control to enable or disable charging, I would recommend getting a Wallbox that provides an HTTP API to do that. That command would do all the necessary steps in the Wallbox to safely stop charging or start it again. In general you need to make sure that this is not done too often in a short time.

 

[davenrea]

ive ordered a Zappi! I'll post an update when it is installed. Thanks for all you help Andreas

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