Force Charging Guide and EV owners tips and tricks

[Will]

[Skip62]

Hi, Can you tell me please how to accomplish this with the newer software for iPhone that has changed the options. As it’s getting nearer to winter it will soon be time to charge the EV overnight as apposed to the solar panels through the day and I don’t want to discharge the batteries. Thank you.

[Dave Foster]

Hi, Can you tell me please how to accomplish this with the newer software for iPhone that has changed the options. As it’s getting nearer to winter it will soon be time to charge the EV overnight as apposed to the solar panels through the day and I don’t want to discharge the batteries. Thank you.

The app has removed the 'Force charge' switch however if you set a time period and leave the 'charge from grid' off then it will be the same as having the force charge switch on.
i.e. If you set a time period with charge from grid switched off, the batteries will not be charged from grid, they will allow charge from solar and will not allow any discharge (not feed the house).

For Grid Charging it is simpler than it used to be as now you only have to set a time period, turn the Enable charge from grid on and the batteries will charge between that period.

If you want to charge from the grid over midnight e.g. start at 11:30 pm and end at 5:30am then you set 2 periods.
Time Period 1: 11:30pm - 11:59pm, Enable charge from grid on
Time Period 2: 12:00am to 05:30am, Enable charge from grid on


If you want to charge from the grid from 2am to 5am then set 1 period
Time Period 1: 02:00am - 05:00am, Enable charge from grid on

Dont' forget to press the first 'Save' button immediately below the time periods

[SteveF]

Hi,
I am trying to enable a 'forced' charge from the grid but the panel only 'Enable charge from the grid' and NOT 'Enable forced charge from the grid'.
How can I make this change?
Thanks

[calum]

If you enable "Charge from grid" along with setting a start and end time, the system will charge until the battery is full or the defined period ends. If you don't enable "Charge from grid" but you only set a start and end time, the system will pull from the grid and not discharge the battery during that time.

If you set both start and end time to 00:00, that charge period is deactivated and the system will supply demand from the battery, subject to SoC and inverter capacity.

[SteveF]

Hi Callum,
Thanks for your reply. However, as we are on Octopus Agile I am trying to force the batteries (4 off) to charge from the grid. I did set a period between midnight and 7.00am but looking at the graph on the App all I could see in that 7 hour perid was a couple of 30 minute sessions when the grid snt a but of charge to the batteries. In total less than 2kW went in! I was hoping that the batteries would be close to being fully charged.
I'm suspicious that the panel to select the charging option (e.g. Time period 1 and 2 together with SoC setting) only refers to "enable charge from the grid" and NOT "Enable forced charge from the grid". All the posts and advice refers to the 2forced" charge option.
Am I missing something?
Thanks,
Steve

[calum]

Fox have changed the interface since most of those posts and guides were written, it behaves as I described above now (which is closer to the actual interface on the physical front panel of the inverter).

Separately, can I ask where your batteries are stored? Cold temperatures will cause the BMS to reduce the charging current, to protect them from harm. I think that's the much more likely cause of the slow charging.

[pbdollman]

Every time I try and set the time I get an error message "unsupported function code" how do I fix this?

[Dave Foster]

Every time I try and set the time I get an error message "unsupported function code" how do I fix this?

It usually means you have a schedule set, and you can't have charge periods and schedules running together.

It has been difficult recently to be sure you have disabled any schedules, I find the website is the most consistent experience.

[NickKendall]

Hi Will or anyone else,

We’ve had our Fox system (KH7 and EP11) since October last year and had a Hypervolt Home Pro 3 Charger installed on Friday. Last night the battery did not fully charge as it did not start charging until the EV had completed which was several hours late according to the force charge window that we have set.

Is this expected and is there anyway to configure the systems so that both can charge at once please? We have a 100amp fuse on our mains supply.

[tarmacalastair]

We have set up our batteries (using the mode scheduler in the app) to force charge from midnight to 0530 (when Octopus Intelligent Go cheaper tariff ends) and then as our EV charger is compatible with this tariff it will charge at the same time. The app doesn't seem to like a schedule from 23:30 to the next day, hence the midnight start.
We learned this weekend not to plug the car in during the daytime as Octopus sometimes schedules a car charge during the day at unpredictable times so we ended up with a flat home battery that day as the car charged from the home battery. Will has another video about integrating with Home Assistant to avoid this issue but we're only a month into our system so haven't tried that yet.

If you are using a different supplier then you might need to set up the EV charge schedule within its app to charge at the same time if they don't offer an integration. We only have an 80 amp fuse and the two batteries seem to charge together fine. I hope we're not doing anything risky!

Good luck!

[tarmacalastair]

Oh just realised you've had answers in another thread!