Alfen Eve Pro EV chargepoint interface via TCP modbus

I’;m experiencing the same.

Normally I can change from 1 phase to 3 phases and vice versa in one charging session. But occasionally that stops working.
When checking the chargepoint in ACE, I’m unable to change from 1 phase to 3 phases as well. It mentioned something I would need a license for that. The first time it scared me, as I thought the chargepoint had broken.

But when you reboot the unit, it comes back as a 3 phase charger and I’m able to switch between 1 and 3 phases again.

Hi, I’m reading and investigating this thread for some time. Getting ready to implement this in HA myself too.

For the moment I’m using the integration from @leeyuentuen mostly for monitoring purposes.
Last weekend I’ve updated my charge point to the latest Firmware: 6.5.0-4217

I’ve noticed that for the Load Balancing Data Source there is now an extra selection “Meter + EMS monitoring”, where before it was only “Meter” or “Energy Management System”. I haven’t tried yet, but I suppose this means that you can monitor from HA using Modbus while load balancing still works via P1?

I’m also experiencing exactly the same. I only found the following the manual which seems related:

Enabling solar charging will force the charging station to single phase charging.
Switching back to 3-phase charging after solar charging is disabled requires a reboot.

I haven’t found a way to reboot over modbus… So no real solution

1 Like

In my case, this shouldn’t be related as I’m not using that setting at all.

I am using charging mostly over solar-power but the logic for that is completely in HA. HA only tells the unit to charge in 1 phase or 3 phases and by how many amps.

Glad to see I am not the only one that suffers with the charging station not switching from 1 to 3 phase during a charging session. On tweakers forum I read that this should have been solved in 6.4.x. But for the moment I’m even on 6.5 and still facing the problem.

Meanwhile found this integration via HACS which can be used to reboot the Alfen. I’m going to assess if this can solve the issue with not going from 1 phase to 3 phase

I observed the same behaviour. Did you manage to find a workaround?

Yes, you are correct and works like a charm!

1 Like

@DelfuegoNL I am new to this, but I noticed you have a three phase fuse box. In your code you set modbus register 1210 (Modbus Slave Max Current).

Why are you not using registers 1417, 1419 and 1421 (SCN Max Current per Phase L1-3) to set the individual phases?

That’s because you can only use Smart Charging Network (SCN) options if you have a setup with multiple chargers.

Hello,

Followed most of the steps but I’m getting stuck at adding the chargepoint device, probably something very obvious I’m not seeing

image

image

Hey @samaerts

have you enabled the active load balancing option in the Alen software like described here?

That would be the first thing I suggest to check.

Regards,
Hollie.

Hey @hollie ,

Thanks for the quick response
I noticed that I could only log in the MyEve app by scanning the QR code on the leaflet provided after installation. Behind the QR, it had usernam;password;recoverypassword but when using that password, it wouldn’t work.
So I logged in the myEve app with the QR code, changed the password and tried again in Home Assistant,

It worked! I’ll start experimenting with the script this week :grin:

Hi,
I’m brand new to this blog. And all this is very interesting. For the moment I’m testing the modbus communication. Reading goes very well on all registers.

In order to have a wide span of charging power (1.4 … 11 kW) I want to write to modbus register 1210/1211 (Modbus Slave Max Current) AND 1215 (1 or 3 phase charging).

Writing to 1210/1211 works well and the charger limits the power accordingly in 1 and 3 phase operation of the Installation ( not the connector!).
But writing to register 1215 doesn’t work. It always returnsthe error ‘Illegal data value’.
Does anyone know what I’m doing wrong and can help me out?
(
Software version 6.6.0-4240
Active Balancing: Energy Management System
).

Hi everyone,

I have a weird thing going on lately.
My charger keeps hanging on safe current, while HA does give instructions to go higher.
I have read there needs to be a new command from HA within a specified time to let the charger know everything is fine. So I checked the max current valid time and it is always within reach.
It does not matter if I update by node red or by an automation in HA.
I’ve also tried to use native Modbus and the HACS integration with both the same result.

some info:
Active load balacing safe current: 15A
Actual applied max current: 15A
modbus maxcurrent: 20A during charging. If I don’t send any command it falls back to 15A

Thanks in advance!

So I was thinking of letting the solar charging part to the Eve itself, but enabling/disabling solar charging from Home Assistant.

Does anyone know if it is possible to change the Solar Charging setting in the Eve using modbus or any other call?

What is the preferred way of communicating with the chargepoint: OCPP or modbus ?

Modbus has the advantage that is is a simple connection from Home Assistant to the chargepoint, no server/extra software required.

So I vote for modbus :slight_smile:

@BevelvoerderNr1, I have (more or less) the same problem. My charger was installed last week, updated to the latest firmware and used the code from @hollie at the beginning of this topic (copy and paste, so no typos ;-)). I can read all values, but the only value that keeps staying at 0 is “Modbus Slave Max Current valid time” on address 1208. Therefor I can not set a new value on address 1208 (Modbus Slave Max Current).

Any idea what is going wrong here?

PS1: in the ACE Service Installer is has a value of 60.
PS2: used firmware is 6.6.0-4240

@appletowr and @BevelvoerderNr1

are you writing the address 1210 (the current) frequently enough? You need to write it more frequently than the timeout value that you have configured in the chargepoint settings.

Every time you write the value, the 1208 register will start counting down from the timeout you have configured to ‘0’. When the counter reaches ‘0’ the chargepoint will revert to the ‘safe current’ that you can configure. This is a safeguard for when the modus connection is not working as expected.

Hope this helps,
Hollie.