Prism Open, Customizable Electric Vehicle Charging Station Kits Land on Crowd Supply

Cartender's open and hackable electric vehicle charging kits are available to order now, with delivery scheduled for late February 2020.

Gareth Halfacree
4 years agoSustainability

The Prism open and customizable electric vehicle (EV) charging station has now launched on Crowd Supply, with the first shipments of the kit due to begin in late February 2020.

Unveiled earlier this year, Cartender's Prism aims to combine the usability of a commercial electric vehicle (EV) charging station with the flexibility of a custom system — giving the user, its creators claim, full control over the entire charging process at a higher quality-to-price ratio than any of its competitors. The secret? A flexible, open architecture.

"Our goal is to give you full control over the process of charging electric vehicles," the team explains. "Prism includes a user-friendly interface, which you can access through your browser or using a mobile app. It provides access to all of the settings you might need to manage the charging process and monitor related information. It also displays usage data and offers real-time control over charging schedule and power. Prism can communicate with other devices and software using standard protocols such as MQTT and OCPP 1.6, or by means of a simple hub-and-spoke configuration. You can also integrate Prism into your home automation ecosystem.

"Have an electric vehicle that lacks the ability to set its own charge limits? Program Prism to stop charging at 75% or whatever fraction of 'full' you deem optimal. Need an easy way to reconfigure your charger? Record knocking command sequences to trigger customized behavior. Knock on Prism four times to set a charge limit of 80%, for example, or knock once and revert to 100% — even if you're wearing gloves and your hands are full of groceries. Want your vehicle to draw power only if the rest of your household energy consumption is below a certain threshold? Or to charge only from what you generate through photovoltaics? These are just a few of the ways you can customize Prism."

Prism's crowdfunding campaign has launched with four configurations: Prism and Prism Double are ready-to-run turnkey electric charging stations, designed for end users; the Prism Core Starter Kit and Prism Core EV Kit, meanwhile, are aimed at developers looking to experiment with the software side of the project.

Regardless of model chosen, the specifications are identical: Each Prism is based on a MediaTek MKT7688 OpenWRT Linux system running at 540MHz with 128MB of RAM and 32MB of flash storage, has an STMicroelectronics STM32 microcontroller, Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity with support for the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) standard, an ATM90E36 power meter, and industrial connectors rated to 63A. Most units are available in single-phase 110/230VAC or three-phase 400VAC, while the Prism Double is available in single-phase only.

Pricing for the Prism starts at $245 for the Prism Core Starter Kit early bird tier, of which 30 were left at the time of writing. More information is available on the project's Crowd Supply campaign page.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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