Rolec/ev.energy

[Stuwit46]

Is anyone else having issues?

I regularly do a +70mile trip to a work place therefore over 140 miles in a day.

My issue is, I can never leave the car plugged in and trust the car & box to charge to 100% by the morning.

I contacted ev.energy and basically the situation is that as I am on a single rate tarrif if I leave it on to do a scheduled charge, “the car goes to sleep” and doesn’t wake up for the charge at whatever is the “greenest” time. I was advised to use “Boost” to override the scheduled charge. Yesterday I plugged in as was on 40%, checked around 1700 and the car had charged to 55% and had stopped charging. I tried to boost again and it wouldn’t, the message was that the car wouldn’t charge as it was fully charged (it wasn’t). Pressed the Start button on the car after unplugging, stopped the car, plugged in and boosted again. App said car was charging left it overnight and it had charged to 83% this morning ?? any ideas? ?

 

[Petriix]

The car definitely doesn't do exactly what it's supposed to so it will occasionally appear to the charger that it has either finished or simply won't accept any more charge (my Zappi will say 'charge delayed' or 'charge complete'). However, simply cycling the power from the charger will wake the car up. The Zappi has some compatibility settings which seem to help.

Ev.energy could probably quite easily implement a similar workaround, even though it is technically a fault with the MG software. The car will wake if the CP line voltage is dropped to 0 or -12V for more than 5s.

 

[Stuwit46]

The car definitely doesn't do exactly what it's supposed to so it will occasionally appear to the charger that it has either finished or simply won't accept any more charge (my Zappi will say 'charge delayed' or 'charge complete'). However, simply cycling the power from the charger will wake the car up. The Zappi has some compatibility settings which seem to help.

Ev.energy could probably quite easily implement a similar workaround, even though it is technically a fault with the MG software. The car will wake if the CP line voltage is dropped to 0 or -12V for more than 5s.

Thanks for the reply, I have sent a long email to them, so hopefully it'll get sorted, just in time for me to change my tariff..

 

[Deleted member 823]

Interesting. I have a Rolec charger and single rate tariff, and despite having some issues when initially plugging in with the app saying the charge is complete, if I leave it for a minute or so, it states it's charging and it'll complete a charge to 100% by my desired time (06.30). It never seems to balance during this process, so I schedule another charge to do this. Interested in ev.energy's response.

 

[Dave Robottom]

I have the Ohme charger and I find I can reliably charge to the desired % and so far have had no problems with it disconnecting.

 

[Cocijo]

I have the Ohme charger and I find I can reliably charge to the desired % and so far have had no problems with it disconnecting.

How do you charge to the desired %?

 

[Kithmo]

How do you charge to the desired %?

Click it off at the desired amount, a bit like filling up an ICE car to exactly £20 worth ?

 

[SimonomiS]

Click it off at the desired amount, a bit like filling up an ICE car to exactly £20 worth ?

You mean £20.01...

 

[Petriix]

I believe Ohme have implemented a workaround.

 

[bb1922]

@Stuwit46 I'm sorry to hear you are also struggling with your charger. Take a look at my thread for Rolec smart charging issues:

MG5 EV Exclusive in Westminster Silver order placed -- charger options?

Yesterday I put an order in for an MG5 EV Exclusive in Westminster Silver. Hopefully should be January or February. I've been researching charger options and there are so many different ones out there, it's a bit overwhelming. I definitely want a tethered option and definitely want a 7kW...

www.mgevs.com

See also my article on chargers in general:

Choosing a home fast charger

Choosing a home fast charger First and foremost: Any home charger will give the car a basic charge. However, all chargers are not equal. The charger needs to fit your needs. Things to consider: Do I need a home fast charger? In the UK, the MG ZS EV and MG 5 EV both come with a 13-amp 3-pin...

www.mgevs.com

In a nutshell, the Rolec cannot smart charge the MG 5 without either a 6 amp / 1.5 kW keep-alive charge (which you can request to be enabled on your charger from ev.energy), or by placing the charger in dumb mode. Rolec told me they are working on a solution with MG but could not commit to a time frame. After much correspondence with ev.energy and Rolec, they mutually agreed to take back the charger for a full refund. This was very gracious of them.

I'm now using the Ohme and it works perfectly. It is 100% reliable.

The problem with the Rolec is not totally Rolec's fault. SAIC are not fully compliant with an industry standard charging protocol and that is where the root cause of the problem lies.

However, Rolec do advertise their smart charger to be compatible and specifically display the MG logo on their website as one of the many car manufacturers that their charger works with. That is misleading.

Hope this helps.

 

[Deleted member 823]

I wonder if the amount of time the car is connected is relevant then? I usually plug mine it at around 9pm when charging, for it to be ready by 06.30 when I unplug it. It's not sat for a lot of hours waiting to charge - I wonder if I plugged mine in earlier I'd get problems.

 

[Stuwit46]

@Stuwit46 I'm sorry to hear you are also struggling with your charger. Take a look at my thread for Rolec smart charging issues:

MG5 EV Exclusive in Westminster Silver order placed -- charger options?

Yesterday I put an order in for an MG5 EV Exclusive in Westminster Silver. Hopefully should be January or February. I've been researching charger options and there are so many different ones out there, it's a bit overwhelming. I definitely want a tethered option and definitely want a 7kW...

www.mgevs.com

See also my article on chargers in general:

Choosing a home fast charger

Choosing a home fast charger First and foremost: Any home charger will give the car a basic charge. However, all chargers are not equal. The charger needs to fit your needs. Things to consider: Do I need a home fast charger? In the UK, the MG ZS EV and MG 5 EV both come with a 13-amp 3-pin...

www.mgevs.com

In a nutshell, the Rolec cannot smart charge the MG 5 without either a 6 amp / 1.5 kW keep-alive charge (which you can request to be enabled on your charger from ev.energy), or by placing the charger in dumb mode. Rolec told me they are working on a solution with MG but could not commit to a time frame. After much correspondence with ev.energy and Rolec, they mutually agreed to take back the charger for a full refund. This was very gracious of them.

I'm now using the Ohme and it works perfectly. It is 100% reliable.

The problem with the Rolec is not totally Rolec's fault. SAIC are not fully compliant with an industry standard charging protocol and that is where the root cause of the problem lies.

However, Rolec do advertise their smart charger to be compatible and specifically display the MG logo on their website as one of the many car manufacturers that their charger works with. That is misleading.

Hope this helps.

This is excellent, thank you very much...??

 

[bb1922]

I wonder if the amount of time the car is connected is relevant then? I usually plug mine it at around 9pm when charging, for it to be ready by 06.30 when I unplug it. It's not sat for a lot of hours waiting to charge - I wonder if I plugged mine in earlier I'd get problems.

On a Rolec smart charger, that is unlikely. The amount of time the car is connected has no bearing on whether the car will wake up to charge.

The problem is purely due to an incompatibility due to the way the MG expects to be signalled to wake up. This wake-up signal needs to be initiated by the charger in a non-standard way. Other brands of charger can be programmed to give this non-standard wake-up signal, but it appears Rolec cannot yet do this.

They can work round it with a constant 6 amp / 1.5 kW charge to keep the car awake. If you want this (and there are advantages and disadvantages), you simply email ev.energy and ask them for it and they'll enable it.

 

[AdamMGEV]

Is anyone else having issues?

I regularly do a +70mile trip to a work place therefore over 140 miles in a day.

My issue is, I can never leave the car plugged in and trust the car & box to charge to 100% by the morning.

I contacted ev.energy and basically the situation is that as I am on a single rate tarrif if I leave it on to do a scheduled charge, “the car goes to sleep” and doesn’t wake up for the charge at whatever is the “greenest” time. I was advised to use “Boost” to override the scheduled charge. Yesterday I plugged in as was on 40%, checked around 1700 and the car had charged to 55% and had stopped charging. I tried to boost again and it wouldn’t, the message was that the car wouldn’t charge as it was fully charged (it wasn’t). Pressed the Start button on the car after unplugging, stopped the car, plugged in and boosted again. App said car was charging left it overnight and it had charged to 83% this morning ?? any ideas? ?

I have a Wallbox Pulsar Plus and no problems with mine. Plugged in at about 2pm with a scheduled charge of 12.30 - 4.30am and worked fine.

 

[Dave Robottom]

How do you charge to the desired %?

With the Ohme App I can select the charging % which is an estimation but is quite accurate. I can also monitor the charging on my smart phone.

 

[Cocijo]

With the Ohme App I can select the charging % which is an estimation but is quite accurate. I can also monitor the charging on my smart phone.

How does it calculate the charge % do you know?
For example - I use a podpoint home charger and can set a timed charge. If my ZS is showing half full battery I can estimate it has about 20kwh so I can set say a 3hr charge during off peak which will deliver around 20kwh. I can also just override the timed charge and let it charge until full/balanced if I choose to. What % would you select using Ohme? Its the charging % bit that I don’t understand as I’ve not looked at the Ohme app.

 

[bb1922]

With the Ohme app you just tell it how much percent you want to add

 

[KeithG]

Interesting. I have a Rolec charger and single rate tariff, and despite having some issues when initially plugging in with the app saying the charge is complete, if I leave it for a minute or so, it states it's charging and it'll complete a charge to 100% by my desired time (06.30). It never seems to balance during this process, so I schedule another charge to do this. Interested in ev.energy's response.

Hi. I sent you a message on another thread. Are you still on a single tariff? I am on Go Faster after taking 5 months to get smart meters, so have charged on a single tariff until recently and now only occasionally with Covid. I can see from my display that the car is balance charging, but it does not show on the EVenergy App. EV energy have confirmed this, but say it is included in the “monthly” figures. Just you mentioned that your Rolec didn’t balance, and I wondered if that was because of what you saw on EV energy app. I know mine keeps balancing, even after scheduled low tariff time has finished and the EV energy app says that charging has finished/complete. I am waiting to see if an 8.30pm scheduled charge will start. What’s your experience?

 

[Deleted member 823]

If I charge my car overnight, it will be charged for the time I set in the morning but I can't ever recall seeing it balanced using this method (i.e. the MG logo is fully lit). To balance I put it on charge again the following night and then the logo is not lit the next morning. Going forward, I don't plan to do the balancing regularly. I'm still on a dingle tariff. I have no idea what BMS version the car has, it's what was installed when I collected the car.

Does this help?