(ET) Charge profiles using home assistant

[Christopher Zach <cz bunsen crystel com>]

So I have given thought over the years to developing a slightly smarter 
charger for my e15 and E20 with the bb600 batteries. 

This past year I have gotten into a package called home assistant in a big 
way. Think of it as Amazon Alexa and Google whatever and every other 
automation system wrapped up into a you own everything solution that is 
open source and no data is sent anywhere.  It’s a hackers delight but also 
easy enough for anyone to use. 

Anyway the tractors now charge from a smart outlet that can report on 
power voltage current watts power factor you name it.  And I can now graph 
the charge profiles by seeing the charge go from 1000 watts at first then 
tapering down to a solid 500 watts then dropping to around 150.  And then 
I can see it start to pull more current which is exactly what one sees 
when the nicds are full. 

I’m going to look into programming the outlet with home assistant so it 
stops the charge once it sees the nicds go up.  Because of the high 
terminating voltage and the ferromagnetic transformer cutting current 
after 42 volts it does take awhile to charge. But I bet this could reduce 
the watering time. 

Fun stuff
Sent from my iPhone