OCPP experience - Alfen s-line - maximum current 0

I just wanted to make a record of experience and solution I had with the HA-OCPP module and the Alfen s-line single. In case someone does a search for this.

The first day it worked fine. I could set the maximum current and shutdown charging based on automation. But after a day, the charging station did not charge anymore. As the s-line has no interface, I tried the ACE installer and found that in the log:

station external max - new value: 0.0A
Socket #1: state main  : CHARGING_POWER_OFF
Active station current set to 0.0A max
Socket #1: Active current 16.0->0.0 due to current limit: Station external
Socket #1: maximum current(0.00) < minimum current(6.00)
Socket #1: state main  : CHARGING_POWER_OFF_LOW_MAXCURRENT

Sorry, as a new community user I can only provide one screenshot, so I choose to remove this screenshot and only provide the SteVe screenshot below.

Also:

ChargingProfile (id = 8):
  socket         0
  primary        Not specified
  stackLevel     15
  purposeType    MaxProfile
  transactionId  18446744073709551615 (not specified)
  kindType       Relative
  recurrencyType Not specified
  hasTariffs     FALSE
  validFrom      NULL
  validTo        NULL
  useLocalTime   FALSE
  useRandomDelay FALSE
  ChargingSchedule
    duration         4294967295 (not specified)
    startSchedule    NULL
    chargingRateUnit Amperes
    minChargingRate  -1.00 (not specified)
    schedulePeriods  1
    SchedulePeriod:
      startPeriod  0
      limit        0.00
      numberPhases 0

The OCPP plugin seemes to set charing profile(s). The slider for the maximum current in the OCPP device was 0 and could be be changed (it did not stick, I could move it to 8A / 16A, but it did not stick). Couldn’t find anything in the OCPP debug log and my first priority was to restore the charger to working condition. I therefore did not log an issue with the OCPP plugin as I did not have enough information about the issue.

After I disconnected and even factory resetted the charging station, the charging profile seems to remain and the charing station was not working.

Eventually, I installed SteVe with MariaDB (see steve-community/steve: SteVe - OCPP server implementation in Java (github.com) and register the charger there. This OCPP backend has the option to ‘Clear charging profile’ under operations / OCPP 1.6:

Since the community is your friend when it comes to issues… I just wanted to share this. And maybe prevent someone some frustrating hours.

Have a :slight_smile: day!

Edit 16-8-2023: I had requested this as a feature with the developers of the module. The response: “There is a service for this already, goto developer tools | services to use it.”. This I could not find in the documentation and I could not find any service for this. I did find some people using the "I sent a command via HA Services to “Clear Charging Profiles”

service: ocpp.clear_profile
data: {}"
(see ZJBeny BCP-A2N OCPP EVSE: Update Firmware · lbbrhzn/ocpp · Discussion #858 (github.com))
But the dropdown under developer tools only has 5 services for the OCPP plugin (ocpp.configure, ocpp.data_transfer, ocpp.get_configuration, ocpp.get_diagnostics and ocpp.update_firmware). Configuring this as yammel gives an error: “Unable to find service ocpp.clear_profile”.

Solution: there is an option “Force Smart Charging feature profile” during setup of the device. This clear profile service is only available when you have this enabled.

For Beny OCPP Charger users: There is an update on the beny site for ver 32 of the firmware. Installed it, & have not been able to Clear Profiles as a Service: just fails. The Charger current was not able to be controlled from the HA desktop.
Resolved by power cycling the actual Charger (Turn the breaker off, then ON.). A Hard reset from HA also was not successful to resolve the charger current issue., but may have been necessary before the power cycle.
Hope this helps someone… (I was part of the original Beny link referenced: go there for update instructions)