The sun is (slowly) out so I have been using my “solar charging” flow again for a few days now.
It is working very good now.
My return energy is below 200W.
I wont get any better because the resolution of controlling the Amina is (1Ampere x220V=) 220Watt resolution)
In the middle the readout of my energy meter. You can see the peak loads (my quooker) does not affect the charging.
You can also see it nicely stays around zero.
The top is rhe mean value (1min) of that same readout. I use that as input for my flow
At the bottom is the current usage of the Amina, that is nicely following the mean (with a resolution of 1A)
The setup is also robust for sudden changes. Below you see the response of sudden high usage (my induction cooking switching on for a boiled egg during lunch )
no readings phase B&C after homey was off for >5min
I ran into an issue after homey had been off for a longer period (>5min).
After restarting homey the Amina app restarts fine, but reporting on phase A & B (current and voltage) has stopped. This made my surplus solar flow behave very instable.
A restart of the App fixes the problem. So I now have a flow that restarts the Amina app, 1 minute after a homey restart.
Rootcause:
The problem reproduces very well,so I was able to provide the app developer with good diagnotics.
They found the issue, but it need sto be solved by Athom.
When homey is down for a longer time the zigbee network needs to be rebuild. Homey does not report when that is done.
If an app starts before the network is up the handlers in the app are configured wrong. It is also not possible to detect this by the app.
So untill Athom provided a solution, restarting the app after 1min is the best way to go…
Hi! Could you tell us more about the possibilities of phase switching? If a car with a consumption of 7.4 kW is connected to the charger (two phases are used), is it possible to switch between phases without stopping the process?
I have asked that exact question to the Amina team.
See the copy of the explanation below.
In short: No, it is a technical decision that a phase switch requires to restart the charging.
Luckily the switching does not take long.
But I did add a delay between the switch off and on.
(1sec is too short, I currently am using 5 without issues
The flow you can download above has the phase switching implemeted.
It works fine
Hi!
Thank you for your reply, but from the screenshot you provided, it is not clear how to organize switching between phases.
Referring to your example, I created my own stream, but I’m missing some features, for example: how to pause charging and resume as soon as the price per kilowatt becomes relatively low. I did not find the corresponding “card” in the “Advanced Flow”.
Hi Panagiotis,
That Is correct,
I have split it up in two flows.
The flow I shared is about managing the charger in such a way all surplus solar energy is used to charge. (Bringing the P1 meter to zero)
A second flow I have is enabling or disabling the flow I shared based on prices. That is the part you are missing.
PS : resuming charging is the result of enabling the flow. Within 1 minute a new measurment will trigger the charging.
Below the other flow that enables or disables the one I shared in the thread.
I am still improving it, but I hope it helps building your own flow
You’re right, I didn’t read your instructions carefully. I managed to import your “flow”, but you have more different devices involved in this fascinating piece.
I don’t have solar panels or batteries to accumulate the excess. I have created my own version, although it is not as advanced as yours. I receive information for calculating loads from the Homey Energy Dongle, which is connected to my electric meter.
It seems that I have managed to solve the difficulties that I wrote about in a previous post using “variables”.
Good to hear you are more succesfull now.
I dont have a energy dongle but a similar device (youless) that also read my smart meter.
The readings from the amina charger minus the readings from the smart meter. Determine the new setting.
(In my case the surplus solarpower will result in a negative current on the P1)
)
Thanks for sharing these insights.
