Thanks, Bros, for this. It was very helpful for me. I have been using the etron app - which works well for me, but is not very intuitive to learn. I had decided that even though my electricity provider won't use my smart meter on the house to offer different rates, I should still try off-peak charging just to help reduce peak loads and maybe use up some of the excess night-time wind power we have here in the mid-west. The owner's manual is very cryptic and I wasn't mastering the app until I read your helpful post. I went looking for "repeat timer." I had seen the term "Indiv timer" but didn't figure out that that meant individual day or single event vs. repeat. When I finally followed the arrow, there I found the necessary repeat timer. It's great to be able to establish two sets of days -- like week days and weekends. Anyway, it's working great now. I really appreciate the time people take on this forum. It's helped me with a number of issues.
Charging at 2 am is just a small thing, but I feel every little bit helps. That is kind of what electric mobility is all about. One person's contribution is very small, but it's part of the sum and a hopeful direction. It's like voting. You do your small part and hope it goes in the right direction. Thanks again.
bros225 wrote:
I'm still wondering if your problem is intermittent or if it switches to immediate charging every time. If it happens every time, then check to see if the timer light blinks a few times before switching to immediate charging. If it does blink, then I believe it is telling you that the timer is not active. In this case you need to make sure the timer check-box is checked and that you have the timer set as a repeat timer, not a one-time timer. I experimented by setting a one-time timer. The next day it would not obey the timer and that's because it deactivated the timer (the check-box was empty) after the one-time event had passed. I.e., if you are charging every night in a preferred window, then set timer 1 as a repeat timer, every day of the week, and make sure the checkbox for timer 1 is checked when you back out on the previous screen. Also make sure departure time is well outside of your preferred window (for example, if preferred window is 11PM-7AM, make the departure time 3pm or something like that). I say this because I observed that the departure time can override the preferred charging window and cause immediate charging if the departure time is near when you plug in. I'm guessing that charging will start immediately if necessary to have the car fully charged by the departure time.
I set mine according to the above and it works nearly every time, except once in a while (maybe every 20 charges) it will disobey the timer. In this case the red light comes on like it should (it does not blink), but then I hear a dull pop and it switches to immediate charging. I'm waiting for it to happen again, but the last time it happened it charged for a few minutes and then switched to timer mode automatically! (I never bothered to wait the other times). If I find that this happens consistently, then it leads me to believe that there is something to this seemingly bogus 60% rule. This would mean it will only disobey the timer when the battery is very low, but I need more occurrences to confirm that.
Note: "60% charged" may be ambiguous. I seem to recall hearing or reading that 50% of the battery is reserved for hybrid mode. If this is true, then I would picture the battery as having 2 partitions - one for hybrid mode and one for EV mode. When I say "hybrid mode," I mean operation when the stored battery partition is empty (not to be confused with 2017 hybrid mode, in which the car runs as a hybrid but uses the stored battery too). The hybrid mode I'm talking about is called "battery hold" mode on my 2017. So, once the stored battery "partition" is empty, the hybrid partition level is now fluctuating and may be below 60% at the time you plug in the charger. Bringing that partition up to 60% does not change the fact that your stored battery partition is still empty. Of course I'm speculating here!
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