Not getting 7Kw charge rate with Ohme Home Pro

[Geeman]

Hi

I have just bought a 22 plate Born V3. I have tried charging it up with my Ohme Home Pro but it only appears to want to charge it at 3.8kw when set to maximum charge or smart charge, not 7+Kw.

I do not have any charge schedules set up.

I am only on the standard tariff with Octopus.

I have set in the car the max charge is to 80%.

The slow AC charge toggle is off(dark).

I have reset the Ohme box several times.

The car app says its charging at 13mph, had seen it charging at 27mph for a short time.


Any ideas as to why it is not charging at the 7+Kw rate? Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong would be appreciated.

 

[James_R]

The AC charge module on the car will only charge at the current it's happy with or capable of at that point in time. 7kw can often be unachievable due to the charging infrastructure.

 

[Geeman]

Thanks for the reply.
Just thought that charging from 55% to 80% it should charge at a higher rate than 3.83Kw. However, I can live with it as it is a second car and can be slowly charged.

 

[Tell]

Probably your power supply if not the charger. Homes can be on a cut down power system. When you get solar they have you photographing the mains fuse in the meter box to check. Some are on shared power with your neighbour which means the drawdown import and export is limited. Hence the interest in that fuse by solar installers.

7kw would be cooking the Sunday dinner on electricity, the immersion heater etc. Now if you accepted that there was no fault with the car and the charger then its worked out it can't take the load off the grid. Not delivering it at the rate.

Have you requested the free "Octopus Home Mini" that connect up to the smartmeter display data and uplinks that to Octopus. Using the Octopus app you then get real time information and analysis without the meter upload delay of a day or so. That way you might see the car trying to take 7kw and then cutting back if it decides it can't.

Meet the Octopus Home Mini

The Octopus Home Mini is a brand new, cutting-edge bit of tech that makes understanding your energy usage easier than ever before.

octopus.energy

Feels to me like your mains power to the home is the issue. As well as the shared power lines to adjacent properties some rural communities suffer from issues in those transformer boxes on poles. You find solar installers identify these as being the issue in YouTube videos. Power being throttled by old grid equipment.

 

[Geeman]

Thanks for the reply.

Am going down the line that the charger is not set up correctly. Not on shared supply, has delivered 7+Kw with another car. On researching the Ohme does not show a CT Clamp reading so suggests it is limiting supply. Trying to get installers to come out and check but due to other commitments cannot fit them in at the moment.

As I said its just inconvienent. Had another EV who's integrated charger failed fully, then charged then didn't would take full rate then wouldn't then couldn't get it to charge on DC so got rid of it for an HEV. Got this as a second car and happy with it so far.

Thanks for the idea of Octopus Home Mini and requested one, just hope its straight forward to set up.

 

[Tell]

Thanks for the reply.

Am going down the line that the charger is not set up correctly. Not on shared supply, has delivered 7+Kw with another car. On researching the Ohme does not show a CT Clamp reading so suggests it is limiting supply. Trying to get installers to come out and check but due to other commitments cannot fit them in at the moment.

As I said its just inconvienent. Had another EV who's integrated charger failed fully, then charged then didn't would take full rate then wouldn't then couldn't get it to charge on DC so got rid of it for an HEV. Got this as a second car and happy with it so far.

Thanks for the idea of Octopus Home Mini and requested one, just hope its straight forward to set up.

The Home Mini is easy to set up. Site it close so it gets a good signal from the Smartmeter then it relays those readings via you WiFi to Octopus. Its plug, play and forget. The readings just come up on their app so on the histogram you see exactly what has been going on. Usefull for solar as well since it shows the effect of export on import.

 

[Geeman]

Contacted the EV charger installers who passed me on to Ohme. Turns out the installers put the CT Clamp in the wrong place. Ohme are sending me a replacement Clamp in case its faulty. Tried moving it to the correct place but could not get it to close over the fat wire it needed to go on and was not confident at pushing pulling the live cable around in the rain. When it arrives will contact the installers and get them to do it properly. However it charges as it should now without the CT Clamp but apparently its better with it. Time will tell.

As of another issue had issues with the Connect app ended up messing about with it last night. It appears they upgraded it and caused problems after I had done a factory reset. Now I am having issues with the 12V battery having a yellow warning light on. I turned low battery toggle in the app and that seemed to get rid of it. However after doing 35 mile trip on return to the car it came back but managed to get home OK.

Problems of a secondhand car. Off to check the warranty that came with it.

 

[Tell]

Had to do a Google to see what a CT Clamp was. A bit of an ommission if the installer incorrectly installed the charger so it doesn't have the correct feedback of what it's doing.

On the Octopus Home Mini Hub little box yes that's designed to support the whole range of tariffs that Octopus offers so you get timely information of electricity consumption and its priced up against the tariff you are on. With 24 hour variable pricing at half hour intervals the normal display device is no good at that from a customer perspective and data has that 36 or so hour delay getting passed by the meter over wireless and out to energy companies.

The Octopus Home Mini Hub takes the data off from the meter off the local meter ziggy link to the IHD and relays that directly back to Octopus where it can support the Octopus app data in real time. You get a new screen in the app. The Octopus Watch app also gets to see the usage data as well.

If you so choose to move to one of the Octopus EV tariffs you will see how that plays out. Those freebee periods that they offer to all customer get priced up and you should see with the Octopus Go the charger getting kicked in and consumption up thanks to the device when Octopus instructs the charger to charge on these other periods subject to the charger supporting it...

I dont have an EV and I'm on the Agile spot pricing tariffs. Have an interest in how home charging with Agile for those low price periods work if you dont have a great urgent need for charging. Agile prices sky rocketed during the last winter as daily auction prices went out of control. Applying the Octopus Go tariffs seem to indicate that I'd have been better off on those tariffs than Agile over a year. If only I'd had an EV to get on them, whilst the Agile ones were 20% cheaper than the standard tariffs for my energy profile, which means no electrict cooking between 4-7pm. Solar is running the house during the summer months, no battery (finance as well for 4-5 months, solar income covering the bought electricity). Will repeat that modelling next year re Agile v EV tariff. I'd need more panels if I had an EV so you are looking to buy at 7p kwh overnight. The EV tariffs on face value appears to work for me with my last 365 day energy profile.

 

[Geeman]

Thanks Tell.
Used to be on the Octopus Intelligant Go but got rid of the EV and reverted back to standard Octopus Fixed Tarrif. It worked as it should pity the car did not.
Later decided that we needed two cars due to personal circumstances. The Born is a local run around have not got back to Octopus to change it as of yet with one thing and another.
All seems to be running fine, even the amber battery warning is elusive at the moment, so am just going to enjoy the freedom of personal mobility.
Thanks for your suggestions.