Replacing the Gas Station with the Sun

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
Does Cable 1 automatically detect the voltage (240 or 120) it's plugged into, or do you have to select the voltage?
What trouble are you experiencing?
Thanks for the reply.
Both powering cables indicator light comes on when plugged into the solar generator but that’s it. There is no transfer of power to the vehicle. I took both cables to the dealership and “confirmed” that they are fully functional.
Tom
 

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
Does Cable 1 automatically detect the voltage (240 or 120) it's plugged into, or do you have to select the voltage?
What trouble are you experiencing?
Does Cable 1 automatically detect the voltage (240 or 120) it's plugged into, or do you have to select the voltage?
What trouble are you experiencing?
Thanks for the reply.
Both powering cables indicator light comes on when plugged into the solar generator but that’s it. There is no transfer of power to the vehicle. I took both cables to the dealership and “confirmed” that they are fully functional.
Tom
ps when I plug house stuff directly into the outlets on the solar generator they take their power and operate fine.
 

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
The 2kw panels is what limits the charge time.
Most panels do not output as much as they say. There will be time when the panel can only do 1kw or 500w.
Performance from the solar panel to the generator functions fine. The problem occurs when I go to transfer from the fully charged solar cell to the car.
 

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
Your expected power output depends on where in the world you live. In Britain, expect 1kWh per day for every 1kW of installed panels in the winter, and 4kWh in the summer.
Places with clear skies in the winter fare rather better.
Ian,
Funny you should respond as the car is a “mini pooper.” I am attempting to charge the vehicle from a fully charged solar cell. The panels are not hooked up at the time I go to charge the vehicle
 

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
So what is your home solar setup? 2k of panels and a grid-tie inverter? 2K of panels and a battery bank and inverter? 2k of panels and alligator battery clamps?
At the time we attempted to charge the vehicle the cell had been charged via the wall outlet. The generator and panels are the homepower 2 plus from geneverse\generark
 

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
What s your car / Charger ?

I use a zappy charger with my solar panels and ev cars
the Zappie regulates the amount of charge sent to the car, dependent upon the amount of surplus PV I have
or I can tell Zappi to charge car in other modes,

QED, the cars I know of take the charge they are given, the charger connection just tells the car how much to take over a sort of I2C interface.
Thank you for your response.
I am unfamiliar with Zappie. There does seem to be a technical issue with the charge being sent from the fully charged solar power cell (no solar panels plugged in at the time) to the respective power cable. The cable does indicate power but doesn’t transfer it to the vehicle (which has three settings to accept power under). I’ll reread the specs & instructions being careful not to fill in undisclosed information with my own assumptions. If that doesn’t work I’ll run permutations of cables and settings but my hunch is it has something to do with the charge being sent from the fully charged solar cell to the cables. It would be super if the Zappie solved any compatibility problem for me.
 

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
Zappi site references installation in UK. Couple of things: 1) I'm in Madison, WI, USA and 2) my Generark Homepower 2 plus power cell and solar panels are portable.
 

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
The 2kw panels is what limits the charge time.
Most panels do not output as much as they say. There will be time when the panel can only do 1kw or 500w.
Thank you for your response.
My panels and power cell are performing collection without issue. The problem I'm having is getting the power out of the generator and into the electric car with the cables provided. The cables are working properly and do indicate when they are plugged into the generator (with no solar panels attached and charged to 100%) however the car will not take a charge.
 

Thread Starter

Home To Auto

Joined Sep 17, 2022
11
Thank you for your response.
I am unfamiliar with Zappie. There does seem to be a technical issue with the charge being sent from the fully charged solar power cell (no solar panels plugged in at the time) to the respective power cable. The cable does indicate power but doesn’t transfer it to the vehicle (which has three settings to accept power under). I’ll reread the specs & instructions being careful not to fill in undisclosed information with my own assumptions. If that doesn’t work I’ll run permutations of cables and settings but my hunch is it has something to do with the charge being sent from the fully charged solar cell to the cables. It would be super if the Zappie solved any compatibility problem for me.
The car is a 2023 All Electric MiniCooper and the charger is the Generark HomePower 2 Plus.
 

k1ng 1337

Joined Sep 11, 2020
940
That is nonsense. I have 7.6KW of installed panels, I live nowhere neat the equator. And on the the best days have produced nearly 50KWH.

The average, over all days in operation, about 6 months, is 33.8 KWH per day, which is over 4 hours at the rated output. This includes rainy days where it produced as little as 3 KWH.
I seen some setups that measure each panel in the array as well and when which ones are blocked by snow or not outputting for whatever reason. Is this how you came up with your numbers? In Canada I would expect numbers to vary widely from summer to winter. Plenty of snow around here during winter and I've never noticed any with a defrost feature.
 

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
I've never noticed any with a defrost feature.
That doesn't sound very economical. Where would the power for that come from? Seems risky to waste power to melt snow when there is a risk you don't have enough power to melt the snow and no chance of making more power any time soon if you run out of power before the job is done.
 

Alec_t

Joined Sep 17, 2013
14,280
Your Generark power supply is rated to supply 110V/60Hz. The Mini Cooper charging system is rated for 120V/60Hz. Could that be the problem?
Have you checked the power supply on a 'scope to see how pure the "pure sine-wave" output actually is and what the actual output voltage is? Your car's charging control system just might be particularly fussy about wave-form or voltage or frequency.
 

k1ng 1337

Joined Sep 11, 2020
940
That doesn't sound very economical. Where would the power for that come from? Seems risky to waste power to melt snow when there is a risk you don't have enough power to melt the snow and no chance of making more power any time soon if you run out of power before the job is done.
I did a few calculations with the heat capacity of water and I think you are right!
 

drjohsmith

Joined Dec 13, 2021
852
The car is a 2023 All Electric MiniCooper and the charger is the Generark HomePower 2 Plus.
Thank you for the extra info

Im wondering if your fighting the safety features ?

PV inverters are designed I think to "turn off" if they have no load to dump into

Cars seem to have a "coms period" at start up
When the cable is first connected they car / charger decide what level / type to charge at
for the car I have , it seems to take about a minute,

So Im wondering if , the car is no taking charge beofre the PV inverter has "turned off"
Here we dump excess PV into the power grid or home batteries

Im wondering,
does your car have as well as its big charger, a smaller "mains socket" charger cable,
The car I have has an "emergency" top up cable that takes 2 Kw and plugs into a standard wall socket
If you have one of these, and a "mains" socket, in your situation,
what happens if you plug the car into that socket ?
If it works it would imply that the safety system of the power charger is the "problem"
 

bassbindevil

Joined Jan 23, 2014
824
The Generark combines an MPPT solar charge controller with a battery to run an inverter rated at 1800W continuous, 3600W peak. So, it should be capable of supplying Level 1 charging. It would be helpful to plug in some other load like an incandescent table lamp and see if it does anything odd (flickers or dims or goes out) when the car's charger is plugged in.

As for solar panels in winter... the sun still has a bunch of heat even when the air temperature is [multiple-profanity] cold. The maps of solar potential say that north-central North America has better PV potential in the winter than the milder coasts, probably due to clearer skies.
 

Boggart

Joined Jan 31, 2022
82
This might be a dumb question, but you are using an EVSE between the generator and the car, right? Not just a charge cable, but an EVSE, even if it's an inline one? A car has to talk to an EVSE to find out how much current is available from the power source, if there's no EVSE, the car won't charge.
 

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,179
The charge in an EV battery is some number of Kilowatt Hours, and if the full charge is to be 100KWH, then, (assuming 100% efficiency because it is easier) the solar cell array must supply that many KVA to charge 100%. If it is a 5 KW array, to deliver 100KWH will require 20 hours to charge to 100%. Most days do not have that many hours of sun.

The problem is that so many folks do not understand the differenc between KW and KWH, and so many sellers also do not understand, and none of the media folks have a fragment of a clue.
 
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