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Delayed charging for E7 cheap charge

4K views 40 replies 14 participants last post by  h8ten 
#1 ·
I have just collected my 2012 Electron with only 11,000 miles on the clock.

As my house has economy 7 I would prefer to charge it after 1 o'clock but when i go to set the charge start time, the off time is adjustable but the start time is always greyed out.

Can anyone explain how to set the start time later than 00.00?
 
#5 ·
If I recall correctly you can set different weekend schedules too for what, in the UK at least, used to be known colloquially as a pubs and churches tariff. I guess having to program from midnight to midnight each day allows for an easier transition between days on different schedules.

I had to resort to the book to set up my Ampera.

I did wonder want happens when the clocks go forward or back as my cheap tariff window doesn't change with the clocks. In the end, given that the vehicle charges in 4 hours but the cheap window is 7 hours, I programmed for 5 hours and then I don't need to change it when the clocks change.
 
#12 ·
#13 · (Edited)
No, please don't believe the sticker or the DNO information! Check what your own meter does.

The sticker, the information provided by Ecotricity and the information from the DNO were *all* wrong compared to what our meter actually did and the only answer I could get out of anyone was to stay up all night and watch your own meter to figure it out. If you don't do that, expect your bill to be badly wrong.

Like I said, it sucks. No company seems to own the responsibility for the time range - it's up to the customer to know what their own meter does. They will all point the finger at eachother, but nobody actually knows apart from you.

Hopefully @Mark J Constable can explain why this system is so broken, but there appear to be people replacing meters who don't pay any attention to time ranges.
 
#16 ·
@fenlander Looks like I should check it then :)
How do I do it? Do I just stay up and observe when it switches over? There must be an indicator on the meter as to which tariff it is using... is that correct?
 
#18 ·
The best way to understand the on and off time for economy seven is as mentioned above and listen for the click from the time switch as they can vary widely.
Mine changes over to normal rate at 8:30am which I guess means it starts at 1:30am summer time.

BTW, I understood that it charged at 16A when on a wall charge point but I measured mine today with a clip on amp meter at the meter as only drawing 13.5A.

Any ideas why?
 
#22 ·
BTW, I understood that it charged at 16A when on a wall charge point but I measured mine today with a clip on amp meter at the meter as only drawing 13.5A.

Any ideas why?
I thought an Ampera had a 3.3 kW charger which would equate to a maximum about 14.3 Amps at 230 Volts.

You can also get discrepancies in interpretation of the PWM signal arising from rounding of the pulses.
 
#20 ·
Hi Paul,

I know the CC/CV charge profile that LiFePo4 cells require but mine were about an hour from completion and it just seemed to take longer than my other EV's to charge considering it is only a 10kW pack and I was only topping up from 50%.

That damned horn beeping is an annoyance as it beeps twice when the plug is inserted, then when it is withdrawn and re-inserted to start charging immediately, it beeps again.
I know there is a way of stopping it but can't be bothered to muck about powering the charge point up separately.
Just a pity more user choices were not made available.
Fab car though and really fun to drive.
 
#21 ·
No, there is no way to stop the horn beeps as far as I know. This has been discussed many times here and it is a regular complaint.

Interesting about the charge rate. I have no idea other than possibly that the voltage was down a bit in your area and so the current was less than you might expect. This can happen. I had the opposite issue in that my voltage was too high and it kept tripping out my solar inverter.
 
#25 ·
Just to be clear then for everyone... you cannot stop the charging beep without that fudge ;)

The beeps are of such short duration that I am certain that neighbours would not be bothered and I have never heard of anyone upsetting neighbours... has that happened to anyone then? :eek:
 
#27 ·
The pedestrian warning horn is the main horn, just three very short beeps in a row :) Surely if you're always doing the plug, unplug, plug thing then it's charging immediately at that point anyway, in which case you might as well change the charging mode on the dash...?
 
#30 ·
Umm, I don't work for Vauxhall or indeed any other car maker! I've previously worked on automotive safety software (nothing to do with how many beeps people get)...
What was the four beeps thing for? Not heard of that one? I have mine set for E7 charging too, and get two beeps when I simply plug it in at home for overnight charging, or if I want to override that to top it up during the day, I get two beeps, unplug, plug in, and get one beep.
In any case I agree, you should be able to turn it off...
 
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