Battery equalisation

[Museruk]

When I get home I will have to check to see if mine has done any balance charges since I went onto Octopus Intelligent a few weeks ago.

The other alternative is to get the granny charger out and do a balance charge between 11.30 and 5.00am.

I'm currently on a Connected Kerb 7kW and it's been doing a balance for about 50 minutes at 20 watts so it looks like it needed one!

I have now completed my tests to verify that using Intelligent Octopus Go (IOG) tariff (where the charge is typically allowed in 1/2 hr time slots during the night) and you set the MG4 to charge to 100% with sufficient charge add from the Zappi charger, it does not complete a balance charge i.e. have never seen it continue to charge at a low (50w to 200W) rate for a time period after completing the 100% charge.
However, to prove the point, I then did a Boost charge during the day on the Zappi, having charged overnight to give a battery charge level of circa 98% (I know - I'm a tight git when it comes to having to pay the full daytime tariff!).
The result was that it did a perfectly good balancing charge for approx. 40 minutes after 100% charge was reached.
So when I raised this issue with the Zappi support (MyEnergy), they insist that this is an MG issue and I should contact MG - whilst when speaking to the MG dealer (Stoneacre Derby) they stated that MG say that any AC charger, provided it is less than circa 11kW should be able to complete a balancing charge.
So they both deny there is a problem, even though I have sent the charge plots of both IOG charging to 100% (but no balance) together with the Boost charge plots during the day (balance charge, no problem)!

I guess that now we have the choice of doing what I did i.e. charge to just below 100% using IOG, then before setting off, first thing in the morning, add a boost charge to reach over 100%, whereupon the MG will perform a successful battery balance procedure or:
Simply use the granny charger to complete the balance during the low night-time tariff (both should work perfectly well).
Since the amount of energy used during the day to complete a balance is relatively small, this should not add a significant cost - however it's still very annoying that both Octopus / Zappi and MG seem to deny that there is an issue! Dohh!
Of course since I rarely use DC chargers, I should only need to do this procedure say once a month - hence not really a big issue. Just annoying that nobody at Octopus or MG seems to accept there is an issue with achieving a battery balance when charging with IOG!

 

[Tight Git]

I have now completed my tests to verify that using Intelligent Octopus Go (IOG) tariff (where the charge is typically allowed in 1/2 hr time slots during the night) and you set the MG4 to charge to 100% with sufficient charge add from the Zappi charger, it does not complete a balance charge i.e. have never seen it continue to charge at a low (50w to 200W) rate for a time period after completing the 100% charge.
However, to prove the point, I then did a Boost charge during the day on the Zappi, having charged overnight to give a battery charge level of circa 98% (I know - I'm a tight git when it comes to having to pay the full daytime tariff!).
The result was that it did a perfectly good balancing charge for approx. 40 minutes after 100% charge was reached.
So when I raised this issue with the Zappi support (MyEnergy), they insist that this is an MG issue and I should contact MG - whilst when speaking to the MG dealer (Stoneacre Derby) they stated that MG say that any AC charger, provided it is less than circa 11kW should be able to complete a balancing charge.
So they both deny there is a problem, even though I have sent the charge plots of both IOG charging to 100% (but no balance) together with the Boost charge plots during the day (balance charge, no problem)!

I guess that now we have the choice of doing what I did i.e. charge to just below 100% using IOG, then before setting off, first thing in the morning, add a boost charge to reach over 100%, whereupon the MG will perform a successful battery balance procedure or:
Simply use the granny charger to complete the balance during the low night-time tariff (both should work perfectly well).
Since the amount of energy used during the day to complete a balance is relatively small, this should not add a significant cost - however it's still very annoying that both Octopus / Zappi and MG seem to deny that there is an issue! Dohh!
Of course since I rarely use DC chargers, I should only need to do this procedure say once a month - hence not really a big issue. Just annoying that nobody at Octopus or MG seems to accept there is an issue with achieving a battery balance when charging with IOG!

It's not strictly necessary to use the granny to complete the balance charge - you can use the Zappi provided you can either start a boost charge at 11.30pm and just let it keep going until the car switches it off or take it off IO and just set it for a scheduled charge within the 11.30-5.30 cheap period.

 

[Surfdog]

Glad you have came to the same conclusion as myself. A lot of owners think that by charging to 100%, a balance charge is automatically undertaken, which it is not. This issue has been discussed on IOG facebook forum and there does not appear to be a solution. As I previously said, my Ohme balanced charged no problem prior to IOG. IOG seem to have a minimum charge rate where if it falls below about 1kwh for more than a minute or so it stops the charge. Like you, I will now have to try the granny charger method which is a nuisance.
If Octopus allowed, say, 100w charging for a couple of hours after a 100% charge and this was a daytime charge slot, then they are going to have to provide you with off peak rates for this 2 hour balance charge period and would cost them income. This is just a theory I have as to why the do not allow charging below 1kw.

I have now completed my tests to verify that using Intelligent Octopus Go (IOG) tariff (where the charge is typically allowed in 1/2 hr time slots during the night) and you set the MG4 to charge to 100% with sufficient charge add from the Zappi charger, it does not complete a balance charge

 

[Museruk]

Finally achieved a balance charge using IOG overnight!
On this occasion I set IOG to put 50% charge into the car (it actually only needed circa just over 40%); this was to ensure that the Zappi charger didn’t terminate the charge rather than the car at reaching 100%.
Here is the charge plot:

 

[Museruk]

As far as I can make out, the only difference this time (where it worked and achieved a balance charge) is that Intelligent Octopus scheduled a much longer charge duration this time (I assume due to my request for a 50% charge to be added) as opposed to previous occasions when I only requested a relatively small charge add (10 to 15%).
So there was a good few hours allotted by IOG - and it then seems to work!