Contactor cycles loaded ?

[GData]

On the Wall Monitor App, there is "Contactor Cycles Loaded". What causes this to increase and what can the user do to minimize it?

Is it bad for the WC, the car's onboard charger, or both?

 

[Sophias_dad]

I'd wager a loaded cycle occurs when charging is stopped abruptly without the car ramping the current down to 0 before disconnecting. Its bad for the contactors due to the arcing that would occur.

 

[Tronguy]

I would agree with @Sophias_dad on this one. People go through all sorts of trouble with AC power to reduce the amount of arcing on contacts when they open or close. For fun, look up “Snubbers”.

The contactors in a TWC will last a very long time if there’s no arcing.

I suppose that somebody popping the breaker in the breaker panel would do it, or maybe a sudden power outage. But that raises the interesting trick of saving something to FLASH when the CPU power in the TWC may or may not be there. But there are ways around that.

 

[mongo]

The wall connecter is a fancy ground fault interrupter. If it trips due to leakage current (or other fault), that's a loaded cycle.

 

[GData]

I did some testing and found the following:

While the car is charging, if I press the button on the WC handle, the CCL count increases by one.

But if I use the touchscreen to stop the charging, the CCL count doesn't increase.

The lesson is: if you want to abort charging, use the touchscreen not the button on the handle