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[SonOfAnakin]

I have a new charge tank on my 2021 SR and a new Enex Juicebox charger in my garage. I say that to mean that I’m new to this stuff.

I leaned that the bike must be on when you start charging but then your can turn it off and remove the key while it finishes.

Now, can I somehow use the smart charging feature of the charger that waits until rates are cheaper in the middle of the night to charge it?

I tried and it looked like it was going to work. The bike sat ready to charge even though the charger was waiting. So I walked away. Came back an hour later and the bike is completely shut down. I told the juicebox to charge now but it was unable to. The bike stayed off.

Turned the bike back on and it began charging.

Is there anything I should be doing differently?

[Crissa]

That's a good question!

On the Gen2 bikes, you just have to power the OBC to activate the bike for charging.

-Crissa

[UlsterZero]

SonOfAnakin,

I've have recently come across the same issue.  The problem is that the charge tank will only hold the battery contactor closed for a short period of time (less than an hour, I think) when it detects no current being delivered from the level 2 charger.  At this point, the bike will go back to the "key off" position, and will not come back on, even when power is delivered from the level 2 charger.  I believe one of the smart charger companies in the UK had the same issue with the MG ZS SUV, and their solution was to "trickle charge" the MG at approximately 6 Amps,  thus keeping the MG awake until the night rate kicked in, and then switching to the full 32 Amps.

Unfortunately, this is not really viable with the Zero, as it would probably be well through the charge cycle before the lower night rate started.  I have, however, been experimenting with another solution, and it is possible to use the on-board charger to "kick start" the level 2 charger, by the use of a charge lead which provides power to both the charge tank and the OBC simultaneously.

In this case, all you have to do is key on the bike, plug in the level 2 charge lead to both the charge tank and the OBC, and connect it to the charge point.  The charge point will detect the presence of the bike, allowing it to schedule the smart charge.  The bike can then be keyed off as normal.  The charge tank will eventually open the battery contactor, and put the bike back "to sleep", however, when the smart charger starts the charging cycle, it will trigger the OBC, which will in turn activate the charge tank.  With both chargers operating you will also be charging at over 7kW!

I believe it should also be possible to make up a special charging cable which won't require the bike to be keyed on initially, and which will only run the OBC for a few minutes (just long enough to kick start the charge tank), but so far, I haven't located the correct relay/contactor which would allow this to work...

Ulster Zero

[NEW2elec]

So DonTom on here has an adapter that looks like an octopus with a female j plug on one end and female plugs for his Elcons and Delta Q chargers as well as his OBC.
You would need some sort of short female to male J Plug extension with a pig tailed cord for your OBC.

One other option could be one of those programmable wall outlet units to plug the OBC cord into.  Tell it just to stay on like 10 mins or so.
If you find your j Plug charger times out just set the outlet unit to come back on for 10 mins an hour later.

Maybe something like this.  I've never used this so can't vouch for it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144104667354?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item218d4eb8da:g:AioAAOSwMSxfxwdb&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAACsPYe5NmHp%252B2JMhMi7yxGiTJkPrKr5t53CooMSQt2orsS9d9gBrkNbRQtRn8MVXnYkkVzOY4YruML8N7iRF5R2X6IiU6bxNiLDeAntZWwdgqVVNdASgNbPzw%252FsoqxkeboOWmV0RPpwJHTUWKMaKRe5rimUqn9MfjStajhHKUZmV05JheAV83lOo%252BjjQLbPPYued32sZ4ip0fifLmfIYZCP8gC4WrcOQiVHnNiXw3BWbbzOI5UWrXivjsWKGCJvtD1XJC%252BO2J03DeXVHuRm9BjnbeF3XdVazjFCMppt5d9fkXWj%252FQ5hi5IIrm5XkE3x5hRsJNMxa3BnHVusGQMhjDT81T0Wtj91gXk3KqAwyI0%252Bn6rM%252BweyUtTfRwSFAsV%252F1WiruJEvvCa%252BfExWI1Texx3S9Y1mW%252Bxw6X1KOODChb%252BWMVb7IFUVqA7mesU%252FJj0aBmQ9DB1nbcT9uNU4mRzSYjSAV5OeE%252B2Dh3yc1srKy5nTIRZY9AvTSMOvtgObmjf8iHDuJixw1cqT%252BXd9rcjOh5gTYfC%252F9djm0aB%252BgV8yjLrMPuzfbXgo0FZnd9MchAAAeQLpqaNyDpdNnSwHCpC0zcQ0i6VNn6M6lwR74ATPdmLkNSfl5mSmWW41KJMVSmLUzBhkN3xNq%252FdE3skFJwCHUMP56yaZcZkxjwW1mucO%252BRDWzq4dSBHHfxUebD%252Fvbg7TBVHFRhBXrfmusMd2s3yU1QCE%252FTHG8WDwxm0%252BaQyQSUjGh8WGQrypDVISVBsmiouFAkgsXEu6yaK98FrpBZ9n0KXDfV3sFanKp%252B2nS8U5XbgrU%252FK9932AFuR9vuPuO52IYmB%252FZe0WTLj%252FHa%252F8NES6nvC1L3O3rzgchpaLjBjpuQUpR8ODI7Yh1QmU2%252FYwG3yx0E%252Bh%252FpwpxmvfvMVRQ8BIHxu26A%253D%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2334524

[SonOfAnakin]

That's a great idea.  I didn't think of the OBC being able to put the bike in a state that the level 2 charger is receptive to charging.

I already have a smart plug for the OBC, as that was how I was managing charging before I added the charge tank.

So now I just need to figure out how to get the Juicebox plugged into SmartThings in a way that I can detect that it is trying to charge and then I can build rules to activate the OBC to match.

Hmmmm.....

[svelectric]

Does anyone happen to know how long the charge tank will hold the contact open while it waits for charge?  My EVSE has a delay function.  Even if it was delayed an hour, my battery could cool a bit before recharging if it held it for an hour. 

[svelectric]

Well, I did a test yesterday, key on, set delay for 1 hour, plugged in, timer started counting down.  I then keyed off, but it never charged so the contact must have closed.  Unfortunately 1 hour is the lowest it will go...

[staples]

If you want to use the schedule to take advantage of cheaper electricity, you could always skip the Juicebox and just use the onboard charger with a cheap wifi switch or timer that can support the current draw.

[SonOfAnakin]

One of the reasons I chose to add the charge tank was because of the issues I was having with the OBC.  I'm confident the OBC will do the job of powering up the bike enough for the charge tank to take a charge, but I don't trust it to actually charge the bike.

[Crissa]

As long as the OBC can turn the key for you, you could wire in a relay that gives power to it until the augmented charging takes over, and then switches back when your extra charging winds down for cell balancing.

-Crissa

[SonOfAnakin]

As long as the OBC can turn the key for you, you could wire in a relay that gives power to it until the augmented charging takes over, and then switches back when your extra charging winds down for cell balancing.

-Crissa

Yup.  Been thinking about doing something just like that.  I would prefer to do it in software, if possible.  So I'm still looking for a way to get smartthings to talk to my Juicebox.  If I can get an event from Juicebox for starting and stopping charging, then I can build rules to activate/deactivate the smart plug my OBC is connected to.  If not, I can just wire up a dumb pigtail to steel juice from the J1772 to fire up the OBC and use them both at the same time, when the OBC decides to charge anyway.  That gets me part of the way there.

[victor6.7y]

Is your OBC broken then?
It sounds as if it does not always works.