How to Get Started
The easiest way to get started with BaseCamp is to use one of the development kits. They can charge a real car out of the box and you can evaluate all features of BaseCamp before building your own product.
Additionally, they come with a ready-to-use BaseCamp Yocto image, with RAUC OTA updates, OCPP, ISO 15118 and all other features of BaseCamp.
They will help you to:
- parallelize hardware and software developments for new charger projects,
- test OCPP backends (CSMS) against BaseCamp,
- explore new charging algorithms without the need of doing all the groundwork and
- rapidly integrate EV charging with other applications.
Currently, there are three development kits available - more are coming soon. Choose the one that matches your product the closest:
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AC all-integrated PCB development kit: The Belaybox. It is available at https://shop.pionix.com with a touch screen display, up to 22 kW 3ph AC charging, RCD, PCB-integrated power meter, RFID reader and a Raspberry Pi CM4 compute module.
Schematics and MCU firmware are open source: https://github.com/PionixPublic/reference-hardware
Find the manual here: https://pionix.com/user-manual-belaybox
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AC DIN Rail / Dual public charging Dual socket AC charging with DIN rail contactors and power meters can be realized with the phyVERSO available from Phytec: https://www.phytec.de/ladeelektronik/komplettloesung/
The advantage of this solution is the seamless transition to production: The phyVERSO is production-ready and can be used as is in volume production. Customization service is also available from Phytec to build custom derivatives with different interfaces and form factors to perfectly meet your requirements.
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DC DIN Rail / Dual public charging Similar to (2), the phyVERSO can be used in a DC configuration (both ports can be configured for AC or DC; also a mixed configuration is possible). Phytec offers a DC development kit as well, which includes a 40 kW DC power supply, isolation monitor, power meter and everything else needed to make it a complete charger ready for evaluation.
Note
Keep in mind that the development kits were not designed to be a certifiable product. They are optimized to be easily accessible for developers.