Help with Golf Cart Charger Rule

📐 Rule Machine®
1

I am seeking help in writing a rule for my Golf Cart Charger. During the winter I like to keep the charger connected and refresh the charge every 3 days or so. I have the charger connected to a energy monitor smart plug. The problem is when the charger finishes and shuts off the charger will not restart on its on unless power is removed for about 30 seconds and then power turned back on. The power meter reads about 3 watts when the charger finishes its cycle. So, I guess what I'm trying to accomplish is for the charger to stop when it falls below 4 watts say for about 5 minutes. Then, wait 3 days, and turn back on at a certain time. Any help and/or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

2

Here's an idea using a virtual switch

Trigger:
VS turns on

Actions:
Off: VS
Wait until 08:00 AM
On: ChargerSwitch
Wait for event: ChargerSwitch < 4 watts and stays that way for 0:05:00
Off: ChargerSwitch
Wait for event: elapsed time 49:00:00
On: VS

This assumes the charger is on less than 23 hrs.

3

Thanks. Can you help me understand the need for the VS?

4

You just need something to trigger the rule. You could use the rule's private boolean or a hub variable. A virtual switch would be the approach I would take and put a link to it on a dashboard so I could turn it on and top off the cart before a round or two.

Edit: Yeah, this rule could be rewritten without an addition virtual switch or variable. Just need to use the ChargerSwitch and reorder the actions.

5

Use delayed actions and this should work like a charm. I do something similar with a music sleep timer.

Trigger:
When ChargerSwitch is less then 4 watts for 5 minutes

Action:

  • Turn On the Charger Switch - DELAY this action for 3 days
  • Turn Off the Charger Switch (this will turn it off now)

This will require you to turn on the switch the first time manually. But once it charges the battery and returns to <4watts then the rule should trigger. The rule will create a pending action to turn on the switch in 3 days and immediately turn off the switch. In 3 days the pending action will fire and the switch will be turned on, starting the cycle over again. You can see the pending actions on the device page at the bottom under the Scheduled Jobs section, which you can use to debug.

You should keep an eye on it and make sure the trigger of less than 4 watts is reliable and they it turns back on in 3 days.

6

I like that solution but it doesn't turn it on at a certain time, it turns it on 3 days after it turned off. Might not be that important but was listed in the OP.

7

Not an expert, but wouldn't a battery maintainer be better than cycling the full blown charger if the cart isn't being used, and you put the maintainer on when the batteries were fully charged?

8

Hi, you could use "simple switch timer with reset," ... set it up with a 3 day timer, do as above so at end of the charge routine the switch is switched on ... then the timer starts running ... in 3 days the switch is OFF .. NOW set the run the charge routine to run every day say 9-12 ONLY if the switch is OFF ... IE the charger might have finished charging 3 days ago at 4pm the timer starts so the it is able to charge again at 4pm ( 3 days later ) but the charger is only activated the next day between 9-12 once it is charged fully the virtual switch is again switched on the ON position the cycle continues...

9

As above

10

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