L2 EVSE 20amp assumed to be L1, can RavCharge help?

[MrClutch]

Just installed a Cliiper Creek LCS-25P, 4.8KWH, L2 EVSE, it seems great so far. However, it appears the RAV4EV may be assuming it is a L1 EVSE. Setting the timer with charge by departure time, even when set late into the next day, results in an immediate charge on plug in. I am still debugging this. Based on what I have read, RavCharge cannot turn off the charging, correct? I realize it can still make sure a charge starts on or close to a specified time which is its principal design goal. My issue is charging too early in the evening, before 9pm, puts me in peak usage terrain.

I have read at least one forum member added a timer in line. I was hoping to avoid this.


Thanks

 

[miimura]

How many "fuel bars" were showing on the dash, what was your departure time, and when did you plug in (or when did it start charging)? With these data points we can help you figure out if your car is behaving like the others or you have some other problem. The RAV4EV always starts charging earlier than it should - the key is to figure out how much.

 

[yblaser]

Yes, based on my and others experience if your EVSE is <= 20A it assumes you have a L1 charger. Based on that assumption the RAV4 will start charging extremely early. I found that if you plug the charge cord in, wait for it to start charging, and then remove and replug in the charge cord it will abort the charge and not try to restart until the next day. I would assume at that point RavCharge would then initiate the charge correctly at whatever time you set through the web app.

 

[user 340]

I believe that the RAV4EV thinks that it is 120V because its current is limited to 20A. Another dumb piece of coding in our cars - big surprise.

Have you tried plugging the EVSE in while the car is on and then turn it off leaving the EVSE plugged in and the car waiting for the scheduled charge to start? When I do that (with my 40A Leviton), the display on the Nav screen (visible for ~30 s after car shutdown) gives an accurate time of when the charge will start. I'm not at all sure that it will fix anything, but it may be worth a try.

 

[fooljoe]

I had this same problem when I forked over $1000 for an EVSEupgraded LEAF EVSE to use on the RAV. Very frustrating. Thankfully, Phil set up his upgraded units so they could be "overclocked" to greater than 20amps, and I set the EVSE to 21 amps and the Rav then assumed it was on L2 (and now I mostly use my CS-60 instead anyway.)

The underlying problem behind this, and also the car's timer generally hugely overestimating the time required to charge, is that the car doesn't momentarily sample the line voltage when you plug in, like just about every other EV does.

Anyway, bottom line is RavCharge can definitely solve this problem for you, but you need to be a little creative with setting the car's onboard timer. You can't just turn the timer off, because then your car would be in "charge immediately mode", but you can just set the timer for one day a week. Or you can just set it ridiculously late, like 5pm or something. Even then the car might want to start charging away early if you have a low SOC, since 120v charging is so slow that it can take >24 hours, so the one day a week timer is probably your best bet.

 

[MrClutch]

miimura: 12 bars showing (75/76 mile range in this case), I varied the departure time as part of debugging ranging from 9 a.m. Thursday to the later evening (8p.m.). My debugging was around 7:30 p.m. tonight (Wed. evening). In each test case, I plugged in immediately or already had the plug in - in all cases charging started immediately or right after unplug then immediate plug in. However, for these tests I was altering the schedule, and NOT adjusting the next departure time. I corrected that with testing around 9 p.m. - more below.

yblaser: Interesting observation, I can't say for certain but I did plug in, wait for start of charging, unplug, and plug in again - I believe it started charging again, but I am not certain. If I learn something more definite I will reply again.

tgreene: I though I had read this earlier, perhaps you posted this and/or other forum members posted the same. Based on having recalled reading this, I tried it - I believe the charge started up, but I cannot recall now.

Update with further testing around 9 p.m.:

I didn't know you have to effectively override the next departure time even if you altered the schedule for the pending charge. It's as if the change to the schedule will apply in the future (next week) and the pending charge has to be altered manually and presently. Assuming that, I did some additional testing about 9 p.m.:

SOC: 12 Bars, listed as 76 miles
Car reported: Full charge would complete in about 23 hours at 120v (I am set up for Extended Charge). That seems too long even for L1/120V.
Updated Departure time to 8 p.m. next evening (Thursday evening in this case). Unplug/Plug in, charging DID NOT start.
Updated Departure time to 3 p.m. Thursday. Unplug/Plug in, charging DID NOT start.
Updated Departure time to 1 p.m. Thursday, Unplug/Plug in, charging DID start.
Updated Departure time to 2 p.m. Thursday, Unplug/Plug in, charging DiD start.
Update Departure time to 3 p.m. Thursday, Unplug/Plug in, charging DID NOT start.

As of 9:35 p.m. Charging has NOT started. Given all the troubles reported and the motivation for RavCharge, one wonders if the charge will start? However, based on the above results the charge should start by 11 p.m. I will report back the results.

UPDATE: 10:50 p.m.
About 10 p.m. Charging had NOT started.
10:37 p.m.: Entune reports "Now Charging"

So, charging started by 11 p.m. consistent with the earlier results reported above. However, lets just say the charge started at 10 p.m. (it was later) - 10 p.m. Wed. to 3 p.m. Thur. is 17 hours. As indicated above the car display reported an estimate of 23+ hours for L1/120V charge. So, this is a very early start.

Finally, with 3 nights of charging so far, I estimate the LCS-25P is filling the battery at about 3.7 KW per hour. My dedicated meter reports a draw of about 4.7 KWH (this is less efficient than I hoped for and I wonder how this compares to others?). Based on several guesstimates that should be reasonably accurate, this charge will complete in less than 4.5 hours.

Thanks for the help and quick replies. Also, my initial post was a first post - I really intended this to be part of the RavCharge thread. Not sure if that can be fixed?

 

[cwerdna]

Just installed a Cliiper Creek LCS-25P, 4.8KWH, L2 EVSE, it seems great so far. However, appears RAV4EV may be assuming it is a L1 EVSE...

Fixed your post. You got it partly right.

Please use the correct terminology to avoid confusion and perpetuating its use by others. See http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8984#p8984

 

[MrClutch]

Joe wrote:

Anyway, bottom line is RavCharge can definitely solve this problem for you, but you need to be a little creative with setting the car's onboard timer. You can't just turn the timer off, because then your car would be in "charge immediately mode", but you can just set the timer for one day a week. Or you can just set it ridiculously late, like 5pm or something. Even then the car might want to start charging away early if you have a low SOC, since 120v charging is so slow that it can take >24 hours, so the one day a week timer is probably your best bet.

Yes, I can see this working save for possibly one day per week, and this is far better than having to have my mobile phone remind me to go out and plug in around 9 p.m.. However, this setup might include the following caveats?

1) Reliability is entirely dependent on RavCharge except for the one charge a week triggered by the schedule set as you suggest.

2) For the concern of not wanting any charge to begin earlier than 9 p.m., I still might have to manually manage the charge one day per week. Even setting the departure time to be late (like 5 p.m. the following evening and as you suggest), still may trigger an earlier charge with the L1 assumption (also as you note). This does break with the desired routine of plug the darn thing in at the end of the day and forget it. However, one could still stick to the routine, with the added tax of having a few hours at the higher rate, once per week which is better than the alternative sans RavCharge.

 

[fooljoe]

Joe wrote:

Anyway, bottom line is RavCharge can definitely solve this problem for you, but you need to be a little creative with setting the car's onboard timer. You can't just turn the timer off, because then your car would be in "charge immediately mode", but you can just set the timer for one day a week. Or you can just set it ridiculously late, like 5pm or something. Even then the car might want to start charging away early if you have a low SOC, since 120v charging is so slow that it can take >24 hours, so the one day a week timer is probably your best bet.

Yes, I can see this working save for possibly one day per week, and this is far better than having to have my mobile phone remind me to go out and plug in around 9 p.m.. However, this setup might include the following caveats?

1) Reliability is entirely dependent on RavCharge except for the one charge a week triggered by the schedule set as you suggest.

2) For the concern of not wanting any charge to begin earlier than 9 p.m., I still might have to manually manage the charge one day per week. Even setting the departure time to be late (like 5 p.m. the following evening and as you suggest), still may trigger an earlier charge with the L1 assumption (also as you note). This does break with the desired routine of plug the darn thing in at the end of the day and forget it. However, one could still stick to the routine, with the added tax of having a few hours at the higher rate, once per week which is better than the alternative sans RavCharge.

Your observations are correct. As far as #1, RavCharge has been running for about 2 weeks now with no skipped charges that I know about, but of course there remains a risk. As far as #2, yeah that would suck. Unfortunately you probably should've chosen a different EVSE. Is it too late to return it? Or perhaps you can sell it and get something else.

The other possibility is getting a mechanical timer and leaving your car in charge immediately mode, or using a combination of mechanical timer / car timer / RavCharge. However, there's another active thread right now where the OP used a mechanical timer and it seemed to cause problems with his Leviton EVSE - maybe it'd be fine with your Clipper Creek though (maybe you guys should trade EVSEs - haha.)

 

[MrClutch]

I solved this problem with adding a timer inline with the EVSE. In the OP I stated that I was hoping to avoid this solution. Introducing hardware (i.e. the Timer) to solve a software problem (the Rav4 EV's charging timer/scheduler) is not ideal to say the least and even distasteful. Shame on Toyota for not issuing a software fix to this issue in addition to other issues.

Bottom line, subject to accuracy of the timer's clock (e.g., power failures and general accuracy of the clock), this solution allows for configuring the timers "on" and "off" settings to guarantee charging can only occur during off-peak times. This is/was a key and driving requirement for my use case to take full advantage of the utilities off peak rate (SCE, TOU-EV1 on a dedicated meter). With this solution, we will now set the RAV4 EV to Immediate Charging mode, then we simply plug in whenever exiting the car. We stop thinking or worrying about charging. Of course, YMMV, depending on other use cases such as needing to charge during the day.

Regarding compatibility or issues with my EVSE, the Clipper Creek LCS-25P, Clipper Creek told me on a technical support call there should be no issues with this type of solution. Clipper Creek even sent URL's for several timers.

The timer I went with is the Intermatic T-104, an ancient model 240V, 40 amp mechanical timer often used for pool pumps and related applications. This installation was done after completion of the EVSE installation. With the initial installation, the 240V plug receptacle was installed inside a flush mount electrical box. The simplest retrofit we thought about involved removing the 240V receptacle from the flush mount box, installing the Timer over that box, then routing the "output supply" from the timer to a new external electrical box to house the same 240V plug receptacle. Fortunately, the Intermatic T-104 had a punch out on the back of it's enclosure in addition to punch outs in the bottom and other places. The punch out on the back allowed for easy installation of the timer over the flush mount box, and we used one of the bottom punch outs to route to the new external electrical box.