RavCharge, a solution to charge timer and entune woes

[TheFinalLap]

I'm on the 14 day trial and did my first test last night. It fully charged, however it started at 11:30pm instead of 12:05a as I set in RavCharge.

Here's the details

-16 miles left on the GOM
-Set the dash Scheduling for all days to 8am departure time (real is actually 5:30am)
-Set RavCharge to begin at 12:05am (or 00:05am)
-My charger is 30amp 240v

So it seems I'm pretty close, can I assume that if I move the dash scheduler to 9am departure, RavCharge will then kick in at 12:05am as scheduled?

Is there a setting I'm missing, or should be doing with the dash scheduler, or is that even needed. I was following the directions on the first page of this thread.

Many thanks

Kerry Murphey

 

[Kohler Controller]

I'm on the 14 day trial and did my first test last night. It fully charged, however it started at 11:30pm instead of 12:05a as I set in RavCharge.

Here's the details

-16 miles left on the GOM
-Set the dash Scheduling for all days to 8am departure time (real is actually 5:30am)
-Set RavCharge to begin at 12:05am (or 00:05am)
-My charger is 30amp 240v

So it seems I'm pretty close, can I assume that if I move the dash scheduler to 9am departure, RavCharge will then kick in at 12:05am as scheduled?

Kerry Murphey

Kerry, being that low of State of Charge, the RAV4EV schedule starts before midnight for a 8am departure. So yes, your assumption is correct. Move back the dash scheduler to get out of the way and the RavCharge will start it when you want it to start.

 

[fooljoe]

Yup, the lower the starting level of charge and the slower the EVSE the more the car's timer will overestimate the time to charge. RavCharge doesn't get a chance to do its thing if you let the car's timer kick in first.

From what you said I'd figure you started with about 20% SOC. If you often start with that low of a charge you'll definitely need to move back the car's departure time at least to 9am, maybe even 10am. And if/when you do an extended charge from a low starting SOC even 10am might not be enough. If you don't usually start from such a low SOC, I'd set the car for around 9:30, and just push it back (you can do this from the Entune app) for the occasional charge from near empty and/or extended charge.

 

[user 340]

I've gotten used to the RAV4 charging peculiarities over my ~year of ownership, and I haven't used RavCharge yet.

However, there is a charging feature I'm really interested in: Can RavCharge - or the Entune app - stop a charge that is in progress but not complete to the 80% or 100% level? I use a solar microgrid to charge my car at work. It consists of a 4kW solar array, batteries, and AC L1 inverter with no AC grid connection. I leave my car at work for a few days each week, usually plugging it in on a Tuesday, unplugging when I go home, plugging in Weds am, unplugging that evening, etc. until I drive it home. I can't keep it plugged in all night because the batteries will be depleted about an hour or so after sunset, and doing this repeatedly is not good for them.

Ideally I'd like to automatically stop charging at a pre-determined time in the evening and start up again at a chosen time in the morning.

Can RavCharge do this, or any other ideas?

 

[fooljoe]

Interesting you ask, as I was just recently mulling over the "stop charging" idea, which has been asked a few times before (and I've thought about going back to my Leaf days.) The short answer is no, neither RavCharge nor Entune can stop a charge in progress, as the car's interface offers no such command. The Model S is the only EV I've heard of that does (at least I think it does based on a screenshot of their mobile app) have this feature.

BUT, if you really want the ability to remotely stop a charge (either manually or automatically based on a prescribed time or state of charge), there is a way. However, it would require more than just software.

Basically the only thing that can stop a charge is something external to the car, i.e. the EVSE or power supply. There are a number of ways you could accomplish this, but the best is probably to build an open-EVSE and use Tony Williams's new 40 amp J1772 cable, with the timer option. That option gives you access to the proximity circuit, which you can use to make the car think it's unplugged or the handle's button is pressed when it's really not, and either of those things will stop charging. Rather than just attaching this circuit to a "dumb" timer, you could get a wifi-connected relay that would allow remote control from an app like RavCharge.

Anyway, if you want help setting up such a thing (especially if you want to integrate it with RavCharge), we could certainly discuss it further, but I'm not sure you'd need all this for your application. You might be fine with just a "dumb" EVSE timer set to shut off at a given time every day. Or even better would be an in-EVSE relay that's connected to your microgrid and can shut off charging when the battery bank voltage falls below a certain level, and possibly resume charging when it goes back up. That way you'd also protect against battery depletion on cloudy days as well as just nighttime, and it'd automatically adjust to seasonally changing solar production.

Yet another solution, that I've always thought would make a lot more sense for direct solar charging, would be to just connect your solar array directly to the car's battery, via a DC-DC converter (or perhaps a full-featured charger.) Of course that requires "hacking" the car a bit, and perhaps also some expensive electronics. Or just connect the solar array and the car to the grid already! (Although I imagine there's a good reason why you can't do this.)

 

[Scott1258]

Hey Joe,

Our car didn't finish charging until about 6 this morning. Normally it finishes around 3 or so. Can you tell me if ravcharge worked last night on our car? And if not what might have happened. Thank you!

Scott

 

[fooljoe]

Entune's been having a prolonged service interruption (~2 days so far.) Check out this thread. RavCharge is working fine and sending commands to Entune, but Entune isn't delivering those commands to the cars. It doesn't matter whether you send the commands via RavCharge or straight from the Entune app, nothing's working. The more of us that pester Entune support to get their act together the better.

 

[Terran]

Call them Toyota Entune Support at 1-800-331-4331 and select:
Option: 4 then Option: 2

The support center said they "don't have any issues with the Entune service" :shock:

My case has been escalated to a product specialist. They will let me know within 1 business day.

 

[boredcleaner]

I've called the Entune Support line. Their recommendation was for me to take the vehicle to a service center for diagnosis. It makes no sense to me that the number of people reporting a problem would all have the same vehicle-related problem at the same time. I left the conversation feeling frustrated.

Terran, I hope you get better resolution. If you do, please let them know there are a few of us experiencing the same issue.

 

[smkettner]

Tested my Entune just now to turn on climate. Failed both attempts.
Last time remote climate worked was Sunday May 11, 2014.
I do not have RavCharge.... oem timer works fine for me.

 

[Khaihon]

Ditto on the failed remote climate control for me. Tried the last two days because of the heat. Attempting it via Entunes app on iOS. Have never tried RavCharge so regardless of how you're attempting it, it looks pretty clear it is a problem on Toyota's servers.

 

[Scott1258]

I just called Toyota about entune not working. The rep gave me a case number and said someone will contact me within one business day.

She was not aware it was a system wide problem. I let her know there were multiple folks on our forum having the exact same problem. So.... If every one that is having this problem, which appears to be all of us, could call the number listed to let Toyota know it's them not us - we will probably then get someone on this to fix their server/software issue.

Scott

 

[Terran]

I've created a new thread as this is not related to RavCharge.

http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1115

 

[fooljoe]

I've got good news and bad news:

Good news is after months of working on reliability and dealing with Entune headaches, I finally had time to add a cool new feature to RavCharge! When charging, if you click 'status update' to check on the progress of your charge, you'll now see an estimate of your charging rate and time remaining above the volts/amps sliders. Note that the rate shown is the rate at which your battery is being filled after charging losses, not what you're pulling from the wall. So for example if you're charging at 240v and 40a, or 9.6kw from the wall, RavCharge will show ~7.5-8kw. Also note that the longer the time between status updates the more accurate the estimate; if you only let it go 5-10 minutes or so your estimate will have some significant error. Here's a screenshot:

Bad news is while working on implementing this I noticed Entune had an outage from about 8pm to 12am on Wednesday 6/18. Hopefully nobody had missed charges because of this.

 

[DevinL]

That's pretty cool! Does this work with an extended charge as well or only normal charge?

 

[fooljoe]

That's pretty cool! Does this work with an extended charge as well or only normal charge?

The time-to-charge calculation factors in whether you're in extended charge mode or not, but as usual it won't be able to calculate your rate of charge once you go over the "100% of normal" threshold, since the car doesn't provide any state of charge info beyond that point.

I could show a "miles per hour" rate of charge based on the guess-o-meter that would handle the extended charge conundrum - maybe I'll work on adding that in as well.

 

[Dsinned]

Nice new feature. Thank you fooljoe! :mrgreen:

 

[fooljoe]

I just added the ability to send RavCharge commands via SMS. The following commands are available: Charge (same as the 'charge now' button), Climate ('start climate now'), and Status ('update now').

To activate this feature you first need to text your RavCharge username (generally your Entune email address) to (424) 260-7288. You should receive a reply telling you to login to RavCharge and verify that your phone number is permitted to send commands to your car. After that, you should be able to send any of the aforementioned commands by text. For now, only one phone number at a time can be linked to the account.

This feature is still very much in "beta", so go ahead and try it out and help me work out the bugs.

 

[Electric4me]

I was thinking about trying this app as it sounds great. Quick question: is the $39/fee a per device fee, or a per account fee? In other words, would my wife and I pay $39 or $78/year for both of us to have access to control the car?
Thanks!

 

[fooljoe]

The $39/year is per car. You and your wife can access your RavCharge account through any number of internet connected devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops, and now even "dumb" phones can use SMS for limited interaction, although for now only one phone at a time is authorized to send SMS commands. You and your wife would both need to use the same Entune credentials, however, as Entune's "secondary" accounts don't have access to the EV apps.