Can I set charge percentage on Charge Anytime?

So just in case anyone is also having this problem - I’ve found a workaround (as described above) which seems to work, although I’ll have to test it over the next few working days. It requires the Tronity app or another app that will send you a notification when your car reaches 80%.
 

Set up the Tronity app so that it sends you a push notification when your vehicle reaches 80% charge.

Start the car charging then go into the MyPeugeot app and click on the charge status then wait until it refreshes and shows the car is charging. Click on the little pencil icon below the ‘immediate’ and ‘stop and defer charging’ slider - change the time to a time sometime before the time you normally get home and plug in your car, then slide the slider.

Go to the charge anytime app and set the ‘ready by’ time to the time you’d normally go to bed.

Then set the slider in the Peugeot app back to ‘immediate charge’, and unplug and then plug in the charger from your car. 
 

Unplugging and plugging back in the charger seems to reset everything on Ovo’s side.
 

So when I get back from work at about 6pm I plug in the car and it starts charging immediately because it’s trying to get done by bedtime. When I get the notification saying it’s charged to 80% I just open the Peugeot app and click the slider to ‘stop and defer charging’. This then stops the car from charging until 3pm the following day, which is before I get home and plug in. The charger reports back to Ovo that the car has stopped charging, Ovo assumes that the battery is full and stops trying to charge.

When you unplug to drive the car in the morning then plug back in when you get home (assuming this is after the deferred time you set in the MyPeugeot app) this resets everything on the Ovo side and it will start charging with the bedtime target you set.

You then get the 80% notification from Tronity, click the slider in the Peugeot app, then repeat daily.

The downside is that depending on how much battery you use on an average day - you might not get to the 80% by bedtime. But the E-208 GT for example should take 2 hours and 8 minutes to charge from 50% - 80% at 7.4kw. 
 

In theory you could set the defer charging time to anything because it appears that as soon as the car refuses the charge and the charger reports back to Ovo that the car isn’t charging, Ovo gives up trying until the next time the car is unplugged and plugged back in.
 

I have a Peugeot E-208 GT and Hypervolt Home Pro 3 and this works for me.
 

Hey ​@Pipefish, 

I’ve just been having a read through the thread and wanted to tag ​@Peter E as he might be able to give you some thoughts on battery degradation. In my experience working with batteries before it depends on what safeguards have been put in place by the battery provider and manufacturer of the vehicle to protect against overcharging. I’d assume that your Peugeot would be able to notify the charger when it’s reached 100% to stop or limit how much energy is being pushed through.  

It does stop at 100% and the usable capacity of the 51kwh e-208 is 94%. But it also says in the car’s manual to only charge to 80% for day to day use. 

Hi ​@Pipefish 

Battery degradation is an often discussed subject but the truth is that batteries in cars are very conservatively treated because they are often backed by very long warranties. In comparison, batteries in phones are very poorly treated and this is where the tales of doom often stem from.

Basic rules. Keeping between 20-80% is often considered best practice but a lot of people charge to 100% all the time and it really doesn't make that much difference. It’s probably best if you don't keep the battery at 100% for long periods of time when it is very hot, not that it gets that hot here compared to other countries where the car is often used.

Newer cars are even better than older cars where the cells have chemistries that are more resistant to degradation. If the car manual says to avoid certain circumstances then do that otherwise don't fret about the charging to 100%.

Peter

As a further comment my car charges between 50-95% regularly and I charge it to 100% the night before a long journey. I also charge it to 100% twice a month to allow the car to do ‘top levelling’ which means it levels out the voltage between all the cells to give maximum range. Even with the older cell chemistry I'm only losing about 1% battery capacity a year and I do about 11,000 miles a year.

Peter

The J1772 protocol works like this.

When you plug an AC charge point CP in, the Proximity Pilot PP pin tells the car that a cable is connected so as to imobilise the car (you can't start the car or shift it out of park) and also the current limit of the cable (not the charge point).

The car, seeing a CP is now connected, signals the CP (on the Control Pilot pin CPP) to close its contactors and proceeds to check there is an adequate earth**. If that is ok it asks the CP to declare its current rating which it does by sending a 1kHz square wave with a duty cycle (on/off ratio) related to its rated current capability. The car then takes the lower of the cable/CP ratings and ramps up the current to that (or a lower) value.

As the battery charges up the Battery Management System BMS will ramp down the current to keep it within the safe area defined by charge level and temperature. When it nears 100% the BMS will ramp the current down to about 10A and individually bring each cell up to the maximum voltage (cell levelling / top levelling). At that point the car will ramp the current to zero and tell the CP to open its contactors. That is the end of the sequence when the car controls the charge. It may even end the charge at a defined value less than 100% set by the car but top levelling doesn't happen then.

If it's the CP terminating the charge it signals charging not available on the Control Pilot Pin and when the current has been ramped down by the car, the car then sends  a signal for the contractors to open in the CP. Note that in normal operation the contactors never have to open when a current is being drawn. That increases the life of the contactors.

**It also checks to see if its a single or three phase CP and and sets relays to correctly connect the N, L1, L2, L3 pins to the car's inverters accordingly.

Peter

Thank you ​@Peter E! I knew you’d be the right person to ask 😁