OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Discussion about EV/Battery charging infrastructure, Electric highways etc.
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smithy2167
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by smithy2167 »

OK, so shouldn't be a firmware problem.

I've been looking at what it does to check for a ground fault, and at risk of saying what you already know, here goes. The Controller is measuring the AC voltages relative to Ground on both terminals on the EV Output side of the main relay, once the relay has been activated. If all is well, the Active terminal will give a voltage reading to ground while Neutral terminal will not - the neutral is bonded to ground in the switchboard. If it measures a voltage on both Active and Neutral, then it flags a Ground Fault.

However, one thing I noticed is there doesn't appear to be a wire connecting Ground to the Controller board. The Ground connection appears to be provided by the mounting screws, through the metal mounting plate and to the Ground terminal block. So, perhaps check that all of that Ground connection is in order.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

@doggy I just measured neutral - ground voltage = 1.2V. No idea if that is within acceptable limits? Measured with a Jaycar Digitech meter, so accuracy may be questionable? This was on a power point out in the shed about 70m from the ground stake, but there is an earth wire all the way to the shed sub-board. The point I charge from is at the house, close to the main board.

@smithy2167 That fits with what I understood.
I've checked the board ground previously by taking out one of the two board screws that make the ground connection and checking continuity from that pad to the earth block - it was good.

I also checked that both contacts of the relay were making good connections today by driving it with a 12V battery and metering across the terminals - that seems good.

It's truly exasperating me. I'm beginning to wish I'd bought a pre-assembled unit from OpenEnergy instead of the kit from OpenEVSE, would have been well worth the extra money.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by doggy »

Quite a number of us have bought the kits with no problems.
1.2V is high for neutral to ground. Mine are all 0.1volts as of today. Someone else might like to comment on this value. I suppose it could get to that order if there is heavy current being drawn along the neutral and depending upon the position of the ground stake.
My Zoe is very fussy about grounds and measures the resistance and voltage neutral to ground. From what I have seen previously on bad mains connections, it would fail at 1.2V.
I doubt your meter accuracy is an issue.
Are you absolutely sure your wires are routed as described in the instructions and also that active and neutrals are where they should be?
I have a spare control board for my OpenEVSE. I would be happy for you to try it if you happen to live in Sydney (a bit of a long shot, in terms of location).
Would also be happy to assist you with debug.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by doggy »

Something simple:

a. Are the active and neutral wires going the same direction through the GCFI toroid? If the same direction, the current induced in the test coil on the toroid should cancel out. A fault is induced if there is more than about 0.015A of imbalance. If the wires are the wrong way, the currents add and a huge fault is indicated.

b. Check the continuity of the coil around the toroid. It should be well under one ohm (which you probably cannot measure accurately). Just measure ohms with the meter prongs shorted and you should get a similar value across the coil.

c. Double check the coil connections to the board. If the coil is open circuit, a fault will indicate.

d. Do the above checks with NO power applied. Also check that there is NO measurable resistance between either active and ground or neutral and ground on the box itself. In other words, the resistance should exceed several millions of ohms,

I assume you are getting the faults with NO type 2 cable connected?
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

Thanks @doggy
I'll check neutral to earth on a point closer to the meter box just to see.
I'll have a look at those checks you've given.
a. yes, same direction.

I have been trying everything with the Type 1 cable connected, I'll see what happens when I disconnect it.

I'm still pretty perplexed why when I disable ground checking the car goes into charge mode but the charger shows 0 amps. I'm not clear why (or if) the car would enter charge mode if there is no current through it's input terminals. That seems particularly odd.

Thanks for the offer of your spare board, but I'm in NE Vic so we'll pass on that one.
As for the wiring, I've checked and checked, pulled it apart and redone it to the Guide. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm not making the same dumb mistake over again.
I've attached a photo if you could be bothered looking it over.
IMG_20220214_164103sm.jpg
IMG_20220214_164103sm.jpg (123.78 KiB) Viewed 2748 times
Thanks
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by coulomb »

gumleaf wrote: Mon, 14 Feb 2022, 14:52 I've attached a photo if you could ... look... it over.
Just a thought, the two current transformers (black ferrite rings with windings) are very close to each other. It seems possible that the "current" CT might be inducing magnetic energy into the "core balance" CT. So maybe move the one on the neutral cable a bit further away?
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by doggy »

They are much too close. No reason the CT for current measuring couldn't go on the active rather than the neutral thus spacing them out. However, it might not be the problem. Definitely worth fixing.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by reecho »

@gumleaf Main differences with the EmonEVSE versions is the 6-32A pilot signal limits and the removal of level checking which isn't needed. If you ordered the Type 2 kit it will have the EU firmware preloaded I think.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by doggy »

Also, check and advise items b,c,d from my earlier post.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

EUREKA !!!

OpenEVSE support got back to me and said:
It sounds like your relay is not closing, if it does not close the ground check will fail.
We would recommend checking for any binding that the contacts are about 2-3mm when open
If the relay is free and the contacts look good the relay hold power can be increased.
https://openev.freshdesk.com/a/solution ... 6000248647


That article says "OpenEVSE hardware version 5.5 and above supports variable relay power. The relay is closed at full power then after a set time the power is decreased. Differences in hardware and temperature can require slightly more hold power."

I first moved the current CT and tested - no difference.
Then I followed the link provided and upped the hold power to 150. BINGO
I then dropped it to 120 and it's still working, I think that'll do.

So the issue was simply that the relay would not hold closed, hence the car detecting it was charging but not, and also the ground check failure.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and assistance!
It was driving me nuts, particularly with the niggling suspicion that it would end up being some silly mistake I'd made. As it transpired the silly mistake was not spending enough time in the OpenEVSE troubleshooting pages.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by doggy »

Great result.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

Update.
The problem returned and OEVSE support directed me to dismantle the Relay arm and check the coil retaining ring was secure.

It wasn't but now is.
Links to relevant pics below.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk. ... 1645113381

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk. ... 1645113547

[ Edited Coulomb inlined images, sized to 1024 px ]



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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by doggy »

You seem to be getting good support!
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

doggy wrote: Sat, 26 Feb 2022, 13:16 You seem to be getting good support!
Agreed. Although the time & inconvenience has been pretty frustrating at least there has been useful support to resolve it.

Now looking forward to getting my Iotawatt installed so my Node-Red flow can start providing solar export info to the charger.
It will also hopefully manage balancing solar and night rate in order to achieve requested kw input by a specified time at lowest cost. Not sure my Node-Red skills are up to that challenge, but we'll see.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by d3wy »

gumleaf wrote: Sat, 26 Feb 2022, 13:42
doggy wrote: Sat, 26 Feb 2022, 13:16 You seem to be getting good support!
Agreed. Although the time & inconvenience has been pretty frustrating at least there has been useful support to resolve it.

Now looking forward to getting my Iotawatt installed so my Node-Red flow can start providing solar export info to the charger.
It will also hopefully manage balancing solar and night rate in order to achieve requested kw input by a specified time at lowest cost. Not sure my Node-Red skills are up to that challenge, but we'll see.
A little off topic but I reckon I could give you a hand with that Node-Red if you come up short, shoot me a PM, happy to share my experience/learn something new with you.

On the topic of OpenEVSE, glad your're getting support and got a hold of a unit, I was a little slow in order and now they are out of stock and pending price hike. Did you get yours from US or EU?
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

d3wy wrote: Sat, 26 Feb 2022, 13:46 A little off topic but I reckon I could give you a hand with that Node-Red if you come up short, shoot me a PM, happy to share my experience/learn something new with you.

On the topic of OpenEVSE, glad your're getting support and got a hold of a unit, I was a little slow in order and now they are out of stock and pending price hike. Did you get yours from US or EU?
I might take you up on the Node-Red offer. I'm still nailing down exactly what I want to achieve, and how.

I got my iotawatt from the US. They were out of stock but I kept an eye on the site and jumped as soon as they came back in a few weeks ago.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by Samstain »

Just been reading through this thread as I am looking at setting up a charger at home ready for the delivery of our first EV. Looking for a charger with some kind of easy-to-access real time API to set the charge current - to make use of our excess solar, is the OpenEVSE still the go-to option?

Looking at the US $289 kit, plus a 32A Type 2 cable from a local supplier to save on shipping one from the states. While I'm waiting for it to come back in to stock get started on the power monitoring side - and running the 50 odd meters of 6mm 2+E to supply it.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by doggy »

It is still my "go to" solution.
0. I (manually) either connect it to the house supply or to the output of a 5kW inverter.
1. I have two house LFP batteries and a 4.3kW Enphase solar system and home grown 1kW DC solar system.
2. During sunny times, the OpenEVSE is connected to the house supply and charges my EVs from excess solar that would otherwise be exported.
3. Usually during winter I have it connected via inverter to a 11kWHr battery which is collecting all excess solar above about 0.01kW (actually some also goes to a second LFP house battery). This is because both my EVs are only 50% efficient when charging at 6amps so it is more efficient to charge the bigger house battery (up to 98% charging efficiency) and run the inverter at around 12-14amps through the OpenEVSE to either car. Both Zoe and Tesla chargers are well over 90% at that level.
4. I use MQTT with the OpenEVSE but you can use other things as well.
5. On long trips to charger wildernesses, the OpenEVSE goes as well.
6. Most of the time things run automatically and/or I sit in my study controlling things. The garage is down 60steps; I also run an armoured single phase cable to the outlet there. About 50metres and I do not lose much voltage even if I run at 32A. But most of my charging is done around the 12A to 14A level.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

I'm very happy with the OEVSE setup I have.
I use Iotawatt to get household power readings and Node-Red on a Synology Nas (which I run anyway - great devices) to both run an MQTT broker (Aedes, within N-R) and add additional features.

Using the OpenEnergy emoncms system would be much simpler to implement but I'd have missed out on the ability to monitor virtually all our individual circuits (only 2 CT inputs vs Iotawatt 13). I've also quite enjoyed tinkering with Node-Red, its an incredible tool.

With node red I can set via gui how many KwH to send to car, or how long to charge (well I will when a bug in Oevse is fixed). I am also using the data from iotawatt & node red to dump excess winter solar directly to the HWS if the car is not plugged in, using Shelly swiches. Also turning off the pool electronics overnight to stop the pointless power drain. I'll possibly add more features later.
All without giving any of these IoT devices access to the internet - I'm pretty anti giving out any more data than I have to.

Once I've got everything in N-R tidied up and fully functional I'll put the flows in the public repository.

If I'd gone with one off the off-the-shelf offerings I couldn't have "value added" like this.

My electrician specced 10mm cable for my run through the roof. Probably overkill, but in the scheme of EV ownership insignificant cost so I don't care and am happy with that choice.

Edit: I forgot to say, the charger has a 32a 5 pin 3 phase plug. I installed a corresponding socket wired to our single phase. I have a short adapter 10A 1 phase to 5p 3ph so I can plug into household power when out & about. Super flexible and not too bulky.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by Samstain »

Thanks, I'll have to dust off my iotawatt and get that installed. I also had a bit of a tinker with NodeRED on a Pi a couple years back, but didn't get far with it - mostly due to the lack of a pressing application at the time.

I used to use emoncms (when it was a free cloud service) for monitoring my off grid system, will look at hosting that locally I guess - or do you use one of the other systems as you main interface and logging?
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by doggy »

I use EmonCMS as my main monitoring of solar and other related stuff around the house. I have plenty of servers in-house so it is on one of them. Works well, easy to use/update, quite versatile.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

I just use the internal Iotawatt logging, I'm never going to pore over historical data past a year. If ever I change my mind I'll either setup Influx or emoncms, unlikely though.

I use both the OEVSE interface for the simple stuff, and the Node-Red ui interface for various manual overrides that aren't as user friendly in OEVSE.
NR for the HWS & pool override.

I really only care about what's happening now and in the recent past.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by shallowal »

I had never heard of those Shelly switches before, so thankyou Peter, they're excellent. I just installed one inside an external power point housing along with a suitable contactor to control my pool filter.
I installed an emontx 5 years ago and have had excellent data since. I chose the emontx because it has 4 ports + temperature and paired it with RPI3. When I bought our EV I immediately bought the EmonEVSE and have been running with that for the last couple of years. I've been meaning to upgrade it to the ESP32 for a while now, as it frequently charges at full current instead of following the sun.
I currently use NodeRed to upload data to thingspeak so that I can monitor the net daily power flows with the intention of sizing a battery system in the future.
I'll have to investigate how I can integrate the booster on our solar hot water as a power dump, particularly over the winter months.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by gumleaf »

Glad I could be of help Allan.
I think the Shelly's are fantastic. Not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either. Amazingly flexible - stand alone scheduling, integration with external controllers via different protocols or fully web based (makes me cringe the amount of information people give out following that sort of route!). And approved in Australia, which so many aren't.

The latest OEVSE tracks solar nicely I find, & I haven't really tweaked the settings as well as I could I suspect.
I'm hoping they fix a bug with Solar and KwH limits (limit doesn't work in Eco mode), then it will be just about perfect for us and our Leaf.
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Re: OpenEVSE Charging Station any Users?

Post by coulomb »

I'll be using the openevse WiFi code, using an esp32 from Jaycar, in my CT2003 conversion. I was going to use an ordinary Arduino Due or similar to run modified openevse code, and they use the esp32 as a sort of WiFi co-processor. But all I need is to send a few serial commands to the EVSE pilot unit when charging, and I hope that I can do that in spare capacity in the Wifi processor.

The arduinos only need 5 V, which the power supply in the CT2003 already has, but the standard openevse hardware uses 12 V (for relays, the pilot sending, etc). Also the openevse hardware is often out of stock. So that's two strikes against buying standard openevse hardware.

I'm able to compile the openevse WiFi firmware, and it serves up pages, though of course it complains that the EVSE isn't responding. So I have a few mods to make to the source code.

openevse WiFi on Jaycar esp32 sm.jpg
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