Fault with Charging Station Error Message

[Geo_jrh]

My Mach E charges perfectly fine when scheduled from the car or I want to manually charge straight away. But if I want to benefit from intelligent charging or solar charging, I have issues.

When I plug in, everything looks fine. When Ovo Charge Anytime decides to charge, it starts charging no problem. But if Ovo Charge Anytime needs to stop before the car is fully charged, we have problems. The car will not start charging again even though Ovo wants to. The same is true if I’m charging off solar. It starts charging as it should but then if the sun goes in and charging stops, when the sun is back out charging will not resume. Instead in both situations, I have “Error with Charge Station” in the FordPass app and “Charge Station Fault” in the car next time I start it.

I can force the car to start charging again, but only if Ovo wants to be charging at that time or the sun is shining. I can either swipe down in the FordPass app to refresh it or go near the car with my keys. In both instances I can physically hear a connection happening in the car and charging resumes. Clearly this completely defeats the object of intelligent charging if I have to manually intervene!

I’m using an Indra Smart Lux charger and have done extensive testing with them and have concluded the Charger isn’t the problem, the car is. The issue is not related to the Ovo Charge Anytime tariff either as it impacts solar charging which I started before having Charge Anytime. The car has been back to the dealership for software upgrades but the issue hasn’t been resolved.

Has anyone else experienced this and managed to get it resolved?

 

[chris200100]

@Geo_jrh 

Is it showing this error just after one stop charge or after a few?

I’ve had this issue with solar charging using a zappi but only after the charge has been started and stopped a number of times.

I do know that a few different cars do this with solar charging especially if it stops and starts regularly as what can happen with solar as the minimum charge level is 1.4 kWh.

as for the intelligent charging I’m on octopus intelligent and have no issues with that and they also stop and restart the charging but they do it in half hour blocks I’m not sure how OVO do it.

I would see how many times it’s starting and stopping and how long the charge is lasting,

also if you can try on a zappi if you know someone with one to see what happens then you can see if indeed it’s the car.

i would suspect it’s both it might be the way the Indra stops the charging is triggering the car error.

[teddy1967]

Adding a small battery in to your solar solution would smooth out the start and stops from your PV array but I admit that would be more expense. 

[chris200100]

@teddy1967 
it won’t work like that the battery would see the charger as a load and it would drain very quickly.

the whole point of a house battery is to use it when your on peak electric to cover usage. 
there are ways around to stop the battery from draining when charging. 

the stop start of solar charging is really down to the size of your solar system and how it is fitted, most homes are around 4kw on average and as the car needs a minimum of 1.4 to start charging also you need at least this in excess solar being exported to the grid before your car starts charging. 

[teddy1967]

Hi Chris, it would work just as you say if the charger settings aren’t altered slightly. In my case I have a Hypervolt. Setting it to a solar setting and limiting the max amperage to 6A will limit it to only charge at 1.4kw for as long as I choose. With the sun out it will trickle charge to car all day. When there isn’t enough sun the battery picks up the slack. Any excess recharges the battery. If the car is on the drive all day anyway I don’t need it to charge particularly quickly. The battery in this case just removes the stop start of PV generation.