You CAN road trip an SE SR

[siteguru]

The weather was certainly a problem today. I was with my Daughter and her dog in Irvine for a fine lunch at GRO restaurant. We had 40 minutes to wait for a table so took Spaniel for a walk on the beach

That's a very nice place - and always busy. (Their cakes and donuts are incredible). ???

 

[Archev]

That's a very nice place - and always busy. (Their cakes and donuts are incredible). ???

Indeed it is. We’ve visited a couple of times and it’s been excellent. How that counter stands up to the weight of all those beautiful cakes is a wonder to behold. We should really implement our promise to share one cake between us - they’re immense ?

 

[Rolfe]

Maybe I should have a day trip there on one of the nice days!

 

[QLeo]

I am the biggest idiot in creation. All going well, then realised I'd left my ticket behind. Currently on the Ionity in Falmer to go back and get it!

View attachment 29350

What, do you mean you left it at home? If so, that's my level of oopsie.

 

[Archev]

Maybe I should have a day trip there on one of the nice days!

Highly recommended, it’s lovely at the location at Irvine beach (watch out for the dragon).
They also have a second place of the same name in Ayr but I’ve not been to it - yet - Ruby loves beaches too muchView attachment 29585

 

[Rolfe]

What, do you mean you left it at home? If so, that's my level of oopsie.

I left it in Portslade. I went back, getting some extra juice at an Ionity in Falmer on the way, but really I should just have gone on. I'd already read the programme it was inside, which weighs a ton anyway so I wasn't going to take it into the auditorium, and I didn't even need to show the other tickets for the reserved EV charger (I just told the attendant I'd reserved one and he waved me on - they weren't all reserved anyway) or the interval dinner - there I just gave my name and was shown to my table.

I had loads of time. All I had to do was go to the box office, give my name, and they'd have given me a replacement ticket. It was a sell-out anyway, so there was no scope for anyone trying anything on. I even had the credit card I'd used to pay for the ticket with me.

I panicked, that's all.

Highly recommended, it’s lovely at the location at Irvine beach (watch out for the dragon).
They also have a second place of the same name in Ayr but I’ve not been to it - yet - Ruby loves beaches too muchView attachment 29585View attachment 29584

Looks great. Though I'm thinking I might head up north. Schools are back in so the pressure on B&B places should be lessened, and I can always take the sleep-in-car kit I've been assembling just in case.

 

[Rolfe]

Well, all done and dusted bar the cheapo recharge.

I vastly over-estimated the distance to the boarding cattery - it's exactly a mile. When I went out to the car its 11-mile range estimate had dropped to nine miles. Still 5% charge showing. I allowed it to go into power-saving mode when it asked, this time.

The mile to the cattery is a 20 mph limit for half the distance, and since there was nobody behind me I just rolled on at about 20-30 mph for the remaining half-mile. Picked up the cat and headed back. Again there was nobody behind me so I just rolled back down the hill at 20-30 mph again. Then I saw someone standing leaning on the lamp post by the 20 mph speed limit sign, which looked a bit odd. As I passed I saw it was a cop with a speed gun. Obviously he wasn't in the slightest degree interested in me. But the bit of road he was actually pointing the gun at is a 60 mph limit. Anyone doing over 60 there is certifiably mad. The issue isn't people speeding in the 60 mph section, it's them not slowing down for the 20 mph limit, and he wasn't going to nail them doing that from where he was standing. Very peculiar.

I was so confident I even detoured into the village shop for the single item I'd inevitably forgotten when I cycled up for some supplies this morning. Total mileage for the trip, 2.4 miles. The car was still showing 5% and 9 miles range when I got home, just as it had been when I left. Also, 5.3 miles/kwh from start.

All I need now is a continuous charge schedule to 100% from Octopus tonight, and my long charge will be done also. I may play with the "ready by" time till I get it.

 

[Tight Git]

Well, all done and dusted bar the cheapo recharge.

I vastly over-estimated the distance to the boarding cattery - it's exactly a mile. When I went out to the car its 11-mile range estimate had dropped to nine miles. Still 5% charge showing. I allowed it to go into power-saving mode when it asked, this time.

The mile to the cattery is a 20 mph limit for half the distance, and since there was nobody behind me I just rolled on at about 20-30 mph for the remaining half-mile. Picked up the cat and headed back. Again there was nobody behind me so I just rolled back down the hill at 20-30 mph again. Then I saw someone standing leaning on the lamp post by the 20 mph speed limit sign, which looked a bit odd. As I passed I saw it was a cop with a speed gun. Obviously he wasn't in the slightest degree interested in me. But the bit of road he was actually pointing the gun at is a 60 mph limit. Anyone doing over 60 there is certifiably mad. The issue isn't people speeding in the 60 mph section, it's them not slowing down for the 20 mph limit, and he wasn't going to nail them doing that from where he was standing. Very peculiar.

I was so confident I even detoured into the village shop for the single item I'd inevitably forgotten when I cycled up for some supplies this morning. Total mileage for the trip, 2.4 miles. The car was still showing 5% and 9 miles range when I got home, just as it had been when I left. Also, 5.3 miles/kwh from start.

All I need now is a continuous charge schedule to 100% from Octopus tonight, and my long charge will be done also. I may play with the "ready by" time till I get it.

Plug it in at 7.30 and request an add 100% by 04:00 on the Octopus app and it will start straight away with a finishing time of 4am.

That's worked perfectly a few times now on mine - I also tend to hit bump charge after 11:30pm so Octopus don't end the charge and the car controls the finish and it's all done at the cheap rate.

 

[Rolfe]

Good advice, thanks. Why start so early, though?

 

[Tight Git]

I reckon it takes 8 hours on the Zappi to charge from empty to full (51kWh/7kW and add a bit extra for losses) and as Octopus work in half hour slots this works out at 19:30 for the starting half hour slot.

I'm just home with 5% battery so will be taking advantage of the half price charging tonight as well!

 

[Rolfe]

But you could start at eight and ask for 4.30 finish, or start at 8.30 and ask for a 5am finish?

Anyway, I did exactly as you said, and it seemed to work. I have three slots that are continuous from 7.30 to 4 am and the car is gobbling it up as I type. Last time I had three continuous slots the car stopped charging before the third slot then started again, but at a lower power which tailed off. It did get to 100% but later than expected, so that the balance charge was cut off half way through at 5 am. I'm not going to bump charge this time in case it jemmies it, I'll just let it play out as it likes.

I hope plugging in at 7.30 won't be seen as too early for this special offer! But it's done now and I'll just have to see how it works out. I wonder if I get my house electricity at 7p now too?

 

[siteguru]

As far as I am aware, all your leccy is at the same rate on this plan - Octopus doesn't segregate.

 

[Rolfe]

This is a special offer, though, only for car charging. The car will be charged at 3.5p/kwh. My question is whether the house electricity will be at 7p/kwh or at full price (until 11.30).

It's academic anyway, because I remembered (fifteen minutes after I should have) that I had to protect the battery from being drained by the Zappi. I did this, so obviously the house is running on the mains now. It's not drawing a great deal, but it will be doing it until 11.30. It's not high finance, but we'll see.

I actually turned on the central heating earlier because it's so chilly and horrible. I'll just leave that on rather than changing to the fan heater, to avoid complications. It'll get my bedroom and the hall and bathroom heated too, which is no bad thing.

 

[mg4mc]

Octopus have said this offer only applies to leccy used for car charging - they even said don't bother scheduling a tumble dryer marathon. I guess they will take the reading from the charger rather than the meter.

 

[Tig170]

I actually turned on the central heating earlier because it's so chilly and horrible. I'll just leave that on rather than changing to the fan heater, to avoid complications. It'll get my bedroom and the hall and bathroom heated too, which is no bad thing.

we had to do the same yesterday - I assume that IOG is working as normal, albeit it at 1/2 price (i.e. 3,5p) if you've triggered it to on via the car - home use should be the same as its near impossible to distinguish between home n car use - We've set the charge rate to 3.84kw, so always get it at the cheap rate, if the car is plugged in and charging.

 

[Tig170]

Octopus have said this offer only applies to leccy used for car charging - they even said don't bother scheduling a tumble dryer marathon. I guess they will take the reading from the charger rather than the meter.

... which basically means that you need a compatibe charger to get it at 3.5p, i.e. if you just use the granny charger ther you'll get charged as normal. - I got an extra 17p the other week as it was free 1-2pm.

 

[Rolfe]

They did say it would be a scheduled charge. I set it up and got the schedule. I don't know if the house electricity is 7p or 23p during the part of the schedule that is outwith the normal off-peak time though.

My thought was that the way my setup is, I don't have much choice but to let the car have what's in the home battery. (The only alternative is not to let the battery discharge at all, and there's no benefit in that.) So that's maybe 9 kwh that hasn't come from the mains. But if they take the reading from the Zappi they're not going to know where it came from.

It's all pocket change anyway. It's more useful for learning about the system and the set-up than for £££ profit, really.

In other slightly annoying news, the Zappi charge was interrupted some time between 8.05 and 8.15 for no readily apparent reason, and it didn't re-start till 8.30. I see that the "slot" I have now is 8.30 till 4 am, so presumably it will carry on now, but I might try that bump-charge thing to make sure it has enough time to balance.

I think the slots I had were perhaps 7.30-8.00, 8.00-8.30 and 8.30-4.00, and for some reason the second slot hasn't initiated properly and the charge was interrupted until the third slot intervened. I had similar trouble last time I scheduled a charge about a week ago. On that occasion the final 30-minute slot didn't follow on smoothly from the previous one, and the power dropped so that the balance charge wasn't complete when the slot ended at 5 am.

My annoyance is that in my book this negates this exercise as a long charge. If the charge is interrupted, how can the car know which arm of the hysteresis curve it's on? I swear next time I'm going to run the bloody thing on the Zappi's own scheduled charge, and swallow a couple of hours peak-price charging.

 

[Tight Git]

If they schedule a charge all of the electric used by the house is 7p/kWh. They are going to work out how much was used by the car and then credit the account the relevant amount.

 

[Rolfe]

Sounds good to me. In my case my house battery will have discharged and recharged while the car was charging, but that's just the way the system is set up. I'll just wait and see what happens.

 

[Tight Git]

Might be worth checking the Myenergi app tomorrow and making a note of the kWh added in tonight's charge session and seeing how it compares to what Octopus come up with.