Slow charging

[Kempy]

Hi all.
Collected my ZSEV LR (my first EV) last Saturday and so far all good, well up to an hour ago anyway.
Just plugged it in to my Hypervolt charger to charge for the first time and I’m not getting more than 1 kW. The SOC was 38% when I plugged in. I did have the battery pre-heat off (I know, my bad but I’m still learning here).

Does anyone know if this is likely to be an issue with the charger or the car, or of course the user?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jomarkh]

I thought the pre heat was for DC CCS rapid charging.
On a 7 kW EVSE the only thing it could be set a a lower output current or load limiting.
Does it work ok on the 'granny'?

 

[Ozzie1989]

Looks like it's trickle charging, have you set the hypervolt to schedule a charge between specific times?

You don't need to pre-heat on AC fast chargers.

 

[Kempy]

The Hypervolt is set to max current limit (32A).
TBH I’ve not tried the “granny”. I’m thinking I’ll take a drive to a public charger in the morning and see what happens there.

 

[Ozzie1989]

Make sure you've turned off scheduled charging on the Hypervolt and test again. Their support is good so give them a call if needed next week

 

[Kempy]

Looks like it's trickle charging, have you set the hypervolt to schedule a charge between specific times?

You don't need to pre-heat on AC fast chargers.

The Hypervolt is set to charge when the car is plugged in. I don’t have a off peak tariff yet (move to octopus go next week) so haven’t set a schedule. Good to know I don’t need to use the pre-heat for home charging though.

 

[Lovemyev]

The Hypervolt is set to charge when the car is plugged in. I don’t have a off peak tariff yet (move to octopus go next week) so haven’t set a schedule. Good to know I don’t need to use the pre-heat for home charging though.

If I read your post correctly, you said you DID have the battery heater turned "OFF" anyway ?.
It is set to "OFF" in the default mode I believe.
As you stated, this facility / feature is aimed at pre-heating the HV battery before carrying out a D/C rapid charge, not home / public A/C charging.

 

[Kempy]

I’m plugged into Gridserve and charging at 50 kW so all’s good with the car. I’ll contact Hypervolt in the morning to see where it’s going wrong. Thanks all.

 

[rpannell]

Gridserve is DC charging whereas Hypervolt is AC charging. As someone else has said, to test the AC charging, try using the supplied Granny charger (2.3 kW) or if you have a type 2 cable, try Tesco or another 7 kW public charger.

 

[Kempy]

Cheers @rpannell, will do.

 

[Lovemyev]

I’m plugged into Gridserve and charging at 50KWh so all’s good with the car. I’ll contact Hypervolt in the morning to see where it’s going wrong. Thanks all.

That’s great news to hear it is charging quickly okay on the D/C rapid unit .
But does it charge at 7 kW okay on another A/C unit, other than YOUR Hypervolt ?.
If so, then there is an issue with YOUR Hypervolt.
Can’t remember, but does the Hypervolt have load balancing safety device built in to the unit ?.
If so, where you using a lot of other electrical items at time ( electric shower / oven etc ) you where trying to charge the car ?.
Load balancing will throttle back the power supplied to the wall box if so.
Just a thought .

 

[Gadget Geek]

That’s great news to hear it is charging quickly okay on the D/C rapid unit .
But does it charge at 7 Kw’s okay on another A/C unit, other than YOUR Hypervolt ?.
If so, then there is an issue with YOUR Hypervolt.
Can’t remember, but does the Hypervolt have load balancing safety device built in to the unit ?.
If so, where you using a lot of other electrical items at time ( electric shower / oven etc ) you where trying to charge the car ?.
Load balancing will throttle back the power supplied to the wall box if so.
Just a thought .

Also, a wifi booster on the ring mains can interfere with smart chargers. Kempy, do you have a wifi booster plugged in?

 

[Kithmo]

Check that a charge schedule is not set on the car as well, I believe this will affect AC but not DC.

 

[Kempy]

Thanks everyone - the car was charging off the Hypervolt overnight with nothing else running so thr load protection shouldn’t have kicked in. The Hypervolt app said it was putting out 32 A so all seemed good there. Interesting comment re the wifi. I’ll try another 7 kW charger later today and see what happens and probably give Hypervolt a call in the morning depending on that pans out.

 

[Kempy]

Gotta say though, this little glitch hasn’t detracted from my first EV experience. Loving the car, it suits my needs perfectly and I’m sure the charging issue will be sorted.

 

[Lovemyev]

Also, a wifi booster on the ring mains can interfere with smart chargers. Kempy, do you have a wifi booster plugged in?

Could be wrong here, but I thought the Wi -Fi extender thing, only affected the “Granny” lead because it is being supplied power via the ring main socket outlets in the house ?.
The wall box will be on its own independent dedicated circuit surely ??? .

 

[N2STY]

I believe it was ethernet extenders that was causing problems not WiFi as they use the house wiring some extra sky boxes use them as well but it did not affect charge speed it was a no charge problem with granny and 7 kW.

 

[N2STY]

YAY - Problem solved. I have a couple of powerline adapters to take my internet upstairs and it turns out these were the culprits.
I unplugged them and now the car charges like a dream.
Thanks to everybody for your suggestions and help.

Here is one of the posts a about it

 

[hmadsen]

So the problem is not wifi, but the data put onto the AC lines in the house.

Personally i have never had a lot of luck with that kind of device, i would always recommend just putting wifi hotspots on each floor.

Especially easy, if you get PoE enabled devices and a PoE capable switch.

Might be a pain to run the network cables, but once done, you will get the most worryfree wifi possible.

 

[Ealing Guy]

Hi, it looks ok to me if the photo's show how much you have charged rather than the rate? At 7 kW (7 kWh/hour) after 8.4 mins you will have added 0.98kWh (or 8.7 mins at 6.8kW)

[ Edited moderator: fixed totally mangled units ]