The INCH Brain is an additional piece of equipment used to extend the Load Management capabilities of the Etrel INCH charging stations. With INCH, the Load Management service can run directly on one of the charging stations selected as a Master. However, running it directly on a charger has some drawbacks: processing power on a charger is limited, and it can process only up to 36 connectors (EVSE) in the Power Management Cluster. INCH Brain is running on an industrial PC thus capable of running power management for up to 300 chargers.
Connecting and using the INCH Brain is the same as a regular INCH charger without setting up any of the basic charging functions. To access the web interface of the INCH Brain enter brain.local in your preferred web browser.
After that you will be presented with the standard login screen, known from other INCH products. The username and password are the same across all devices. root@etrel.com for username and t o o r for password.
You will land on the dashboard view of the INCH Brain. On the right side you will see other chargers connected to this Brain. We have only one charger connected for demonstration purposes. By clicking on the connector we can see usefull data, on how much current is currently consumed on each phase, when charging started and other useful information.
The basic interface is the same as on INCH Pro or INCH Duo chargers, but some features are turned off because they are only needed on chargers, features like setting up maximum charging currents for connectors, etc.
On the top left corner we can find the menu icon. Under Device configuration we can set up the Device mode. Under Web interface access we can manage who has access to the MyINCH Web interface. Time and Regional settings are intended for selecting the user interface language and the time on the INCH Brain.
Local users can also be added in the Local users menu, and Authorization types for EV drivers can be selected under the Charging authorization menu.
The INCH Brain can be only connected with an ethernet cable. We can select if we want static or dynamic IP address. We can aslo connect the INCH Brain to the backend as every other charger, and we can set up Modbus in Smart home/building connectivity submenu.
Power Managment is the most important part of using INCH Brain, but setting up cluster and powers for the connectors is the same as for the INCH Pro or INCH Duo, so we recommend that you refer to the clustering manual video, where setting up Cluster is explained into more detail.