Short Version: My car wasn't charging. SKip ahead. I go to fellow owner's place whose charging was error free. After trouble shooting my problem with his 14-50 and his chord, we try his car with my chord and then his car with his chord. Now neither car will charge. Long Version: i picked up my car Weds, 3/13. I get home to discover my 14-50 adapter doesnt fit my 240v outlet. I realize my electrician installed a 6-50 by mistake (5 months ago). I successfully charge on my 110 overnight. Next day I drive to a resort 80 miles away. While at the resort I charge successfully on a level one chargepoint charger. Note, however, after not seeing range increase, I contact TM. They push 4.3 to me, and charging is now reflected in range. Today, 3/16 I drive home. Electrician has since replaced 6-50 with 14-50. When I plug in, display registers 248 volts, but 0 amps. After a few tries, I call TM and we do resets and troubleshoots. I try 110 and get similar failure with plenty of volts but 0 amps and zero range improvement. On both 240 and 110, after the diplay gets hung up a while "calculating" it gives an error message and says not charging, unplug and try again. TM opens ticket with plan to take car and mobile connector chord in on Monday. I go to nearby level 2 station. Car successfully charges on 30 amps. Next step, attempt isolation of the chord (the level 2 has its own chord). I go to fellow owner's house. We try his chord on my car in his 14-50 and get same failure. We try my chord in his 14-50 and his car. Same result. To close the loop, we try his chord in his 14-50 and his car. Now, he gets the same failure as me. Note, he's had his car about 6 weeks and always successfully charged on his 14-50, except when he did't yet have a 240, and he used his 110. We follow-up his chord failure in the 240 with a similar failure in his 110. I appologize profusely, we call TM, and we're told they have no idea, plan on bringing the cars in. Fast forward, my car is now charging on the level 2. Anyone hear of similar problems? Any ideas what bizarro thing has happend?
The UMC is pretty simple; it has a contactor that turns on the high power to your car, and then a low-power circuit tied to the front end of the contactor that does ground fault testing and manages the pilot signal. I suppose there is a remote chance that you have a failure that could destroy the UMC - if, for example, your supercharger contactor in the car were locked shut and 360V DC were applied to the car's terminals, then the car signaled on the pilot pins for the UMC contactor to close which would have exposed the UMC logic board to the high voltage DC. But I imagine if that happened you'd experience some additional side effects, like a good number of appliances blowing up in your home. I haven't read anything similar.
Update: after starting to charge at 30a last night (on the public/level 2), it stopped. It was giving 12v warnings and said car needs service. I'm now seeing similarities with other cars that reported lifeless conditions. However, it still seems a bit too coincidental that owner/friend 2 experienced my same failure to register charge immediately after using my UMC. FWIW, nearby owner/friend 3 is now reporting similar problems. All 3 cars are in the same town, all 3 recently downloaded 4.3, 2 and 3 couldnt charge at all after 4.3, i could charge on a level 1, but had problems when I went to my home 240 the problem occurred. Mine is a 60, no 2 is an 85, about 6 wks older, and no.1 is a signature thats at least 4 months old.
JakeP - agreed, but I was able to charge on 110 post 4.3, and all cars are still driveable unlike some other post 4.3 probs being reported.
Is it too early to issue an APB on 4.3 on the main Firmware 4.3 thread for forum members to hold off on updating to it? I haven't received an update notification yet but, have no intention to update from a very stable 4.2. It's tricky though if no one updates to it; Tesla may not even be able to find out such issues in the real world if no one - atleast vocal TMC members - takes up the update.
I don't think anyone has reported something like this with 4.3 yet so looks to be a good update. Not sure what is going on here but if you feel holding off on the update would be wise, no harm in that. Always better to do the update at home and preferably early in the week so can get help if something happens.
+1. Funny, I've been checking my 17" screen for the past few days waiting for the update notification. Now glad I haven't received it or updated with 4.3.
I find this very interesting, as my car has been at a detailers shop all week. It was running low on charge, so they plugged into their NEMA 6-50 welder's plug, and the UMC and the charging ring showed red. I have charged successfully on 6-50 before, but I usually charge on a 14-50 at home. I thought something was odd with their plug, maybe the breaker was tripped...we switched to the 110V, all went green, and it topped off just fine overnight. I don't know if 4.3 was installed during the stay at the shop or not, but that is the first thing I will check when I pick it up this afternoon.
I wonder if there was something in your cord that damaged the car, or vice versa. Irrelevant anecdote: Back in about 1976, I was funding my way through university as a 4pm-midnight shift operator on an IBM 360. The disk drives on this were the size of washing machines, and had removable packs that had 10 platters and held about 80MB if I remember correctly. Anyway, one day just before our shift started, apparently one of them made a screeching noise, and stopped working, so the day operators scratched their heads, and one of them said something like "I wonder if the pack is OK?". So they moved the pack to another drive, which promptly made screeching noises. "Oh, it's a bad pack!" they said, and put a good pack into that drive, which then made screeching noises. This confused them, so they tried again, with putting the pack that had been working, into yet another drive, which made screeching noises. By the time the knuckleheads were finished and we (the much smarter night shift ;-) ) arrived, we explained to them about head crashes. Unfortunately, there were only about 15 IBM 360s in Australia at the time, and it never occurred to IBM that they might need 4 new sets of heads for 2314 (? I think) drives simultaneously. They only had 3 spare sets in the country.
I would reply directly but I don't have enough wood in my back yard (despite several trees) to knock on quickly and thoroughly enough to feel comfortable doing so. But I will say this: my replacement HPWC has worked properly at 70A so far with both 4.2 and 4.3 firmware.
I just picked up the car and I am still on 4.2, so my issue with the 6-50 is likely an unrelated coincidence. I noticed their plug said 50A / 250V, whereas the 6-50 adapter is marked 208-240V. Perhaps that discrepancy made the UMC flash red? Or maybe their breaker was tripped?
No, this is normal. Plugs and receptacles are typically rated up to 250V, while devices are rated at the voltage they are supposed to run at. The UMC wouldn't show red if breaker was tripped.
Thanks FlasherZ....I wondered what caused the red indicator for this receptacle then. Perhaps faulty wiring, and the UMC detected it?
One of the problems with producing equipment that is fully compliant with the latest standards (NEC in this case) is that using them with equipment that is not fully compliant causes them to complain.
Update - charged at 30amps at a different public charging station today, but no luck charging at home on either 240 or 110 (on UMC).
The most common red-light cause with the UMC is a ground fault / bad ground. You should check the ground connection for the receptacle. The UMC tests to ensure that there is voltage potential between L1 and ground; and if there is not, it will provide a red-light error. The car will report "cycle wall power". If you are getting a red light on both 120V and 240V - different receptacles on different circuits - it seems your UMC may have gone bad. You may want to try carrying your UMC to another outlet somewhere on the other side of the house to see if it lights up green there.
It has happened to me now as well. I have to take the car into the svc center tomorrow. Not too happy about this.