Charging Glitch

[Doug_G]

Had something funny happen last night. At home I charge on a UMC at 40A. No problems until last night - everything stays nice and cool etc.

Last night when I plugged in there was a significant delay before the connector locked. That seemed strange but it did latch and all appeared to be good.

This morning the car simply had not charged. No message on the touchscreen although it was showing 30A dialed instead of 40A.

Another weird glitch from last night - when I closed the trunk at the office it lowered half way and simply stopped. I pushed it closed. First time that's ever happened.

This morning I rebooted the touchscreen thinking maybe that would clear the trouble.

Anyone else see this behavior before?

 

[Mario Kadastik]

Well did it attempt to charge? Right now the issue I see with my Model S is that when it's really cold (and starting from 5.8.4) the car attempts to charge after a cold soak outside over the night, but fails to really start. The leds go between dark blue and blinking green intermittently. When I open the door of the car and heating kicks in then the car immediately starts to charge happily. When I close the door and the HVAC turns off the charging falls back to this on/off/on/off pattern. The reason I noticed was because my charger box has a relay in it that makes QUITE some clicking noise when swapping between power on and off to the car. Hence I have woken up a few times to that swapping sound. And it's not the charger.

Tesla is debugging this and assume the next firmware that is being pushed out any day now should fix it (including all the other charging issues people keep having). We'll see. This seems to be an issue of cold battery because it charges just fine when I arrive home and plug in immediately. But yesterday I put it to charge to 80% and it finished some time in the night. Then in the morning I sent the slider to 90% and the behavior of on/off/on/off started so it's not even related to scheduled charging. And yes it is -20C outside right now and the car is 24x7 outside.

 

[mknox]

Last night when I plugged in there was a significant delay before the connector locked. That seemed strange but it did latch and all appeared to be good.

Funny, mine also had a significant delay last night too. I stood there and watched if for quite a few seconds and it finally clicked and started to charge. After it connected, I also noticed a lot more clicks and whirrs coming from the car than I've ever noticed before. No other problems, however. the car did charge properly. I was wondering if the extreme cold had anything to do with it.

 

[Doug_G]

Well did it attempt to charge? Right now the issue I see with my Model S is that when it's really cold (and starting from 5.8.4) the car attempts to charge after a cold soak outside over the night, but fails to really start.

Well yes it is crazy cold, but the car was in my insulated garage. It's not heated and was below freezing, but a lot warmer than outside! I don't know what happened because it was a scheduled charge. All I can say is that charging didn't happen.

Car is currently charging at the office. No problems. Well... the thing backed off 25% for no good reason again, but that's a deliberately-introduced bug.

 

[mknox]

Well yes it is crazy cold, but the car was in my insulated garage. It's not heated and was below freezing, but a lot warmer than outside! I don't know what happened because it was a scheduled charge. All I can say is that charging didn't happen.

I was getting that all the time on the firmware version prior to what I have now. And sometimes, it would start and stop on it's own over night.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

maybe the Tesla connector is getting worn? if it is plugged in and locked can you jiggle it left/right and make the connection fail? My original was like this and now it pretty much doesn't work at all

 

[Doug_G]

maybe the Tesla connector is getting worn? if it is plugged in and locked can you jiggle it left/right and make the connection fail? My original was like this and now it pretty much doesn't work at all

I was wondering about that. I had my UMC replaced last spring because of similar problems; it was becoming progressively harder to get it to connect. Later that summer my Ranger asked if I'd been having any trouble with the port. I wasn't at the time, but I got the impression that they'd had some trouble with the early ones.

 

[Forty Creek]

Last night MY car also did not charge. The plug had acted strangely the previous day making a regular clicking sound as if locking and unlocking to the car. This was with my HPWC. When it charged that night, it stepped down the amps and gave the 5.8 warning about bad wiring. This (the step down of power) has been happening now on a regular basis with my HPWC. Tesla Service pulled my log files and could not resolve anything from that information. They've asked me to bring the car in.
Last night I was very careful as I plugged in the wand. Got the blue ring and left it for a timed charge at 2:00 AM. Discovered this morning that it did not charge. The center display indicated that the 'Charge Port Door' was open. Of course it was still plugged in. I unplugged and started charging right a way. All proceeded normally, however it again stepped down the amps after a few minutes. Luckily, I grabbed enough juice to make it to the office.
My HPWC had been working perfectly until the last software update. I believe it to be wired properly (and have had it inspected). Perhaps the Tesla connector is worn. Hope to get the car in next week sometime to find out what is going on.

 

[Jeeps17]

Car is currently charging at the office. No problems. Well... the thing backed off 25% for no good reason again, but that's a deliberately-introduced bug.

I had that "feature" when I plugged into the SCH 70A charger at the Hotel Mortagne in Boucherville yesterday. I had to go to Drummondville (a rapid-charging black hole) from Montreal and back for a meeting (240 km round trip), and given the extreme cold I decided to stop for a 1 hour charge.

I plugged in, and the car registered 69A for about a minute, then it dropped to 51A with the "extension or bad cable message". I never got more than 10kW (46 km/hr)... Tried unplugging and replugging once, same result.

If we can't get full output from properly installed rapid chargers in winter, it throws in sizeable uncertainty when travelling. Tesla really need to fix their FW...

 

[mknox]

I was wondering about that. I had my UMC replaced last spring because of similar problems; it was becoming progressively harder to get it to connect. Later that summer my Ranger asked if I'd been having any trouble with the port. I wasn't at the time, but I got the impression that they'd had some trouble with the early ones.

I had my UMC replaced 3 times for the same reason... it would get progressively harder to get it to connect. Oddly, I never had a single problem with my J1772 adapter.

The last time, they also replaced my charge port. Since that time, it's been pretty solid with the exception of the aforementioned "delay" last evening.

 

[Duckjybe]

I was having trouble getting the light to go green once I plugged in. It would click, go from white to blue, click and go white. I would wiggle it and it would click, go blue then green, sometimes red, I would let go and it would go blue, etc.. Eventually I could get it to connect but the plug seemed too loose. It was also dropping down to 30A on occasion once it was charging successfully. I just took the UMC into service and they replaced it. They also gave me the new thermal fused 14-50 adapter.

Now it seems fine and starts charging the first time I plug in at 40A. Perhaps some ice/snow may have gotten into the old plug or port and may have affected the UMC plug. I try to keep the UMC plug out of the snow but my wife may not be so diligent.

They also proactively replaced my 12V battery.

Update: I also had no problem with my J1772 adapter.

 

[Kalud]

One more here. I have these kind of issues since I got the car, its intermittent, sometimes it works perfectly sometimes it takes some time. I never use scheduled charging so when I get the issue I plug, get a couple clicks, white-blue-green-blue-green and then most of the time it starts charging without further issue. In my case its not related to 5.8.4 as my car came with 5.8 and had the issue. I suspect the chargeport from day one. Once I even had the car plugged in light stayed white with "connect cable / chargeport open" message and I was seeing 80A pilot signal through the VisibleTesla app, so the car should be seeing the cable as connected.

I use my HPWC 99% of the time, could be a problem with its connector too, but I had some similar experience with my UMC...

Sometimes I suspect that its simply the action of locking the chargeport that makes the cable move just a bit and that interrupt the signaling to the car... Could be a simple software fix to increase the threshold around this locking action...

 

[Doug_G]

Last night MY car also did not charge. The plug had acted strangely the previous day making a regular clicking sound as if locking and unlocking to the car.

Yep, just started getting that. I've had it before, and they replaced my UMC and all went back to normal.

I had that "feature" when I plugged into the SCH 70A charger at the Hotel Mortagne in Boucherville yesterday.

From all reports, you get backed off 100% of the time at Boucherville. That's very frustrating; it's already really low voltage, now you only get 75% charge rate. That can easily add an hour or two to your charging stop. I've already complained to Tesla about this.

Service just told me that new firmware was released yesterday, which has new settings related to charging. We'll see what that's about.

I had my UMC replaced 3 times for the same reason... it would get progressively harder to get it to connect. Oddly, I never had a single problem with my J1772 adapter.

Right. Same thing here. J1772 always works. UMC has already been replaced once. Nevertheless I'm starting to think it's the car socket, not the UMC.

 

[kevincwelch]

Had this issue this morning. Haven't had a single issue with charging over the past year of ownership.

I came back from a trip downtown and plugged the UMC, which never leaves my garage and is always plugged into the NEMA 14-50 plug, into my car. There was a short delay, then the click, and then the blinking green. However, I noticed on the dash it said "charge cable problem" (something like that) and the maximum current was 30A. The UMC adapter wasn't warm. I unplugged it from the car and then unplugged it from the wall. All connectors looked fine. My plug always fits snugly into the car. Not sure what to make of this since the car is charging up. I notified Tesla about it; it's time for my annual service anyway.

 

[Doug_G]

However, I noticed on the dash it said "charge cable problem" (something like that) and the maximum current was 30A.

This is a new feature of the latest firmware. It's seeing voltage fluctuations and thinks your wall socket or UMC plug may be in risk of melting. Unfortunately the algorithm false detects a lot - fluctuations from the power utility can trigger it.

Going back to the original problem I reported at the beginning of this thread, Tesla is replacing my UMC.

 

[Forty Creek]

Need to find out if this is my HPWC or the Charging Port that is causing the problem. Timed charging is not reliable and you can see why....

 

[jerry33]

Need to find out if this is my HPWC or the Charging Port that is causing the problem. Timed charging is not reliable and you can see why....

Try charging with the UMC and see if the behaviour continues. If it does it's the port for sure. If it doesn't, then it still could be either.

 

[Forty Creek]

Try charging with the UMC and see if the behaviour continues. If it does it's the port for sure. If it doesn't, then it still could be either.

Good idea, thanks. It's also reducing the charge by 25% so I'll be taking it in as soon as I'm able to get an appointment.

 

[Doug_G]

Replacing my UMC appears to have cleared the problem.

My only concern is that this is the second time it's been replaced for what appears to be the same problem. That said, the construction of the plug seems to be a bit different from the original, so maybe the problem won't repeat.

 

[Vger]

Never had these exact symptoms, but we have had our UMC and charge port replaced at Tesla's option (not requested). I think that Tesla may have some refinement to do yet on these components.

BTW, given all the issues with the UMC's wearing out, we are having an HPWC installed in our garage on Wednesday. It will be wired very conservatively, at my insistence, on a 100 A breaker, but I will probably rarely use it at full power. I look forward to experimenting with different power levels and seeing the behaviour with the 5.8.4 back-off algorithm.