Charging stopped by wall plug removal or blackout - HELP!

[Ampster]

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However, I would recommend you NOT use the mechanical timer, as it seems that it may have caused problems in the past. You're right that I'm mostly just guessing here, but if rebooting the EVSE causes a condition weird enough to keep the car from charging when it's in charge immediately mode then I can't say whether it'll start charging when it gets the charge start command from entune. Just keep the EVSE on at all times and trust in RavCharge to do its thing.

Try it out for a week or so with RavCharge set to something like 12:30 and the EVSE always on and you should be happy with the results.

I use a mechanical timer with a Clipper Creek LCS25 and have not experienced any problems. What problems are you referring to?

EDIT- From rereading this thread, it appears the problem may be only with the Leviton and the mechanical timer. Is that correct?

 

[fooljoe]

I use a mechanical timer with a Clipper Creek LCS25 and have not experienced any problems. What problems are you referring to?

EDIT- From rereading this thread, it appears the problem may be only with the Leviton and the mechanical timer. Is that correct?

Yeah, I was just referring to OP's situation, as it seemed he had problems with his Leviton that the Leviton techs intimated might've been caused by using the mechanical timer. From what I've seen clipper creeks at least seem to work well with mechanical timers.

 

[MrClutch]

I also use a Mechanical Timer with a Clipper Creek, LCS-25P. Timer has been in service for 2 weeks and has worked so far. See, http://myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=770 for details.

 

[Scott1258]

.......................

However, I would recommend you NOT use the mechanical timer, as it seems that it may have caused problems in the past. You're right that I'm mostly just guessing here, but if rebooting the EVSE causes a condition weird enough to keep the car from charging when it's in charge immediately mode then I can't say whether it'll start charging when it gets the charge start command from entune. Just keep the EVSE on at all times and trust in RavCharge to do its thing.

Try it out for a week or so with RavCharge set to something like 12:30 and the EVSE always on and you should be happy with the results.

I use a mechanical timer with a Clipper Creek LCS25 and have not experienced any problems. What problems are you referring to?

EDIT- From rereading this thread, it appears the problem may be only with the Leviton and the mechanical timer. Is that correct?

Yes, the Leviton had trouble with the mechanical timer. Plus, it also had trouble just doing a regular charge taking the timer out of the equation. With the car in charge now mode and the Leviton powered up, on a half dozen different times the car would not charge when the handle was placed into the charge port of the car. Nothing. It just sat there and wouldn't make a peep. This was intermitant as sometimes it worked fine. Of course, when the Leviton techs were at the house it worked fine. The next morning it wouldn't work again.

 

[miimura]

I must say that I am surprised that the OP had so much trouble with the Leviton EVSE. I have one and it's been rock solid. Replacing the unit once should have taken care of the situation.

However, I can understand how some EVSE may not work well with a mechanical timer. I think engineers don't often think about the case where the power is off and the car is already plugged in. The startup sequence of the EVSE when power is applied is very important. GE and Nissan found that out the hard way because the car did not behave well during power outages and the car was damaged to the point that it could no longer charge. GE was blamed for it, but the ultimate fix came from Nissan.

 

[Dsinned]

I have a 32A EVSE L2 made by Leviton (purchased from Home Depot) and it has been working fine going on one year now. The "car" itself certainly does NOT charge to my expectations and this is clearly on Toyota to eventually FIX. Although, sadly, maybe they never will, since after all this time, there are now ~1000 RAV4 EVs already in circulation, and I suspect ALL will have scheduled charging problems.

Which brings me to Ravcharge! It works flawlessly with my Leviton EVSE. With Ravcharge doing its thing so well, there is absolutely no need to bother with a mechanical timer.

 

[MrClutch]

It depends, some L2 EVSE (e.g., Clipper Creek LCS-25P and likely LCS-25) are viewed as L1 EVSE by the Rav4EV (at least by the timer/scheduler). In this case, RAVCharge can still help, however, I found a mechical timer still advised. See http://myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=770 for the discussion. RavCharger is a great solution, but the Rav4EV has issues, compounded issues, that even it cannot completely address.

Certainly, there are many use cases. In my case, the 20A EVSE works great, even for extended charges. The mechanical timer switches on around 9 p.m. (not exactly to allow for the potential that others in the neighborhood might be charging right at 9 p.m. - the beginning of our utlities off-peak rate for at least TOU-EV1 plan with a dedicated meter). The car is in the immediate charge mode and we generally plug in after exiting the car each time, and don't think about charging beyond that routine. The Timer turns off a bit before the off-peak period ends and usually long after we have unplugged and departed. Even with the more limited 20A EVSE, charges are completed, including extended charges, usually several hours before a morning departure. It appears that a good percentage of forum members are on utility plans that include super off-peak rates (e.g., 12 a.m. - 6 a.m.) wherein EVSE of at least 30A is probably advised. For these cases, the Rav4EV Timer sees such EVSE as L2, and the Rav4EV Timer issues are then entirely addressed by RavCharger in as near as I can tell.

 

[miimura]

I had good luck with RavCharge triggering the charge start even when using a single departure in the car on Sunday afternoon. That way there is no chance the car will start charging anything but Off-Peak. The only drawback is that if you are in a weak AT&T signal area, RavCharge and Entune may not be able to get through to the car and with my method, the car's timer is not a backup for RavCharge.

 

[michael]

For what it's worth....here was my experience just today....

The car was intentionally unplugged a few minutes before charging would have stopped anyway (based on what Entune was reporting). I got an email that correctly reported that charging was interrupted.

However when I got into the car, there was a message stating, "Check EV System. Have your vehicle checked by a dealership immediately"


Starting and stopping the car didn't clear the fault, however I tried plugging back into the charger for a minute and then unplugging. That cleared the fault and all seems normal.

So I'm attributing this to a glitch caused by unplugging at some instant the software would tolerate it.