Really looking forward to this one Julian. I'm getting solar on my roof next month and am hoping to charge my DIY EV with it when I finally get the car finished. I was trying to think of a way to ensure the car was charged by solar before anything else so watching this one with interest.
I’ve seen a U.K. four way extension socket and lead running quite happily with TWO fan heaters plugged in and switched on. Now, it’s been a while, but IIRC they were either 2kW types, or just under that. So both the fuse in the extension socket and in the 13A plug would have had around 15 to 16A flowing! The only mitigating factor is that all this was in one small room (which started off very cold as it was winter) and both heaters had thermostats. Hence once the room was up to temperature, the heaters would either take turns, or one would cut in to do the top-up heating while the other would be held off via it’s ‘stat. (I did not hang around long enough to see which). Once I saw this set-up, I unplugged one of the heaters. So I’m not at all convinced that a 13A fuse would be a problem at currents of 13A. After all, the current rating on a fuse is its continuous current carrying capacity. Not the fault current value that will blow it.
EEVBlog did a series on the Zappi 7kW EVSE. I thought that was neat because it tied into the solar system and could be set to only charge the car when you had excess solar capacity. Might be worth a look if you want to charge off just solar.
Yeah, it's a shame the current can't be taken below 6A. I'm thinking I'll turn on the charger when solar gets to 3A, then match the EV charge current with rooftop solar current between 6A and 16A.
Hey Julian. What a good start of the new year. I'm really excited about this one. I like the solar diy stuff. Looking forward to the next episode. This is going to be good.
I used a viridian basic EVSE protocol controller which currently are about £85, and built my own fully variable EV charger that can charge from 5amps right up to 32amps depending on how you drive the controller via variable resistor or resistors and switches, mines just on a rotary switch that gives me a number of settings. Dont get me started on the stupid prices EV things cost, its like owning a boat as anything boaty straight away doubles or triples the cost of something that should really cost pennies.
@@JulianIlett No just a regular contactor or relay of your choice that can cope with the load, think mine was about £8. I can also confirm that the Veridian will happily ramp charge rate up and down in real time when you adjust the charge rate during the charge, so its not a preset thing that you cannot change during the charge 🙂 I've also added a smart contactor to the main supply which gives timed charging via an app and also measures power consumed, classic aliexpress stuff which was about £15
It would be good if you could do a video on your electric car (EV). We have had EVs now for four years and both my wife and I have transferred across from ICE now. I’ve been watching your videos for about five years I think and find them fascinating and informative. I think I have seen you in town (HW) once or twice but haven’t plucked up the courage to say hello.
EDIT: See Below @15:23 Its I2C. BLK is probably the supply for the backlight. RS is register select also know as DC(data command). CS is just chip select for I2C a bit unusual but very popular for some reason with TFT controllers. @17:30 There are Arduino library/core/toolchain available for the microcontroller shown. Its just a clone of the well known maker chip STM32F103(used in the blue pill). The microcontroller parts looks like a very common makers/hobby project with an STM32 and and TFT display :) For hacking UART(RX,TX) is nice and you also have boot pins and SWD/Debug header labelled and broken out. If your are really lucky the switch is for reset.
CS is chip select for SPI. I2C uses SCK and SDA (Serial ClocK and Serial DAta) with addressing, not chip select. SPI is more popular for graphics displays as you can pump a lot more bandwidth through it.
The blue plug is also called caravan plug in German, because caravans are supplied with it. You can charge up to 16 amps with the plug. With a normal German plug or French plug only goes up to 10 amps. No fuse needed in the plug.
Arduino supports Arm Cortex devices, have a look. the other chip with xtal like you say is a dedicated chip for measuring Voltage, Amps, power factor and line frequency with watts and reports over I2C
Crazy that a company smart enough and big enough to put out a "quality" unit like that still gets *_"Kwh"_* wrong. - 24:40 It is *kWh* ... the "W" should be capitalized for watts just like "V" is for volts, "H" (Hz) is for hertz, etc.
@@JulianIlett - That doesn't surprise me. Reviewers getting that wrong is _kinda_ understand but engineers and the whole company not noticing it is... crazy.
It is a bit tight going right up the the rating like that, but the relays never actually switch that current. They close with no current, then the car starts to pull current a short time later. At shutdown, the car stops pulling current before the relays drop out. They do still have to carry the current, but not having to switch it really takes the strain off them.
And that works even if you pull out the granny 13A plug to terminate charging (as I do). The relays will drop out a short time after the mains current disappears.
I only have the 10A "granny" charger for my i3 and it's just fine for commuting etc. 20 hours maximum charge time if I come home with a totally empty battery is good enough for me. And no need to enlarge the regular house fuse sizes either. I did open up the unit as some of them have jumpers for different power settings and I would have liked it to pull 13A but mine has no jumpers sadly :/ I did throw one of those silicone grain bags in there to absorb any moisture when temperature changes tho.
Same issue with the house fuse here - it's only 60A. And the supply wiring (on the outside of the house) is pretty old and barely looks suitable for 60A (let alone 100A).
My granny charger has a button on the underside I can press to cycle between, 6A/8A/10A. I charge at 8A which works out at 1.8kwh instead of running it flat out to hopefully keep it working for the length of my lease. I can't justify paying for a wall charger when I the granny charger fits my driving patterns, much like yourself 👍
I can't speak for "Import prices" but what happens here in the US in my experience is that the prices get jacked way up on the equipment, because the company behind it--whatever that is--has to be able to cough up several buckets worth of money to pay off whomever did the suing. I think you are right, once they become more commonplace they will drop in price quite significantly. Or maybe it was that crystal being installed at that jaunty angle. ;D
I used my granny charger at my sister's to charge up. She had no outdoor socket though so I had the wire trailing out her letterbox 😆 I've got a 7kw PodPoint box on my house for normal charging. It's one of those smart chargers that's really dumb because only their app will talk to it, so no API for grabbing charging stats.
You and the manufacturer overlooked the 80% derating. EVSE is considered a continuous load. The 16 amps on the plug is a momentary 10 minute rating. For the 1 hour load rating you have reduce the current by 20%. Your device isn't rated for UK. There is supposed to be a 3rd relay to protect from a certain type of ground fault. I don't remember what it's called but it happens when the ground and neutral wires become disconnected at the street. Also double check the wire diameters. These no-name Chinese manufacturers tend to cut corners. The 2mA-2mA is a current instrumentation transformer for measuring AC voltage. P.S. the project is called OpenEVSE. Think Arduino for the basis. It has passed UL testing. I'm not sure about CE.
Hi Julian. I think you could with your existing knowledge easily modify the existing device with an additional plugin board. Say arduino + wifi + op-amp?. Powered form the existing psu and +-12v. Feed from the existing square wave as a sense, make it arduino input save. In software you sense the change in duty cycle and mimic this to the the output new op-amp, therefore retaining the original function and send that to go to the vehicle. With Wifi you could then adjust the output to deviate the duty cycle on the fly to achieve the zero and 6a to 16a (Would have to have a safety hardware or/and software so you don't accidently go above 16amp). By default it would reset back to mimicking original sense signal if a change is detected in that signal.
If you are running off the solar panel is the the intent to run the EVSE of the DC of the panels? If so then a simple PWM setup running at say 80% would already "track" to the solar output and allow 20% towards the house. Then all that is needed is the feedback from the car to trigger that it is full and disconnect the relays. I am puzzled that this "Open EVSE" is needed at all if you have a working box. I have seen a "newer" (i hadnt noticed them but maybe they are common) series of voltage/amperage/power measuring devices. I bought one which has quite a good layout. It has a remote control (IR) it has power in through either a plug in cable or with terminal blocks and it has universal plugs for devices. What is interesting is that aside from the regular power measuring things there are a series of other features. Some odd ones. The device can detect if something remains running too long... like if you forget to shut of a heater and then go on vacation for a month. It has some cycling on and off based on a timer. Turn on when power reaches a level. Shut off when power drops below a level. This is almost exactly what you need. The brandname is called Torch... unfortunately. Chinese dont seem to understand that "fire" isnt strong powerful name good kind. They have a huge store on aliexpress. It seems that all of their devices employ a similar colour display and control chips and firmware. They have electronic loads and other things as well. The model which would be a good starting point would be a JL24 or JL24P. I think anyone who watching this sort of content would find it interesting.
I really don't like that the relays are only rated the same as the maximum current...I would think they would put in better rated relays...about 20A...so as not to get too close to the max. Personally I would change out the relays for higher rated one to keep everything a bit safer...and cooler.
As you say is a 'power supply equipment/unit', not a charger... charger built in vehicle. Also is you search a 10 years old video (evse day) you can see a self built of one of this devices using a Viridian EPC . You can control the power with a switched resistor ladder
what you have there is basically a "blue-pill" stm32 clone. look it up. there's an arduino framework available for it. don't be scared about it not being an AVR part, it's significantly better, and you don't need to worry about all the 8-bit nonsense you have to deal with when programming an AVR.
The GD32 is a mostly code compatible chip to STM32, which there is Arduino libraries for. They chip under the current shunts is a energy measurement chip. It doesn't make sense to put a IO expander (with crystal?!) Under the "hot" side of the unit, long way from the micro processor.
@@JulianIlett Simple enough to find the appropriate pins on the microcontroller to connect to, putting the Arduino board in place of the microcontroller. Gives you all the interface you want, and you can use all the rest of the board as is. Might just have to change the microcontroller power supply to a 5V one if it is not already, though it probably outputs 12V as the relays need it to switch. Could even reuse the existing display, as well as it likely is a standard part, with a drive library available. Same for the LED display, as it also will use either a few pins or have an xpansion chip to drive it, which could be added on. with the original that hidden switch likely is a reset for the microcontroller, and the jumper is to set it to either run the on flash program or use a bootloader, so that you change the jumper, and power it with 3V3, press reset and you will get a serial terminal to upload new firmware, or read out existing firmware. likely will work with any USB TTL serial adaptor board, probably 115k as comms rate.
Why not direct the solar into a house battery and then charge from that? You could get a DC charge from that or an inverted AC charge, then trickle charge the house battery whenever the sun shines.
I have a not so fancy ev charger well I have 2 but one is connected as I have an 8kw system. My problem at my home is that on bad light days and we get a lot in wales lol. My pannels may just produce a steady 3kw or under. Now for me and to make it eady for the wife, as I don't really want here to go into my chargers app settings so what I do is set the charger to work off solar pority, but what I use is 2 ev leads. One standard and one which I altered to work how I wanted it to. What I did was change the cp resistors which are in both ends. They must me the same value. Its the resistors that tell the actual chargers what to pull. Pp is just to say the car is connected. So played with mine and I set mine so it would give me 2.6kw. Which is well under my average out put in poor light. Now it was a while that I did this and I cannot find my paper work with calculations. But 200ohm resitors are for 32amp and I used 900ohms to get my desired charge rate. On good days I use the standard lead. I am. Lucky as I have 2 so one is for economy 7 normal use. The other to work with solar only. I did this as my wife got confused on how to change the settings, which ment she had to go to settings everytime and there was a danger of her changing other settings. So I made it silly proof. Just swap cables. This is how I got mine to work. The resitors are pence as you know, all I did was purchased a 10 m lead for the normal charger which gave me a spare to play with. So now we can use solar in poor weather OK battery takes longer but its free. Which is all our goals.
Hi Julian, I assume from your video that the output of such a charger is still 240vAC and that no processing of the input supply takes place other than regulating the amps, yes? It's a question that's hard to find an answer to on the Internet! :(
Is it fitted with the right glands?, I was under the impression that you needed the strain-relief IP glands for portable equipment not just the plain ones, which are for fixed wiring.
@@JulianIlett When I built a couple of 16/32A to 13A extensions for work I found that the regular glands would not hold the cables securely (they would slide in/out even when tightened as much as possible), but the ones with the spiral strain relief would. Now this was with 20mm glands and 4mm² and 1.5/1.25mm² cable using standard IP68 housings.
I didn't know what a "TVS" (mentioned @17:00) was, so I Googled it... Surprise surprise, all the results that came up were stores that have televisions for sale! Sigh... should've seen that one coming 🙄 (I added the word "clamp" to my search, and am now up to speed on what a Transient Voltage Suppressor is)
According to Wikipedia: (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772) The PWM duty cycle of the 1 kHz CP signal indicates the maximum allowed mains current. According to the SAE it includes socket outlet, cable and vehicle inlet. In the US, the definition of the ampacity (ampere capacity, or current capacity) is split for continuous and short term operation.[27] The SAE defines the ampacity value to be derived by a formula based on the 1 ms full cycle (of the 1 kHz signal) with the maximum continuous ampere rating being 0.6 A per 10 µs up to 850 µs (with the lowest 100 µs × 0.6 A = 6 A). Above 850 µs, the formula requires subtraction of 640 µs and multiplying the difference by 2.5. For example (960 µs − 640 µs) × 2.5 A = 80 A.[26]
Nice tear down ! May I ask you to open the Type 2 connector. I'm unable to find any picture or video of the inside with wires connected. I bought one from Aliexpress and they didn't provide any indication on how to connect the copper cables to rear side of the connectors. Ie. On Type 2 sockets, copper cables are crimped.
Maybe look into the protocol in the car first. I cannot (!) alter the setting (charge-rate) after the initial contact between the EVSE and my car. This may be due to the single handschake the car initiates after its detects the signal from the EVSE. Good luck, interesting video.
Hi Julian after watching your discription how the charger works if their is a fault, would you still have to have PEN fault protection if you connected to a PME supply. For example if you lost the supply neutral would the charger disconnect the earth to stop the car body becoming live.?
This is a very interesting project Julian that would be of great utility to those of us with solar panels and EVs. I am wondering though, does the charger in the car actually allow for modulated current?
Really great video, thanks! How does the Mode 2 EVSE evaluate the MAXIMUM current available from the infrastrucure, to then adapt also the Duty-Cycle of the CP-Signal, to inform the Onboard-Charger of the vehicle? Is the powerplug resistance-coded?
@@benetra thanks. But just to be sure that I explained it correctly (I'm not a native speaker) Are you talking about the powerplug (Cable from the Mode 2 EVSE to the Infrastructure) This is what I want to know? Because I know that there is a resistance coding for the charging cable (Cable from Mode 2 EVSE to vehicle) between Control Pilot (CP) and Ground (for ex. 220Ohm for 32A) so that the EVSA and the Car know the maximal current for the cable. But in my case I want to know, how the Mode 2 EVSE can get to know the maximum current of the infrastructure.
@@User85306 I assume with infrastructure you mean the breaker, cabling and wall socket. So connections looks like: infra evse car. There is no way for the EVSE to know the maximum current available from the infrastructure, unless you can program the EVSE to limit its current. If you connect a 32A EVSE on a 16A breaker, that EVSE will try to supply the car with 32A until the 16A breaker triggers.
That is AC (Alternating Current) coming in on the right side of the board {with No Fuse on board}. And it looks to me like AC is going out on the left. I am not seeing any huge Diodes (15Amps) to rectify any AC to go out the left side. Unless you got something on your solar panels turning the DC into AC, I am not sure how that board is going to work as you are hoping. I have a few more questions but I need to listen to your post a few times to make sure I understand things..... So I am wondering if Current Meters work the same way for DC as for AC ???? If the Current is not switching back and forth, then how does the induction work if it is DC ???
Notice: there's live, neutral and PE coming in on the input, all three wires of equal length. PE should be longest to assertain PE fullfilling what it's intended to do: protecting users from electric shock. In case cables get ripped out, PE must be last to disconnect to be able to do that.
When I have visitors, they don’t turn up and ask for a gallon of petrol - but it would seem now that you are expected to let anyone just rock up and charge up for free!
I'd much prefer some of my relatives just asked for 10 gallons of petrol and went away, instead of making me suffer through one of their "useful" visits
Julian good morning. I am a bit confused. Do you have a ev charger and has it got the possibility to hook up a ct clamp to work with your solar pannels.
Some time ago, I stripped down a Tuya-compatible WiFi DIN-rail power meter. That's now on my solar power system and it has an opto-isolated pulse output to indicate available solar power. Add 2 Arduinos and a nRF24L01+ radio link and that's the essence of the project. One of the Arduinos will replace the guts of the EVSE.
It's a difficult decision whether or not to enable the mid-rolls. But if it's a choice between paying for the car (or not being able to pay for the car), my hands may be tied.
Shame your EV car dont have Bidirectional Local V2G - V2B so you can Run your house for a few days in a long outage) on the EV HV Main Drive Battery pack - (400V - 600V - 800V DC to 240V AC)
@@JulianIlett MENNEKES DIDNT...sorry, Mennekes didn't invent or design it, they where involved (and other companies) in the design based on the CEE-Plug. US americans are unable to remember names if its not a brand, its Ipod Iphone Xerox for everything so they made up a brandname for the european(!) type 2 plug. Mennekes dont produce very much type 2 plugs, yours is not from Mennekes, mine is not, nobodies* is from Mennekes. The only people using this name are US-americans and people who talk about those plugs mainly with Americans (e.g. in FB groups for US-electric motorcycles).
Yes. But I had to start somewhere. If I later buy a different project box, type-2 plug, EV cable etc. I could put the original PCB back in the EVSE and sell it on.
Really looking forward to this one Julian. I'm getting solar on my roof next month and am hoping to charge my DIY EV with it when I finally get the car finished. I was trying to think of a way to ensure the car was charged by solar before anything else so watching this one with interest.
I’ve seen a U.K. four way extension socket and lead running quite happily with TWO fan heaters plugged in and switched on. Now, it’s been a while, but IIRC they were either 2kW types, or just under that. So both the fuse in the extension socket and in the 13A plug would have had around 15 to 16A flowing! The only mitigating factor is that all this was in one small room (which started off very cold as it was winter) and both heaters had thermostats. Hence once the room was up to temperature, the heaters would either take turns, or one would cut in to do the top-up heating while the other would be held off via it’s ‘stat. (I did not hang around long enough to see which). Once I saw this set-up, I unplugged one of the heaters.
So I’m not at all convinced that a 13A fuse would be a problem at currents of 13A. After all, the current rating on a fuse is its continuous current carrying capacity. Not the fault current value that will blow it.
EEVBlog did a series on the Zappi 7kW EVSE. I thought that was neat because it tied into the solar system and could be set to only charge the car when you had excess solar capacity. Might be worth a look if you want to charge off just solar.
Definitely a good option. I have one. In eco+ it can be set to whatever minimum percentage of solar you want.
6A is the minimum - narrower pulse widths are to signal that you want to use power-line comms for CCS DC charging.
Yeah, it's a shame the current can't be taken below 6A. I'm thinking I'll turn on the charger when solar gets to 3A, then match the EV charge current with rooftop solar current between 6A and 16A.
"Look at that SMPS module flapping around in the breeze, that's a bit how're y'doing!"
I can imagine Dave Jones saying.
The G in 3G2.5mm stands for grounded. You can also get N variants of cables if you don't need earth.
I imagine you could remove the CP ring terminal and inject your own PWM to see if it responds to
Hey Julian. What a good start of the new year. I'm really excited about this one. I like the solar diy stuff. Looking forward to the next episode. This is going to be good.
also, that 2mA/2mA is the voltage transformer used to measure voltage while keeping the circuit isolated from the mains
I used a viridian basic EVSE protocol controller which currently are about £85, and built my own fully variable EV charger that can charge from 5amps right up to 32amps depending on how you drive the controller via variable resistor or resistors and switches, mines just on a rotary switch that gives me a number of settings.
Dont get me started on the stupid prices EV things cost, its like owning a boat as anything boaty straight away doubles or triples the cost of something that should really cost pennies.
That Veridian controller looks pretty neat, but requires an external relay/contactor which I'm guessing could be expensive.
@@JulianIlett No just a regular contactor or relay of your choice that can cope with the load, think mine was about £8. I can also confirm that the Veridian will happily ramp charge rate up and down in real time when you adjust the charge rate during the charge, so its not a preset thing that you cannot change during the charge 🙂 I've also added a smart contactor to the main supply which gives timed charging via an app and also measures power consumed, classic aliexpress stuff which was about £15
@@PhoneVidoesnice
Here I am in 2024 trying to to find a portable charger that will adjust charge rate to suit using excess solar
It would be good if you could do a video on your electric car (EV). We have had EVs now for four years and both my wife and I have transferred across from ICE now.
I’ve been watching your videos for about five years I think and find them fascinating and informative. I think I have seen you in town (HW) once or twice but haven’t plucked up the courage to say hello.
I didn't even know he had a EV, yet alone which one.
EDIT: See Below
@15:23 Its I2C. BLK is probably the supply for the backlight. RS is register select also know as DC(data command). CS is just chip select for I2C a bit unusual but very popular for some reason with TFT controllers.
@17:30 There are Arduino library/core/toolchain available for the microcontroller shown. Its just a clone of the well known maker chip STM32F103(used in the blue pill).
The microcontroller parts looks like a very common makers/hobby project with an STM32 and and TFT display :)
For hacking UART(RX,TX) is nice and you also have boot pins and SWD/Debug header labelled and broken out. If your are really lucky the switch is for reset.
CS is chip select for SPI. I2C uses SCK and SDA (Serial ClocK and Serial DAta) with addressing, not chip select. SPI is more popular for graphics displays as you can pump a lot more bandwidth through it.
@@GordieGii Yes of course. Sorry I was confused by the SDA,SCL names.
Nice project idea. Looking forward to it already.
Happy New Year from Finland!
Hmm sounds like an interesting project, I just hope you get a few sunny days for it :-)
Squeak !!
@@andymouse Cheese!!!!!
The blue plug is also called caravan plug in German, because caravans are supplied with it. You can charge up to 16 amps with the plug. With a normal German plug or French plug only goes up to 10 amps. No fuse needed in the plug.
very informative. thank you
Happy New Year Julian!
Arduino supports Arm Cortex devices, have a look. the other chip with xtal like you say is a dedicated chip for measuring Voltage, Amps, power factor and line frequency with watts and reports over I2C
Happy new Year!
Happy NewYear, Julian
Happy new year, Julian.
Back at you :)
MCU IS stm32 clone Giga Devices. You Can Program it in arduino IDE as stm32
It looked like the PWM is based upon .6 multiplier, that seemed to track across the entire chart, so a 5% PWM would be 3A, if the car allows it.
Crazy that a company smart enough and big enough to put out a "quality" unit like that still gets *_"Kwh"_* wrong. - 24:40
It is *kWh* ... the "W" should be capitalized for watts just like "V" is for volts, "H" (Hz) is for hertz, etc.
Watch some of the EV car reviews. The number of times kW is switched for kWh (and vice versa) is disturbing.
@@JulianIlett - That doesn't surprise me. Reviewers getting that wrong is _kinda_ understand but engineers and the whole company not noticing it is... crazy.
Those relays look kind of weedy for 16A of current!
It is a bit tight going right up the the rating like that, but the relays never actually switch that current. They close with no current, then the car starts to pull current a short time later. At shutdown, the car stops pulling current before the relays drop out. They do still have to carry the current, but not having to switch it really takes the strain off them.
And that works even if you pull out the granny 13A plug to terminate charging (as I do). The relays will drop out a short time after the mains current disappears.
@Julian Ilett Great content on solar project. Happy New Year
I think there is a minimum charge power of 1.4kW for the type 2. I don't think the on-board chargers will go lower than that.
I only have the 10A "granny" charger for my i3 and it's just fine for commuting etc. 20 hours maximum charge time if I come home with a totally empty battery is good enough for me. And no need to enlarge the regular house fuse sizes either. I did open up the unit as some of them have jumpers for different power settings and I would have liked it to pull 13A but mine has no jumpers sadly :/
I did throw one of those silicone grain bags in there to absorb any moisture when temperature changes tho.
Same issue with the house fuse here - it's only 60A. And the supply wiring (on the outside of the house) is pretty old and barely looks suitable for 60A (let alone 100A).
My granny charger has a button on the underside I can press to cycle between, 6A/8A/10A. I charge at 8A which works out at 1.8kwh instead of running it flat out to hopefully keep it working for the length of my lease. I can't justify paying for a wall charger when I the granny charger fits my driving patterns, much like yourself 👍
@@alexb2612 I can limit the amps similarly from the car, but 10 is the max set by the EVSE sadly.
I can't speak for "Import prices" but what happens here in the US in my experience is that the prices get jacked way up on the equipment, because the company behind it--whatever that is--has to be able to cough up several buckets worth of money to pay off whomever did the suing. I think you are right, once they become more commonplace they will drop in price quite significantly.
Or maybe it was that crystal being installed at that jaunty angle. ;D
Good morning & Very Happy New Year
Hi Julian, very nice video. Could you finally find a way to adapt your car loading power to your solar power?
heya. so the IC on the other side of the current and voltage transformer is most def a metering IC, hence the crystal
I didn't even know you had an EV!
Next thing you're gonna tell me is you have a granny as well?
It was a me-to-me Xmas present. I do have a modular granny annexe - but it's a bit cold (and noisy when the Antminers are running :)
2:05 fake CE marking, I notice
It's a 16A single phase cee form. Roady for 30 years, those things are industry standard
yay very nice information
I used my granny charger at my sister's to charge up. She had no outdoor socket though so I had the wire trailing out her letterbox 😆
I've got a 7kw PodPoint box on my house for normal charging. It's one of those smart chargers that's really dumb because only their app will talk to it, so no API for grabbing charging stats.
You and the manufacturer overlooked the 80% derating. EVSE is considered a continuous load. The 16 amps on the plug is a momentary 10 minute rating. For the 1 hour load rating you have reduce the current by 20%. Your device isn't rated for UK. There is supposed to be a 3rd relay to protect from a certain type of ground fault.
I don't remember what it's called but it happens when the ground and neutral wires become disconnected at the street. Also double check the wire diameters. These no-name Chinese manufacturers tend to cut corners.
The 2mA-2mA is a current instrumentation transformer for measuring AC voltage.
P.S. the project is called OpenEVSE. Think Arduino for the basis. It has passed UL testing. I'm not sure about CE.
Hi Julian. I think you could with your existing knowledge easily modify the existing device with an additional plugin board. Say arduino + wifi + op-amp?. Powered form the existing psu and +-12v. Feed from the existing square wave as a sense, make it arduino input save. In software you sense the change in duty cycle and mimic this to the the output new op-amp, therefore retaining the original function and send that to go to the vehicle. With Wifi you could then adjust the output to deviate the duty cycle on the fly to achieve the zero and 6a to 16a (Would have to have a safety hardware or/and software so you don't accidently go above 16amp). By default it would reset back to mimicking original sense signal if a change is detected in that signal.
If you are running off the solar panel is the the intent to run the EVSE of the DC of the panels? If so then a simple PWM setup running at say 80% would already "track" to the solar output and allow 20% towards the house. Then all that is needed is the feedback from the car to trigger that it is full and disconnect the relays.
I am puzzled that this "Open EVSE" is needed at all if you have a working box.
I have seen a "newer" (i hadnt noticed them but maybe they are common) series of voltage/amperage/power measuring devices. I bought one which has quite a good layout. It has a remote control (IR) it has power in through either a plug in cable or with terminal blocks and it has universal plugs for devices.
What is interesting is that aside from the regular power measuring things there are a series of other features. Some odd ones. The device can detect if something remains running too long... like if you forget to shut of a heater and then go on vacation for a month. It has some cycling on and off based on a timer. Turn on when power reaches a level. Shut off when power drops below a level. This is almost exactly what you need.
The brandname is called Torch... unfortunately. Chinese dont seem to understand that "fire" isnt strong powerful name good kind. They have a huge store on aliexpress. It seems that all of their devices employ a similar colour display and control chips and firmware. They have electronic loads and other things as well. The model which would be a good starting point would be a JL24 or JL24P. I think anyone who watching this sort of content would find it interesting.
Do you actually have an EV Julian? You should show it in a video.
Yes, I got the MG ZS (new version).
I really don't like that the relays are only rated the same as the maximum current...I would think they would put in better rated relays...about 20A...so as not to get too close to the max.
Personally I would change out the relays for higher rated one to keep everything a bit safer...and cooler.
Your dream of programming it with Arduino isn't all lost. This gd32 chip is pretty much the same as the stm32 that's on the "blue pill" board.
As you say is a 'power supply equipment/unit', not a charger... charger built in vehicle.
Also is you search a 10 years old video (evse day) you can see a self built of one of this devices using a Viridian EPC . You can control the power with a switched resistor ladder
can i get an incandescent bulb to type 2 electric vehicle adapter 🤔💡😄
You want to connect your electric vehicle to a B22 bayonet light socket (like people did with electric irons in the old days)?
Just use one of those bulb socket to regular plug type adapters and you are golden. Might want to tame down the charge current a bit tho :-)
what you have there is basically a "blue-pill" stm32 clone. look it up. there's an arduino framework available for it. don't be scared about it not being an AVR part, it's significantly better, and you don't need to worry about all the 8-bit nonsense you have to deal with when programming an AVR.
Exactly what I was thinking when I saw the 32F103 mcu and the boot jumper. Get a serial cable on that comm port to see whats there.
The GD32 is a mostly code compatible chip to STM32, which there is Arduino libraries for. They chip under the current shunts is a energy measurement chip. It doesn't make sense to put a IO expander (with crystal?!) Under the "hot" side of the unit, long way from the micro processor.
Eek - I wouldn't feel confident attempting an STM32 version. Yeah, the IO expander thought was a bit erroneous :)
@@JulianIlett Simple enough to find the appropriate pins on the microcontroller to connect to, putting the Arduino board in place of the microcontroller. Gives you all the interface you want, and you can use all the rest of the board as is. Might just have to change the microcontroller power supply to a 5V one if it is not already, though it probably outputs 12V as the relays need it to switch. Could even reuse the existing display, as well as it likely is a standard part, with a drive library available. Same for the LED display, as it also will use either a few pins or have an xpansion chip to drive it, which could be added on.
with the original that hidden switch likely is a reset for the microcontroller, and the jumper is to set it to either run the on flash program or use a bootloader, so that you change the jumper, and power it with 3V3, press reset and you will get a serial terminal to upload new firmware, or read out existing firmware. likely will work with any USB TTL serial adaptor board, probably 115k as comms rate.
Why not direct the solar into a house battery and then charge from that? You could get a DC charge from that or an inverted AC charge, then trickle charge the house battery whenever the sun shines.
I have a not so fancy ev charger well I have 2 but one is connected as I have an 8kw system. My problem at my home is that on bad light days and we get a lot in wales lol. My pannels may just produce a steady 3kw or under. Now for me and to make it eady for the wife, as I don't really want here to go into my chargers app settings so what I do is set the charger to work off solar pority, but what I use is 2 ev leads. One standard and one which I altered to work how I wanted it to. What I did was change the cp resistors which are in both ends. They must me the same value. Its the resistors that tell the actual chargers what to pull. Pp is just to say the car is connected. So played with mine and I set mine so it would give me 2.6kw. Which is well under my average out put in poor light. Now it was a while that I did this and I cannot find my paper work with calculations. But 200ohm resitors are for 32amp and I used 900ohms to get my desired charge rate. On good days I use the standard lead. I am. Lucky as I have 2 so one is for economy 7 normal use. The other to work with solar only. I did this as my wife got confused on how to change the settings, which ment she had to go to settings everytime and there was a danger of her changing other settings. So I made it silly proof. Just swap cables. This is how I got mine to work. The resitors are pence as you know, all I did was purchased a 10 m lead for the normal charger which gave me a spare to play with. So now we can use solar in poor weather OK battery takes longer but its free. Which is all our goals.
Hi Julian, I assume from your video that the output of such a charger is still 240vAC and that no processing of the input supply takes place other than regulating the amps, yes? It's a question that's hard to find an answer to on the Internet! :(
Is it fitted with the right glands?, I was under the impression that you needed the strain-relief IP glands for portable equipment not just the plain ones, which are for fixed wiring.
Good question. The glands do seem to be the most likely point of entry for water.
@@JulianIlett When I built a couple of 16/32A to 13A extensions for work I found that the regular glands would not hold the cables securely (they would slide in/out even when tightened as much as possible), but the ones with the spiral strain relief would.
Now this was with 20mm glands and 4mm² and 1.5/1.25mm² cable using standard IP68 housings.
I didn't know what a "TVS" (mentioned @17:00) was, so I Googled it... Surprise surprise, all the results that came up were stores that have televisions for sale! Sigh... should've seen that one coming 🙄
(I added the word "clamp" to my search, and am now up to speed on what a Transient Voltage Suppressor is)
So the PWM chart seems to be based on 1.67 (1 2/3) percent per amp. So the unlisted 16 A would need a duty cycle of 26.67 (26 2/3) %.
According to Wikipedia: (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772)
The PWM duty cycle of the 1 kHz CP signal indicates the maximum allowed mains current. According to the SAE it includes socket outlet, cable and vehicle inlet. In the US, the definition of the ampacity (ampere capacity, or current capacity) is split for continuous and short term operation.[27] The SAE defines the ampacity value to be derived by a formula based on the 1 ms full cycle (of the 1 kHz signal) with the maximum continuous ampere rating being 0.6 A per 10 µs up to 850 µs (with the lowest 100 µs × 0.6 A = 6 A). Above 850 µs, the formula requires subtraction of 640 µs and multiplying the difference by 2.5. For example (960 µs − 640 µs) × 2.5 A = 80 A.[26]
Nice tear down !
May I ask you to open the Type 2 connector. I'm unable to find any picture or video of the inside with wires connected.
I bought one from Aliexpress and they didn't provide any indication on how to connect the copper cables to rear side of the connectors.
Ie. On Type 2 sockets, copper cables are crimped.
First!
Happy New Year Julian!
Same to you!
Maybe look into the protocol in the car first. I cannot (!) alter the setting (charge-rate) after the initial contact between the EVSE and my car. This may be due to the single handschake the car initiates after its detects the signal from the EVSE. Good luck, interesting video.
Hi Julian after watching your discription how the charger works if their is a fault, would you still have to have PEN fault protection if you connected to a PME supply. For example if you lost the supply neutral would the charger disconnect the earth to stop the car body becoming live.?
This is a very interesting project Julian that would be of great utility to those of us with solar panels and EVs. I am wondering though, does the charger in the car actually allow for modulated current?
I certainly hope so. Pretty sure it does, because that's the method used in the Zappi charger to track surplus solar power.
An interesting review. What is the make and model of the residual current sensor used on the board? Is it a Chinese brand of some sort?
Really great video, thanks!
How does the Mode 2 EVSE evaluate the MAXIMUM current available from the infrastrucure, to then adapt also the Duty-Cycle of the CP-Signal, to inform the Onboard-Charger of the vehicle?
Is the powerplug resistance-coded?
yes it is resistance coded: 220 Ohm for 16A max and 680 Ohm for 32A max if I'm not mistaken.
@@benetra thanks.
But just to be sure that I explained it correctly (I'm not a native speaker)
Are you talking about the powerplug (Cable from the Mode 2 EVSE to the Infrastructure) This is what I want to know?
Because I know that there is a resistance coding for the charging cable (Cable from Mode 2 EVSE to vehicle) between Control Pilot (CP) and Ground (for ex. 220Ohm for 32A) so that the EVSA and the Car know the maximal current for the cable.
But in my case I want to know, how the Mode 2 EVSE can get to know the maximum current of the infrastructure.
@@User85306 I assume with infrastructure you mean the breaker, cabling and wall socket. So connections looks like: infra evse car.
There is no way for the EVSE to know the maximum current available from the infrastructure, unless you can program the EVSE to limit its current. If you connect a 32A EVSE on a 16A breaker, that EVSE will try to supply the car with 32A until the 16A breaker triggers.
That is AC (Alternating Current) coming in on the right side of the board {with No Fuse on board}. And it looks to me like AC is going out on the left. I am not seeing any huge Diodes (15Amps) to rectify any AC to go out the left side. Unless you got something on your solar panels turning the DC into AC, I am not sure how that board is going to work as you are hoping. I have a few more questions but I need to listen to your post a few times to make sure I understand things..... So I am wondering if Current Meters work the same way for DC as for AC ???? If the Current is not switching back and forth, then how does the induction work if it is DC ???
Notice: there's live, neutral and PE coming in on the input, all three wires of equal length. PE should be longest to assertain PE fullfilling what it's intended to do: protecting users from electric shock. In case cables get ripped out, PE must be last to disconnect to be able to do that.
Granny Cable: charges slowly like Grannies drive?
That makes me a granny ;)
That does sound cool of course not as useful as other places since you just said the another video you aren't getting much solar
GD32F103CBT6 should be pin compatible STM32F103CBT6 clone
Interesting. I expect d this to be needlessly overcomplicated.
17:26 one of those STM32 clones made by GigaDevice here in China.
When I have visitors, they don’t turn up and ask for a gallon of petrol - but it would seem now that you are expected to let anyone just rock up and charge up for free!
Yeah, free electricity available here (plus 99p/kWh admin fee).
I'd much prefer some of my relatives just asked for 10 gallons of petrol and went away, instead of making me suffer through one of their "useful" visits
I wouldn't be able to help any visitors who were in need of petrol - free or not. Electricity I can do. The price would depend on the visitor.
You should have been bought a zencar EVSE they separate logic board from everything else
Julian good morning. I am a bit confused. Do you have a ev charger and has it got the possibility to hook up a ct clamp to work with your solar pannels.
Some time ago, I stripped down a Tuya-compatible WiFi DIN-rail power meter. That's now on my solar power system and it has an opto-isolated pulse output to indicate available solar power. Add 2 Arduinos and a nRF24L01+ radio link and that's the essence of the project. One of the Arduinos will replace the guts of the EVSE.
@@JulianIlett very intresting what you have done.
it should also disconnect the earth
Removing the plug disconnects the earth.
Too many ads. I'm still subscribed but rarely watch and even more rarely make it past the first ad.
It's a difficult decision whether or not to enable the mid-rolls. But if it's a choice between paying for the car (or not being able to pay for the car), my hands may be tied.
What's is the number of metering IC?
Why single phase only?
Sop mcu is dspic32 series
What leccy car do you have, Julian?
It's an MG ZS (new version) with V2L :)
@@JulianIlett nice. Your channel must be doing well. Good luck to you! 👍
myenergi Zappi? Also what car have you got?
The Zappi was an option, but I wanted a new project for 2022. The car is an MG ZS (new version).
@@JulianIlett I like the project. And oh nice, in stuck on a 2015 leaf and would like an mg as an upgrade.
what is the name of the energy meter IC ?
There's a link in the description.
Shame your EV car dont have Bidirectional Local V2G - V2B so you can Run your house for a few days in a long outage) on the EV HV Main Drive Battery pack - (400V - 600V - 800V DC to 240V AC)
It does have V2L :)
how do they detect the 6mA DC from PE ?
Any current in the differential current transformer indicates leakage to earth.
@@JulianIlett but they use AC current transformer ; how do they detect the 6mA DC current according to the regulations?
NOT MENNEKES!!!!
EXPLAIN!
@@JulianIlett MENNEKES DIDNT...sorry, Mennekes didn't invent or design it, they where involved (and other companies) in the design based on the CEE-Plug. US americans are unable to remember names if its not a brand, its Ipod Iphone Xerox for everything so they made up a brandname for the european(!) type 2 plug. Mennekes dont produce very much type 2 plugs, yours is not from Mennekes, mine is not, nobodies* is from Mennekes. The only people using this name are US-americans and people who talk about those plugs mainly with Americans (e.g. in FB groups for US-electric motorcycles).
So your plan is to rip out all the innards and rebuild from scratch - in other words you’ve shelled out 220 quid on a project box with a 16 amp plug 🤣
Yes. But I had to start somewhere. If I later buy a different project box, type-2 plug, EV cable etc. I could put the original PCB back in the EVSE and sell it on.