Quirky Remote Charge Timer

[kiev]

i've read the manual numerous times and searched and read all the posts on this forum, but for the life of me couldn't understand how to make this thang do what i wanted, which is to not charge to FULL all the time.

It was not clear to me, but the Delay and OFF Timers get turned OFF every time you drive the car.

The settings are still STORED and still available, but they don't automagically get used when you plug in to charrge--you must still use the remote everytime that you desire to have delayed and limited timing. This was the missing part for me that is not clearly defined in the manual.

But thankfully found this nugget buried in a post by PV1:

The i-MiEV has no capability for per-day timed charge. The only programming available are one-time start and stop timers. This means that if you get home at 5, plug the car in, and use the remote to set the ON timer to 7 hours, the car will wait until Midnight before starting to charge. Once you start the car and get READY on the dash, all timers are cleared and future plug-ins will immediately charge, unless you set the timer again.

The only "smart" capability the timers have is that they remember the previously set time. So, the 7 hour timer you set at 5 tells the car to start charging at midnight. If you plug in the following night at 8 PM, when you go to set the timer, the remote will come up with 4 hours so that the car will start charging at midnight. The i-MiEV has a non-accessible 24-hour clock that is used just for this purpose so setting a charge timer each night doesn't require math, just turn the remote on, tap right, and tap send.

Not exactly sure, but i think it is necessary to set it twice in order to get the Delay and ON->OFF timers to work--first for the delay, then again for the off? Maybe an expert on this can explain how they use the timers to control charging to less than full.

 

[JoeS]

Hey Kenny, after our OBC issues I've now taken to using the Remote every day, often more than once during the day.

Way back when the Remote was first discussed, the thought was that it was a rushed-to-market afterthought by Mitsubishi because Nissan had a programmable charging capability on their Leaf.

I try to charge the car to 12-13 bars and do not have a set schedule, and thus I find the Remote's 'stored' time a PIA as I invariably charge it every time I plug the car in.

My rule of thumb used to be (new battery) that my i-MiEV charges at a rate of three bars/hour on 240vac and four bars for every five hours of charging on 8A 120vac. That has changed: with my battery capacity now at 38Ah my charging rates now are roughly 4 bars/hr on 240vac and one bar per hour on my EVSEUpgrade-modified EVSE set to 9A at 120vac.

So, every time I use the Remote I set the ON time (usually to immediately (i.e., zero), but if needbe delayed to skip our horrendous TOU rates) and have to punch one of the lower buttons repeatedly to get to that setting because, as PV1 pointed out, the previous ON clock time has been remembered. I then set the ON-->OFF time based on the number of bars I'm starting with and using the charging rate discussed in the above paragraph to get the car to stop charging at around 12-13 bars.

Dunno if this answered the question, but that's what I do... HTH.

 

[kiev]

Yes that is helpful, i had assumed that the timer was stored and would just use those settings without the need to activate the remote every time the EVVSE was plugged in.

But now i know--the rest of the story. Good Day!