Multiple Chargers

How It Works

Phaeton runs once for every charger. Each charger on the GX gets its own Phaeton installation, with its own web UI and port, administrator account, settings, charging history, logs and license. Each appears on the GX and in VRM as its own EV Charging Station.

• Each physical charger needs its own license. A second charger in the same household can use the Additional home charger license, which needs a first or free home license in the same household.
• Two Phaeton installations must never control the same physical charger.
• Adding chargers this way needs Phaeton installed on the GX itself.

Pricing

What The GX Does On Shared Sites

Phaeton does not share the site's power between chargers. Each Phaeton decides only for its own charger.

• Keep the Auto mode Controlled by the Victron GX on every charger; it is the default for each new charger. Once a GX feature such as Opportunity Loads or Dynamic ESS takes control of a charger, the GX decides how much that charger gets, and Phaeton follows it.
• Until the GX takes over, and with Battery-powered or Feed-in, each charger follows the solar surplus on its own, without a shared budget.
• Phaeton does not turn Opportunity Loads, Dynamic ESS or other GX features on; set them up on the GX or in VRM.
• In Manual and Scheduled, size each charger's charging limit so that all chargers charging at once, together with the other loads, stay within the site's limits.

Add A Charger

Install Phaeton on the GX first, from the USB stick or over SSH, and finish its setup. Then:

1. Open this first Phaeton, for example through VRM → Device list → Control Panel, and sign in.
2. Open System → Chargers on this GX. If the first charger is not activated yet, the activation page also has a Chargers on this GX button, so you can add a charger before you activate the first.
3. Give the first charger a name you will recognize, such as Garage: under Your chargers, open Name, restart or uninstall, enter the Charger name and choose Save name. Then choose Restart charger, so the GX and VRM show the new name.
4. Under Add a charger, enter a name, such as Driveway, and choose Add charger. Phaeton creates a separate installation and gives it a free web port. Keep the page open while the progress dialog is shown.
5. Wait until VRM shows the new charger in its device list, then open its Control Panel. Finish its setup with its own administrator account, and activate it with its own license.
6. Enter each charger's own integration and address, and check the site's combined current limits.

Remote access through VRM needs the GX online, VRM Portal set to Full, and a VRM account that may change settings. Your VRM login and the Phaeton accounts stay separate. Each added charger also opens locally at its own port, for example https://GX-IP:8089/.

InstallVRM Control Panel

Update Chargers

The USB installer updates only the first charger. To install the same version on the chargers you added, tick Include … in update for each of them under Your chargers, check the selection and choose Update selected chargers. Stop charging on them first.

• Updates run one at a time, keep each charger's settings, identity and license, and keep a recovery backup.
• If a charger does not start after its update, its previous installation is restored. An interrupted update is restored the next time the GX starts.
• Chargers installed over SSH appear in the list, but you update and restart them from their own Control Panel.

Rename, Restart Or Remove A Charger

Open a charger under Your chargers. Stop charging on it first.

• Save name changes its name. Restart the charger to show the new name in VRM. The name is separate from the charger's identity and survives a settings reset or import.
• Restart charger restarts it; this takes about a minute.
• Remove charger, on a charger you added on this page, stops it, removes its VRM Control Panel route and startup entry, deletes its files and frees its port. Its settings, administrator account, license and charging history are deleted and cannot be restored, so back them up first. The other chargers keep running.
• To use the license of a removed charger on a charger you add later, activate that charger. When the removed charger was activated online, the license portal recognizes the GX, and moving the license does not count as a device replacement.
• Once it is the only charger left, the first charger offers Uninstall Phaeton, which removes Phaeton from the GX completely.

Uninstall Phaeton

Back Up Several Chargers

Back up every charger. The first charger lives in /data/phaeton. A charger added on Chargers on this GX lives in its own directory under /data/phaeton-instances, with its management data under /data/phaeton-manager once you have added a charger there. From a GX shell, this saves the ones that exist:

cd /data && tar -czf phaeton-chargers-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz $(ls -d phaeton phaeton-instances phaeton-manager 2>/dev/null)

Copy the file off the GX, for example with scp, and keep it as private as a password. Restore a charger only to the same place on the same GX, for the same charger. Do not copy an identity or a license to a new charger, and never run a restored copy beside the original.

Advanced: Add A Charger Over SSH

Without the Chargers on this GX page, you can add a named installation for each charger from a GX shell; see Advanced installation for SSH access. Download the installer once, then give each charger a name and its own web port:

curl -fsSL https://phaeton.virtunet.io/install/gx.sh -o /tmp/install-phaeton.sh
sh /tmp/install-phaeton.sh --instance garage --web-port 8089
sh /tmp/install-phaeton.sh --instance driveway --web-port 8090

• A name has 1 to 32 lowercase letters, digits or hyphens, and starts with a letter or digit.
• Use a port from 1024 to 65535 that no other service uses. Port 8088 is kept for the first installation, and the installer refuses a port that another named installation has, also when it is stopped.
• Each installation lives in its own directory under /data/phaeton-instances and opens at its own port, for example https://GX-IP:8089/ for garage.
• Open each web UI on a trusted network, create its administrator account, select its integration and charger address, and activate it with its own license.
• Confirm that the GX shows one EV Charging Station per charger, each with its own serial number.
• When a named installation replaces the first installation for the same charger, back up the first installation and uninstall it before you install the named one (Uninstall Phaeton, or /data/phaeton/phaeton --uninstall); this also removes its startup entry. Uninstalling works only while no other charger is installed on the GX. Then activate the new installation to move the license, so that only one installation controls the charger. If the GX still lists the old one after a few minutes, see Uninstall Phaeton.
• Run the installer for one charger at a time. To reinstall a named installation, stop it first; reinstalling with the same name and port keeps its identity and data.

To start a stopped named installation, run its start script in the background, or restart the GX:

nohup /data/phaeton-instances/garage/run.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 &

When you stop or restart an installation by hand, pick its process by the program in its own directory; never stop every process named phaeton. If the installer was stopped by force, check that it has exited before you remove /data/.phaeton-install.lock and run it again.

Try It With A Dummy Charger

To test beside a real charger, add another charger and choose Dummy — no license required in its setup. Over SSH, install it as another named installation, for example with --instance demo --web-port 8091.

• The dummy needs no license or activation, uses no home license or installer credit, and sends no license check-ins.
• Its power and energy stay zero in every state. The Charging page has its Simulated connection control, and the GX and VRM show it as Phaeton demo (zero load).
• With one real charger and a dummy, check discovery, separate controls, what happens when the GX loses control, restarts of one charger, and zero energy from the dummy.
• The GX may give the dummy a share of the power, so use conservative limits on the real charger during the test.