RavCharge, a solution to charge timer and entune woes

[dstjohn99]

"like" button for miimura's comment.

 

[yblaser]

Down again?

 

[eplantz]

looks like it. no charge last night and cannot login to it just now.

 

[fooljoe]

Reset the server - should be back up. I'll have to look into things tonight to try to understand what could have caused two outages in a relatively short span...

 

[fromport]

Reset the server - should be back up. I'll have to look into things tonight to try to understand what could have caused two outages in a relatively short span...

I haven't been getting messages for a couple of days regarding interrupting/ending charge sessions. It started working again within 48 hours ago.
Could it be your software thought it was communication with the entune system but in reality it was down/ not communicating with the rav4ev's ?

 

[eplantz]

down again since last night. no charge, no access to web site.

 

[fooljoe]

Previously I had just done a 'soft' reset of the user interface to get things back up, but this morning I went in and did a full reboot - hopefully that gets things stable again for a while. I'm digging through the logs for a sign of anything strange that caused this, but most likely it's just that the system has been running for several months without a reboot. Sorry for the inconvenience, and do keep letting me know if it's down again!

 

[fooljoe]

The command-via-SMS service is down until further notice. This service relies on Google Voice to forward SMS messages to email, and a few days ago Google changed the way these messages are formatted, which has wreaked havoc on my server. I'll have to re-program the parsing of messages so it may be a few more days...

 

[fooljoe]

The command-via-SMS service is down until further notice. This service relies on Google Voice to forward SMS messages to email, and a few days ago Google changed the way these messages are formatted, which has wreaked havoc on my server. I'll have to re-program the parsing of messages so it may be a few more days...

Ok it should be resolved now. Thanks to those who brought this to my attention.

 

[swogee]

I was wondering if it might be possible to add a few enhancements to the RAVCHARGE web page. I believe in the Toyota Entune app it shows if the Extended Mode has been enabled. It would be nice if this was also shown on the RAVCHARGE web page and somehow indicated in the STATUS command response on the text/SMS. I think that Entune also shows the remaining charge time when the in-car timer is not enabled so it is easy to determine when the charging will be completed. (If the in-car time has been enabled it then shows a departure time and this can be altered using the app.) Could this also be displayed on the RAVCHARGE web page? Perhaps even a new text/SMS command TIME that will indicate remaining charge time? I tend to use the text features of RAVCHARGE the most so any info provided via is text is best since SMS/text commands can get through easier when the cell signal is marginal. Also is there any way to show the state of charge in a true percentage? I think right now 100% shows when the battery is full in non-extended mode. If extended mode is enabled it still shows 100%. (I know this is a long shot but I have to ask.)

Finally is there some info on how to setup and use the timers someplace?

Thanks in advance.

 

[fooljoe]

...shows if the Extended Mode has been enabled. It would be nice if this was also shown on the RAVCHARGE web page and somehow indicated in the STATUS command response on the text/SMS.

On the "Charge" (middle) tab of the RavCharge page it will say the time [h:mm] "to normal charge" or "to extended charge" based upon what mode is set in the car (and unfortunately no, you can't change the mode from Entune or the app.)

I think that Entune also shows the remaining charge time when the in-car timer is not enabled so it is easy to determine when the charging will be completed.

Yes the car/Entune will show you a remaining charge time whether or not your timer is enabled, but the time it shows you is wrong (which is a great reason to use RavCharge instead).

Could this also be displayed on the RAVCHARGE web page? Perhaps even a new text/SMS command TIME that will indicate remaining charge time?

The aforementioned "Charge" tab of the site shows the time to charge for any voltage/amperage combination. I suppose I could add this to the status text command but if you're not actively charging it would have to assume something about what sort of power source you'd use to charge. I guess I could just use whatever volts and amps you last set the web interface to...

Also is there any way to show the state of charge in a true percentage? I think right now 100% shows when the battery is full in non-extended mode. If extended mode is enabled it still shows 100%. (I know this is a long shot but I have to ask.)

We've gone back and forth on this one ad nauseum. Yes, I could do a simple division to adjust the displayed 100% (which is 100% of a normal charge, or 35 kWh usable) to a percentage of a full extended charge (so something like 83%, but there are lots of reasons why not to do this. One good reason is that 35 kWh for a full normal charge stays constant regardless of battery degradation, while the full amount for an extended charge is all over the place for different users with different degradation and different climates, etc. And even if I did perform this adjustment it wouldn't help that Entune can't "see" any charge information above the full normal charge threshold anyway, so the displayed SOC would never go above "83%", which seems unsatisfying (and gives you less resolution, since there would then only be 84 possible SOC values rather than 101).

Finally is there some info on how to setup and use the timers someplace?

Sure, I consider this thread the unofficial "manual" - go back to the first page and there should be a good starting point there. Otherwise you can always just email me at ravcharge_at_gmail_dot_com and I'll be happy to help you out with your specific situation.

 

[swogee]

fooljoe, thanks for the reply with all of the info.

Please let me know if any of the SMS/text functionality discussed will be added as I mostly use the text functions on RAVCHARGE.

I'll read the thread over again and send you an e-mail if I have more questions.

Thanks again.

 

[fooljoe]

fooljoe, thanks for the reply with all of the info.

Please let me know if any of the SMS/text functionality discussed will be added as I mostly use the text functions on RAVCHARGE.

I'll read the thread over again and send you an e-mail if I have more questions.

Thanks again.

I added a time to charge message to the reply you get when you request a status update via text. My car's not cooperating for testing, however, so somebody try it out and let me know how it works. Hopefully I didn't break anything! :lol:

 

[swogee]

I just tested the status command on the SMS function of RAVCHARGE. My RAV4 is fully charged so I wasn't able to test the time to charge part but I did see the word "normal" after the CONNNECTED so I appreciate the addition of the indicator of extended or normal mode. I think there needs to be a space added between "normal" and CONNECTED. I'll try to test the time to charge and report back later.

I also checked in the web interface of RAVCHARGE and I noticed a reported time (0:53) to extended charge (from 100% of normal) as well. I'm not sure if that has changed but that time report is useful as well. My RAV4 is currently set to normal mode so is that displayed info correct?

Thanks again for being willing to make improvements to RAVCHARGE.

 

[fooljoe]

I just tested the status command on the SMS function of RAVCHARGE. My RAV4 is fully charged so I wasn't able to test the time to charge part but I did see the word "normal" after the CONNNECTED so I appreciate the addition of the indicator of extended or normal mode. I think there needs to be a space added between "normal" and CONNECTED. I'll try to test the time to charge and report back later.

I also checked in the web interface of RAVCHARGE and I noticed a reported time (0:53) to extended charge (from 100% of normal) as well. I'm not sure if that has changed but that time report is useful as well. My RAV4 is currently set to normal mode so is that displayed info correct?

Thanks again for being willing to make improvements to RAVCHARGE.

Hmmm well that didn't go as planned. The idea was to port over the same code that creates the reported time on the website, but clearly something didn't work right - perhaps there was an issue moving the data over. I didn't change anything about the website code - that time to charge message has always been there, and if it said you were in extended charge mode then I'm 99% sure you were. Note that if you changed that mode in your car that info might not have been updated on the Entune server yet.

Anyway, please try the status text again. You probably still won't see the time to charge message but I set it to output some information to the logs that I can hopefully use to figure out where the problem is on my end.

Thanks!

 

[fooljoe]

Ok, I think I've got it figured out. Plus I got ambitious and added the pre-update info from the server to the "Update in progress" text, so you have some info right away without having to wait a couple minutes for the update to complete (or fail). Please give it a try!

 

[swogee]

I tried the SMS command "status" and I saw the new updated info.

As mentioned earlier post the Update in progress now has last info as well.
So on that SMS I see:

Update in progress, last info:
61% charged; Charging at 25
mph / 8.69 kw; 1:47 to normal
charge @240V 40A.

I'm assuming the 240V 40A parameters are coming from the web page slider settings per your earlier post? Or is this info obtained from the vehicle?

The final status text came back as:

Updated: 63% charged; Charging
at 23mph / 8.13 kw; 1:41 to
normal charge @240V 40A.

It looks good. The info is very useful since it now reports an approximate time to completion. Thanks for the RAVCHARGE enhancements.

 

[fooljoe]

I tried the SMS command "status" and I saw the new updated info.

As mentioned earlier post the Update in progress now has last info as well.
So on that SMS I see:

Update in progress, last info:
61% charged; Charging at 25
mph / 8.69 kw; 1:47 to normal
charge @240V 40A.

I'm assuming the 240V 40A parameters are coming from the web page slider settings per your earlier post? Or is this info obtained from the vehicle?

The final status text came back as:

Updated: 63% charged; Charging
at 23mph / 8.13 kw; 1:41 to
normal charge @240V 40A.

It looks good. The info is very useful since it now reports an approximate time to completion. Thanks for the RAVCHARGE enhancements.

Good to know it worked. Yes, the volts and amps reported there (and used to calculate the time to charge) can be set from the sliders at ravcharge.com.

Unfortunately the vehicle doesn't report any information on voltage or amperage during charging or when plugged in (at least not that's accessible to Entune and therefore RavCharge - it could send that stuff to Tesla). If you perform a status update during charging, as you did, the "8.69 kW" is an empirical estimate of your charging rate that can give another estimate of your time to charge that doesn't require the input from the volts/amps sliders.

I didn't elect to add that empirical estimate to the text message for now, but it's done both ways on the web interface, and comparing the two estimates of time to charge is a good way to discover what volts and amps you're actually charging at (usually the amps at least are known and you can vary the volts until the estimates closely match.) Remember of course that the accuracy of the empirical estimate is limited by how long you wait between status updates - if you only wait 5 minutes or so the charge rate might be +/- a full kW or more, while if you wait at least 30 minutes the estimate's probably pretty good.

 

[fooljoe]

FYI - RavCharge is down for AWS maintenance today - possibly through tomorrow. Double-check to ensure that your car charges tonight. Thanks for your patience while Amazon does their thing.

 

[fooljoe]

Ok, it's back up and running, but Amazon's changes mean that it has a new IP address. This means that while we wait for the name servers to update, going to ravcharge.com will not work. In the interim, you can access RavCharge here: https://35.161.248.5

The server is running in the background, so your timers should go off as normal. However, I'd advise everybody to visit the site and make sure their timers are set how they like, as the recent maintenance might have caused some loss of data.

Also, you might encounter a security error in the meantime - don't worry about that (just click advanced or whatever to get through it.

EDIT: Looks to me like RavCharge.com should be working again, but let me know if you encounter any problems.