Problem
when MASTER disappears from the LAN and appears back, the other chargers do not automatically find it and do not connect to cluster again; they need to be restarted.
Solution
Short communication interruptions are quite likely to happen in industrial environments.
That's why we introduced current limits for the case of loosing communication.
We have created cluster with master and slave. We have set Max. current output when communication with master fails to 7A. We have started charging on slave charger. When charger gets target 9A I unplug ethernet cable from master charger. After 10 to 15 seconds, slave charger gets target 7A. When we plug in ethernet cable to the master charger, after 20 to 30 seconds, slave charger gets target 9A.
That means that slave charger has rejoined to the cluster and received new target. We have repeated the same test but we have unplugged ethernet cable from slave charger. Results were the same.
During tests we have been monitoring target current via charger's web UI and my PWM device. If charger changes target current that means that cluster is working. If, during test, vehicle doesn't reduce/increase charging power, despite changed target current, then it's a problem with vehicle which doesn't follow PWM signal set by charger. Tests like that are repeated many times for every new firmware version.
We suggest to manually turn on cluster service on all chargers.
Please do following:
make all the chargers master chargers and set Max. current output when communication with master fails to desired amount (in my example it was 6A), like on the image below
enable cluster service on each charger and set Max. cluster currents as desired
after that, reboot all chargers.
Change Primary master address for all slave chargers to the IP address of your actual master charger (in my example: 172.25.2.254), ans save settings
reboot all slave chargers and retry connection loosing test.
Max. current output when communication with master fails must be set above the Measured vehicle min current.