Mindmap or explanation how changing the charging mode works

[go2alexander]

I am trying to get the SmartEVSE working together with the EV Smart Charging app in Home Assistant. But I cannot fully understand what is happening if I change the charging modus. In HA I made some scripts to set the charger in diferent modes.

The scripts that cause probable the problem:

• Start direct charging (this sets the SmartMode selector to Normal). And this works fine the car starts to charge
• Stop direct charging (this sets the SmartMode selector to Off). And this works fine the car stops the charging
• Turn Smart Charging Off (this sets the SmartMode selector to Off)
• Turn Smart Charging On (this sets the SmartMode selector to Smart), this sets the mode to smart, but the charger starts directly with charging and is not using the EV Smart Charging output!

Is there a mindmap to understand what is happening when switching between charging modes and how a script like EV Smart Charging is communicating with SmartEVSE and what variables are used? What's the difference between SmartEVSE Mode Selector (selector) and SmartEVSE Mode (sensor)?

For programmers my question looks perhaps stupid. But I spend already 1 day finding out how everything works but it is so damn not logical to me.

And sorry that I dropped this question on Github. But I could not find any fora where this would be appropriate.
Thanks in advanced.

Alexander

{Yaml script Turn Smart Charging On:
action: select.select_option
metadata: {}
target:
entity_id: select.smartevse_mode_selector
data:
option: SMART
}

[mstegen]

Hi,
What is the EV Smart Charging App is it this https://github.com/jonasbkarlsson/ev_smart_charging/?
I have no experience with this HACS plugin.

If you want to control the mode over MQTT you should use the /Set/Mode topic
The /Set topics allow you to change parameters, the normal /Mode topic is read only.
So the selector uses the /Set/ topic, the sensor uses the normal (read only) topic.

Look here for the available topics you can write to:
https://github.com/SmartEVSE/SmartEVSE-3/blob/master/docs/configuration.md#mqtt-api

MQTT explorer (external software) is also very helpful in debugging/playing with these topics/sensors.

If you set the Mode to Normal or Smart, and the EV is connected, it will start charging immediately.
Set the mode to OFF if you want to prevent the EV from charging.

I hope this helps..

[go2alexander]

Thank you mstegen,

Yes I am using that EV Smart Charging HA plugin.

Now I got the clue why I could not get it to work.
I just did not understand the different SmartEVSE modes.

• OFF -> Turn the charging off;
• On -> Turn the charging On without the load balancing;
• Smart -> Turn the charging On with load balancing;
• Solar -> Start charging as soon as the setup Amps are feed back to the grid;
• Pauze -> .....??

I now understand that the EV Smart Charging plugin is only switching the EVSE charger between these modes. I thought the Smart mode was waiting for a signal to start charging. But as you explained it just starts charging after it gets active. The only mode that's not fully clear to me is what's the difference between OFF and Pauze?

[dingo35]

Pause prevents an OCPP session from being ended.