emmrecs
Established Member
There are a number of posts to this forum where users have commented on or asked for advice on "problems" encountered with their Home Smart Charger. Some of these have been specific to named makes, amongst which are Rolec.
I have a Rolec EVHS2020-PEN 7.2kW unit, installed as soon as the car was ordered - I'm due to collect the car next Monday - in order to ensure I benefitted from the (now removed) government grant. So far, so good.
The installation was done by Greenvoltz, whose workmanship and after-sales service has been outstanding!
However, from the first day after installation I have been receiving quite regular messages from my EV Charging app that the charger was "Offline" and needed to be rebooted, a comparatively simple operation; simply turn it off at its isolator, wait 30 seconds and then turn it on again, but definitely not ideal if the charger is to be used as intended.
Julian and Darren from Greenvoltz have been in regular contact with Rolec and EV Charging (the company behind the app) along with coming back to my house on several occasions - as I said, outstanding service. Rolec suggested various "modifications", including reorienting the internal aerial (it connects via mobile phone signal), fitting a new modem, fitting an external booster antenna, fitting a new SIM card to the modem, none of which solved the problem. There was even a suggestion from both Rolec and EV Charging that the problem might be that one or more of the main mobile phone networks was "blocking" the signal from the SIM card, so experiments were done (by EV Charging) to "turn off" the connection via, in turn, each of the mobile phone networks, but no success!
Finally, by means of a phone conversation between Julian (Greenvoltz) and a senior technical guy at Rolec the reason was found: an over-voltage on the incoming mains supply to my house was causing the PEN unit to activate and turn the whole unit off! When measured that day, the incoming voltage was up to just over 256 volts; the PEN unit is designed to activate at 253 volts (and cannot be adjusted, apparently).
My DNO (Western Power Distribution) was then contacted as a matter of urgency and the same day I was visited by one of their engineers who measured the voltage at that instant at 249 volts. (Apparently, their statutory obligation is to provide a voltage range of not less than 216 and not more than 253 so, as of his visit, everything was "within parameters".) However, he did say that it was quite possible that, since it was a sunny day, if there were a number of houses around mine that had solar panels, that their "feed-in" was actually sending the voltage over its official limit! He also said he would arrange for a "squirrel" to be fitted to my meter to monitor actual incoming voltage over a period of time. (As of now, I am still waiting for the squirrel to arrive! I know Julian (Greenvoltz) is regularly phoning Western Power to "persuade" them to get on and fit this unit.)
So, I don't know whether any other user has experienced this over-voltage problem but if you have a Smart Charger which is prone to going offline without warning or obvious reason, you might want to ask your DNO to check the incoming voltage to your house.
I have a Rolec EVHS2020-PEN 7.2kW unit, installed as soon as the car was ordered - I'm due to collect the car next Monday - in order to ensure I benefitted from the (now removed) government grant. So far, so good.
The installation was done by Greenvoltz, whose workmanship and after-sales service has been outstanding!
However, from the first day after installation I have been receiving quite regular messages from my EV Charging app that the charger was "Offline" and needed to be rebooted, a comparatively simple operation; simply turn it off at its isolator, wait 30 seconds and then turn it on again, but definitely not ideal if the charger is to be used as intended.
Julian and Darren from Greenvoltz have been in regular contact with Rolec and EV Charging (the company behind the app) along with coming back to my house on several occasions - as I said, outstanding service. Rolec suggested various "modifications", including reorienting the internal aerial (it connects via mobile phone signal), fitting a new modem, fitting an external booster antenna, fitting a new SIM card to the modem, none of which solved the problem. There was even a suggestion from both Rolec and EV Charging that the problem might be that one or more of the main mobile phone networks was "blocking" the signal from the SIM card, so experiments were done (by EV Charging) to "turn off" the connection via, in turn, each of the mobile phone networks, but no success!
Finally, by means of a phone conversation between Julian (Greenvoltz) and a senior technical guy at Rolec the reason was found: an over-voltage on the incoming mains supply to my house was causing the PEN unit to activate and turn the whole unit off! When measured that day, the incoming voltage was up to just over 256 volts; the PEN unit is designed to activate at 253 volts (and cannot be adjusted, apparently).
My DNO (Western Power Distribution) was then contacted as a matter of urgency and the same day I was visited by one of their engineers who measured the voltage at that instant at 249 volts. (Apparently, their statutory obligation is to provide a voltage range of not less than 216 and not more than 253 so, as of his visit, everything was "within parameters".) However, he did say that it was quite possible that, since it was a sunny day, if there were a number of houses around mine that had solar panels, that their "feed-in" was actually sending the voltage over its official limit! He also said he would arrange for a "squirrel" to be fitted to my meter to monitor actual incoming voltage over a period of time. (As of now, I am still waiting for the squirrel to arrive! I know Julian (Greenvoltz) is regularly phoning Western Power to "persuade" them to get on and fit this unit.)
So, I don't know whether any other user has experienced this over-voltage problem but if you have a Smart Charger which is prone to going offline without warning or obvious reason, you might want to ask your DNO to check the incoming voltage to your house.
