Cable stuck in public charger

[TomD]

So last night I had a first for me where the public charger i was using (Westgate shopping centre in Oxford) would not release my cable.

I tried all sorts of combinations of plugging the other end back into in my car and stopping the charge etc to no avail.

Rang the provider (Swarco) who have no remote access to the chargers at the centre but told me to leave the cable and they would send an engineer out in the morning and they would deliver the cable to me - to be fair this was done despite living 25ish miles away from the centre and the engineer was very apologetic. Thumbs up to Westgate too who took all my details and rang me to let me know the engineer had manged to remove the cable and was on his way to me.

However, what was the likely cause of this? Is there something I could have tried which could have released it for me? I gave it a good yank but wasn't sure whether pulling hader would have released it?

Anyone else had similar things happen?

 

[Gatsojon]

Not had that final experience. A few times I've had to stop and start a charge, open and close the App etc but always managed to get it released in the end.

Good that they sorted it for you on this occasion but I understand your concerns!

 

[OfficialMark_H]

I have never been able to take out a tethered SWARCO CCS cable and always had to phone them to get them to in hook it. It seems they have an issue with this.

 

[davidmc]

So last night I had a first for me where the public charger i was using (Westgate shopping centre in Oxford) would not release my cable.

I tried all sorts of combinations of plugging the other end back into in my car and stopping the charge etc to no avail.

Rang the provider (Swarco) who have no remote access to the chargers at the centre but told me to leave the cable and they would send an engineer out in the morning and they would deliver the cable to me - to be fair this was done despite living 25ish miles away from the centre and the engineer was very apologetic. Thumbs up to Westgate too who took all my details and rang me to let me know the engineer had manged to remove the cable and was on his way to me.

However, what was the likely cause of this? Is there something I could have tried which could have released it for me? I gave it a good yank but wasn't sure whether pulling hader would have released it?

Anyone else had similar things happen?

Had this happen to me on a Pod Point in a shopping centre and at work. And this usually works to release it.

1. First make sure both the cable is plugged into both the car and charger.
2. Then push the cable IN to the charger unit hard (Do not pull). This usually helps release the locking pin that maybe stuck to the cable lock hole. This is usually what happens for the cable to get stuck
3. Then stop charge using app or in car (if its charging)
4. Then tap the cable release button on app or in car
5. Pull cable out of car first (Edit here - Some charge units wont release the lock pin until cable is unplugged from the car)
6. Then (Hopefully) the cable should release from the charge unit.

Hopefully this should help if in the future you get stuck

 

[Gatsojon]

Had this happen to me on a Pod Point in a shopping centre and at work. And this usually works to release it.

1. First make sure both the cable is plugged into both the car and charger.
2. Then push the cable IN to the charger unit hard (Do not pull). This usually helps release the locking pin that maybe stuck to the cable lock hole. This is usually what happens for the cable to get stuck
3. Then stop charge using app or in car (if its charging)
4. The tap the cable release button on app or in car
5. Pull cable out of car first
6. Then (Hopefully) the cable should release from the charge unit.

Hopefully this should help if in the future you get stuck

I think that's a more structured approach to my push/pull/stop charge/start charge/close app/open app frustrated panic that finally worked!

 

[Durzel]

I assume there was no emergency stop anywhere on the device?

Thanks for the heads up on SWARCO, will have to make a mental note about that.

 

[Rustybkts]

I had the same problem on a Supercharger yeaterday at Oxford.

I finished the charge just before the end by pressing the plug button and the screen showed charge stopped but would the bugger release?

In the end I used the app to release the plug as repeated presses of the button kept starting charging even though the battery was about 98% full.

Am I wrong to stop charging using the button? I did wait until the screen said charging stopped before trying to remove the plug.