Do you set your schedule in the charger or the car?

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nyx
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Post by nyx »

I just got the Andersen charger installed and have been figuring out the best way to schedule the nightly charge.

My current thinking is that it’s better to schedule the charge in the car (or Honda app) than in the Andersen, because:

- It will respect the Honda’s configured max charge limit, but I assume if the charger schedules the charge, it won’t? Some chargers may have their own max charge setting but the Andersen does not.

- It will let me turn on climate control from the app, drawing power from the charger if plugged in. Whereas if the Andersen is off-schedule, I assume the car could never get power unless I also turned it on in the Andersen app?

Does this make sense? If you’ve scheduled in your charger instead, what’s your reasoning?

I guess if one has solar, the Honda can’t handle that on its own, and one would need to let a smart charger decide when and how much to charge. Would you just not bother about whether it uses the battery or charger for climate control?

MattHero
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Post by MattHero »

I've always used the Andersen to run the scheduling based on my off-peak rate. I just have a daily schedule set and if the car is plugged in, it charges to 100% on that basis. Nothing fancier than that!
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Reuben80
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Post by Reuben80 »

Honda's charge limit has nothing to do with the car scheduler. The car schedule is there to block the car charging at a specific time. Using the car's schedule or charger schedule makes no difference. Also you can switch on the climate control with the app remotely any time you want, plugged in or not. If you turn it on while the car is charging the time of charge will increase as you are drawing power from the charger. If you turn it on while the car is plugged in but not charging because it has reached the limit or is fully charged I assume that it will take the energy from the battery but as soon as the charge drops below the limit it will start charging again automatically, it won't take the power directly from the charger.
If you can control the charging with the car's app then it is better that you let the car's scheduler to control the charge. If your charger has it's own app than you could also use the charger's scheduler.
nyx
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Post by nyx »

MattHero wrote: Fri Nov 05, 2021 8:57 am I've always used the Andersen to run the scheduling based on my off-peak rate. I just have a daily schedule set and if the car is plugged in, it charges to 100% on that basis. Nothing fancier than that!
Thanks! I suppose I just don’t like the idea of climate control using up battery with the car plugged in, which I think it would outside the Andersen’s schedule. I guess one could manually start a charge in the Andersen app at the same time, though that’s an extra step.
nyx
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Post by nyx »

Reuben80 wrote: Fri Nov 05, 2021 1:37 pm Honda's charge limit has nothing to do with the car scheduler. The car schedule is there to block the car charging at a specific time. Using the car's schedule or charger schedule makes no difference.
Ah, interesting! I assumed it was specific to the charging schedule because the app says

> Your car will charge to this maximum level during pre-set ‘home’ charging periods.
Reuben80 wrote: Fri Nov 05, 2021 1:37 pm Also you can switch on the climate control with the app remotely any time you want, plugged in or not. If you turn it on while the car is charging the time of charge will increase as you are drawing power from the charger. If you turn it on while the car is plugged in but not charging because it has reached the limit or is fully charged I assume that it will take the energy from the battery but as soon as the charge drops below the limit it will start charging again automatically, it won't take the power directly from the charger.
If you can control the charging with the car's app then it is better that you let the car's scheduler to control the charge. If your charger has it's own app than you could also use the charger's scheduler.
Yeah, I’ve confirmed that if I trigger climate control in the Honda app while plugged in, the Andersen will supply power. You may be right that it will heat from battery and simultaneously charge the battery.

But if the Andersen owned scheduling and had turned power off, it would not charge, of course.
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EEEE
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Post by EEEE »

I currently use my chargers scheduling functionality, 12:30am to 4:30am - this is when I get 5p/unit through octopus go tarriff.

However, I found myself opening up the schedule the last few mornings manually, so that I could run the pre-heat from the cars fob (press lock, let go, then press and hold the fan button).

Then I thought, why am I even scheduling an end time? I will change my schedule to 12:30am to 7am (the time when I generally leave the house for work). I'm not worried about going over the 4 hour window, because the car can almost completely be topped up in 4hours at the cheap rate (4x 7kw = 28kwh), leaving just a little at the higher rate 15p/unit. I rarely charge with an empty car.

Cars with larger batteries it makes sense to have an end time - the proportion of cheap vs expensive get smaller after that 28kwh window. But you can get 80%+ in that 4hour window on an e, a little bit at full price for the warm up / top up isn't worth worrying about.

Ultimately I will probably stick to the charger scheduling because it is easy to do this remotely, whereas the car scheduled is buried in a menu somewhere. However the hypervolt decided not to charge my car last night which was a minor inconvenience, but should it do so again I think ill go over to a dumb socket and use a 7kw inline charger.
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nyx
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Post by nyx »

That sounds sensible! I don’t have a fixed time I would precondition.
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londiniumperson
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Post by londiniumperson »

The simple answer is:
  • If you have any way to control the external charger, then use that.
  • If you want to limit the maximum charge of the battery, then set this on the car itself.
  • Only use the onboard car scheduler as a last resort if you have to manage when the car charges and you have no other means to do this.
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Isow
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Post by Isow »

The car.
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EEEE
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Post by EEEE »

I might lean towards the car based scheduling - which somewhat defeats the point of a fancy charger.

As I mentioned, my hypervolt charger decided not to charge overnight earlier this week, and even when I set the charger to full-time schedule in the morning and replugged it, it wouldn't charge. A support case was raised, and replied to same day. However, I pushed for a little information to reassure me as to the fault/scenario, and it was simply chalked up as a firmware issue. Obviously the botched firmware update has been corrected, but it should never have happened in the first place.

So, with that in mind, if hypervolt are at a whim to push firmware to my charger and balls up a nights charging (Without any update/communication/chance to test/check myself), I shan't need too many more occasions of that to remove it completely from my charging stack. My wife is not overly happy with the public charging issues we've run into, let alone to get one at home aswell.

I'd like to think the car scheduling is less likely to go wrong, as its less likely to receive firmware updates in this regard.

So buyer beware - 'smart/intelligent' devices are usually anything but, and simply another failure point. I was initially sceptical about getting a smart charger, but was assured that they don't cause any trouble yet here I am less than 3 months / less than 100 charges in, and already had a complete charging failure.
'21 e Advance - Charge Yellow - E1702RR alloys
'17 Civic Sport CVT
'00 Prelude 2.2VTi
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