Scheduled charging - what am I doing wrong.

[Derek O]

MG4 Trophy and finally an electric car tariff from British gas. We have a generic tethered "charger" that simply provides power but the car frequently does not start charging on schedule so am I doing something wrong? I use the schedule settings on the car not the app as being an old fogie I can't get on with smart phones (sad !)

EG yesterday we arrived home with about 50% battery left. I checked the settings for schedule charge - Schedule "on" start time 00.15 and finish 06.00. Then I plugged in the cable and locked the car. The "charger" has a green LED (power available) when not plugged in to talk to the car and that changes to blue when plugged in; presumably that indicates that the handshake is complete.

About 00.30 I checked the smart meter power display indoors - not charging, just a couple of hundred watts being used. I went to the car, unlocked to release the plug lock I but didn't get in. Pulled the charge plug out & the "charger" led turned green. I re-plugged and re-locked the car., "charger" led turned blue as were the indicator bars at the car charge port. Back inside the house the power monitor is showing 7 kw so it's now charging.

Any thoughts, I don't want to stay up past midnight every time I need to charge !

 

[Lovemyev]

Did you remember to set the percentage level that you wished the car to charge up to ( 80% e.g ).
This has to be higher than the present battery percentage, before plugging in of course.
Have you set the off peak times in the head unit of the car, or on the Ismart App.
Both should work, but I do find the settings in the car, are more reliable myself.
When using the App you will be asked to SAVE your settings.
I have seen this reported as a received request / command but sometimes it fails.
We have one of the older dumb wall boxes to charge our ZS EV facelift and I always charge on off peak rates.
When the wall box is sitting idle, it displays a blue standby light on the front cover.
So, when I first plug in the cable and then lock the doors with fob, the wall box contacts will close almost instantly and the car gives a brief indication that the car is actually charging, but then after about 10 seconds, the contacts in the wall box will thump once again and green light, then reverts back to blue in colour.
If I quickly go to the drivers window, there is screen in the centre displaying with an image of the car showing a charging lead attached.
It also reports that the car is awaiting a scheduled charge for a short while, before the car goes to sleep.
This clearly displays that car is aware of a delayed charge has been requested.
Not sure if the the MG4 is the similar ????.

 

[Derek O]

Thanks for that - yes the requested charge level was set to 80% and as I said the time settings were done in the car as I can't get on with smart phones & "apps" It will now be a couple of days to use up charge before another try. Any further suggestions very welcome. The irritating fact is that although old and grumpy I am an engineer ! electrical originally so should not have this trouble !!

 

[Lovemyev]

Thanks for that - yes the requested charge level was set to 80% and as I said the time settings were done in the car as I can't get on with smart phones & "apps" It will now be a couple of days to use up charge before another try. Any further suggestions very welcome. The irritating fact is that although old and grumpy I am an engineer ! electrical originally so should not have this trouble !!

Okay - Process of elimination, have you tried using the Granny lead that came with the car ?.
If this obeys the command to delay charge on this unit, then the focus will switch to the wall box.
Just an idea ?.

 

[CooperS]

Thanks for that - yes the requested charge level was set to 80% and as I said the time settings were done in the car as I can't get on with smart phones & "apps" It will now be a couple of days to use up charge before another try. Any further suggestions very welcome. The irritating fact is that although old and grumpy I am an engineer ! electrical originally so should not have this trouble !!

Hi acknowledge you dont like using the phone and app but have you actually tried it? Failing that do you an have android tablet or ipad, the app is straight forward to set up . however it does not always work!

 

[Grriff]

I don't think an Android tablet will load iSmart, my Lenovo won't.
I'm not an expert but have a Trophy MG4 and will wade in. I stand to be corrected by those more knowledgeable.
Don't assume that the car will consistently charge at 7kW. The charge rate can vary, possibly because the car's electronics are reacting to the battery's condition in some way.
I'd follow the advice of @Lovemyev above, get some sleep and see if the car is charged by the morning. If this doesn't work, try charging during the day and monitor the charge rate.
I don't think it's worthwhile getting a smartphone for iSmart. It may be worthwhile if you have to use public chargers because the suppliers' apps and maps are useful.

 

[fnegroni]

I think it’s best to not add the app to the problem just yet.
Have you set the correct time in the car’s clock?

 

[PeteC]

My Trophy can be erratic about starting scheduled charges. I also have a dumb wall charger (Podpoint) and follow a similar procedure to you. I set the schedule in the car, plug in the cable and then lock the car. It may or may not start charging at the set time. If it doesn't start, I usually use the app to start the charge manually. However....

.. somebody on the forum (apologies, I can't remember who) suggested setting the time in the car manually (i.e. not using GPS time) so I tried that and since then my car has started charging at the scheduled time. It's only been 3 or 4 charges so far, so not conclusive and I still peer out of the bedroom window to check! Might be worth a try just in case it helps.

 

[gazza487]

Do you have any poweline networking equipment in your house? Ie the type you plug an Ethernet cable in to and it acts as an extender or WiFi enhancer ?

 

[Susanna]

Whatever scheduled charging time is set in the car, is mirrored in the app and vice versa.

 

[Lovemyev]

A few days ago, I was parked up and was playing about in the head unit, in the charging screen.
99% of the time I have my charging level set to 80%.
So, just playing I decided to drag the level slider to 90%.
It thought about in for a few seconds then accepted the command and reset to 90%.
I then opened the App and sure enough, it reported the charge level at 90% .
Now I had finished playing, so I decided to reset back to 80% ( in the App ) and sure enough, it reported the request was successful .
Later that day I put the car on charge for it's delayed charge.
Following morning I dropped into with App.
YEP - You guessed it, it charged to 90% !.
The App is a bit like the news papers, don't believe everything to see .
This is not the first time I have seen this type of anomaly with what the App reports TBH.
I have also seen it revert to default delay charge times and not my chosen times.
When running the health check, first pass always omits the ambient temp and the sky roof status.
This is why I favour the head unit settings myself, it's just one less item in the loop I guess.

 

[Susanna]

@Lovemyev
Ah, okay! I have the standard range, so have not had to use the percentage settings.
I stand corrected.

 

[Lovemyev]

@Lovemyev
Ah, okay! I have the standard range, so have not had to use the percentage settings.
I stand corrected.

No problem !.
Thanks for replying .

 

[Derek O]

Thanks to you all for the suggestions. The car is at 80% at the moment and the next run will be about 75 mile return on Tues so that will then need another charge. I will go carefully through the procedure & see what happens. It will want too much charge to try the Granny lead this time (good suggestion) so wall box first & granny lead later in the week if the Tues night wall box charge fails - will report back

 

[Grriff]

Your Granny lead should have a box with three lights and instructions on the base which explains them. When the charging light is constant green, it is charging. If it is flashing, it is ready to charge when the schedule starts or is waiting to charge because the car has been unlocked.

 

[Derek O]

Thanks - yes I used the granny lead for a couple of weeks before I installed the tethered charger but as we didn't have dual rate charging at the time there was no incentive to try scheduled charge.

 

[MGCamb]

Charging to 100% tonight will not damage the battery.

 

[PeteC]

.. somebody on the forum (apologies, I can't remember who) suggested setting the time in the car manually (i.e. not using GPS time) so I tried that and since then my car has started charging at the scheduled time. It's only been 3 or 4 charges so far, so not conclusive and I still peer out of the bedroom window to check! Might be worth a try just in case it helps.

Update on this. It failed last night and went on to charge beyond the set finish time and beyond the set percentage.

It did stop when it reached 100%!!

 

[wicksonp]

I have a ZS EV Trophy Connect LR and had a similar problem with scheduled charging. I was doing everything correctly - sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. It was driving me crazy as I was on the Agile tariff and was missing out on really good overnight rates. In the end, I took it to the dealers and asked if there were any firmware updates needed and found that there were several. These were implemented and all has worked fine since.

Do you have any poweline networking equipment in your house? Ie the type you plug an Ethernet cable in to and it acts as an extender or WiFi enhancer ?

Yes, but I'm not sure how this relates to this particular topic of scheduled charging.

 

[steffijam]

Do you have any poweline networking equipment in your house? Ie the type you plug an Ethernet cable in to and it acts as an extender or WiFi enhancer ?

Is this a known problem? I’m also having difficulty with my MG4 charging reliably with a schedule set and we’re working through it with our electrician and the charger company at the moment. We have Google nests that extend our wifi signal, though we’d checked with the electrician before installation that it shouldn’t cause an issue.