Charging the Roadster

[Electric Swede]

Am wondering if someone can help me with a question about charging. #0681 (2010 2.0 w/ original pack) just spent 3 1/2 months in the boy shop - long story: if you don't ask I won't cry - and I've had it back 1 1/2 weeks. I finally did a full standard charge on the car and it stopped at only 120 est. miles and the battery icon only shows about 65% full. Prior to her sitting, a full standard charge would provide 180-185 est. miles and the battery icon would show about 80% charged. The body shop said they plugged her in every night like I asked, although she was not driven during this time. Honestly, I wasn't sure what the est. range was nor how 'full' the battery was, as I was so happy to have it back I didn't really pay that much attention.

Is this 'normal' for a car that sat for that long, and after a few charges will the range come back up to closer to what I am used to?
Does the fact that I dropped off the car in March when the WX wasn't as warm as it is now have any impact?
Is the fact that the battery icon only shows 65% charged, as opposed to the normal 80%, anything to worry about?
Is there something I should (should not) do now that I have her back and do not intend for her to sit that long again?
Should I do a range charge and see what that yields?

The CAC shows 139.87 and I'm not sure what other details I could provide or should be looking into.

 

[Electric Swede]

Am wondering if someone can help me with a question about charging. #0681 (2010 2.0 w/ original pack) just spent 3 1/2 months in the boy shop - long story: if you don't ask I won't cry - and I've had it back 1 1/2 weeks. I finally did a full standard charge on the car and it stopped at only 120 est. miles and the battery icon only shows about 65% full. Prior to her sitting, a full standard charge would provide 180-185 est. miles and the battery icon would show about 80% charged. The body shop said they plugged her in every night like I asked, although she was not driven during this time. Honestly, I wasn't sure what the est. range was nor how 'full' the battery was, as I was so happy to have it back I didn't really pay that much attention.

Sorry - this should be IDEAL range not estimated range. The charge stopped at 120 IDEAL range when I used to get 180-185 IDEAL range.

 

[Bunnak]

My yellow cable doesn't work. I get this message. Any suggestions? Car charges fine with all other devices.

 

[slcasner]

That doesn't make any sense if you have the yellow cable plugged into a socket connected to the public power grid. The AC line frequency there is closely regulated. Now, if you had the yellow cable plugged into a portable generator, the story could be different.

 

[Electric Swede]

Henry asked me to post this in this thread so all can take advantage. My questions are in red bold print, Henry's are in blue underlined print, and my answers are in black.

How are you charging your car? How was it charged while it was stored in the shop? eg. what charger? What volts and amps? What adapter?

-- I have always charged the car with the 120V yellow Tesla supplied cable at 15 Amps as currently that is the only cable I own. That is the only cable the body shop had as well.

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Is this 'normal' for a car that sat for that long, and after a few charges will the ideal range come back up to closer to what I am used to?
It's not normal if the car was plugged in fairly often while it was sitting. Your post in the thread indicated est miles before you corrected it. This would be normal behavior for estimated miles. Are you sure it was 'Ideal' miles?

-- I initially posted this was est. range but went back and corrected it. Yes this was ideal range. I understand the est. range will do this due to the car sitting. I asked the body shop to plug in the car every night. I am not sure they did it every night, but it was not discharged when I got it after they finished it.

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Does the fact that I dropped off the car in March when the WX wasn't as warm as it is now have any impact?
It's normal to charge higher when it's warmer. Your numbers will naturally drop in the fall and winter.

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Is the fact that the battery icon only shows 65% charged, as opposed to the normal 80%, anything to worry about?
It depends on why it's doing that. I need more information such as charging method, volts, amps, etc. I would guess the 65% charge was interrupted by something and never restarted. What happened the next few times you charged it?

-- The 65% was not interrupted. The display showed "Charge Complete" and the port was green. There have not been other times of charge. I only got the car back 1 1/2 weeks ago. I drove it a couple days, put some charge on it but not a full charge, then drove it some more. This weekend was the first full charge since getting it back. I did put some miles on it today, put the charger on it and when it said "Charge Complete" it was at 118 ideal range and the battery icon showed closer to 60% than the 65%.

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Is there something I should (should not) do now that I have her back and do not intend for her to sit that long again?
If it was mine I'd charge it in range mode at 240v and let it sit afterwards for at least an hour to balance.

-- I do not have the ability to charge at 240V at home at present. I bought an OpenEVSE but am waiting on a cable before I am able to use it. I guess I could take it to a charging station with my CAN Jr, but would not be able to leave it there overnight or for an extended period of time.

↑
Should I do a range charge and see what that yields?
Yes but it depends on what you're using for a charger.

-- Again, only option for home is 120V at 15A

It would be better to follow up in the forum so everybody gets the benefit of the answers.

-Henry

 

[Electric Swede]

So newest data point: I put about 35-40 miles on it yesterday, brought it home, let it cool down, and then put the charger on it. (Standard mode, 120V, 15A on the yellow cable) This morning the display shows "Done Charging" and the port has blue light. (I think this means the charge was not interupted) The ideal range is now 101 and the battery icon looks like its at about 57%. So it appears this issue is getting worse as time goes on. Unless I'm misreading something... The plan is to leave it plugged in for the next couple of days and see if the wake up cycles balance the battery and bring up the ideal range.

 

[Roadster]

Definitely pull the logs and take a look at the individual sheet conditions. Assuming everything looks good, you can try power cycling the VMS which seems to help reset certain charging conditions. This worked for me as discussed on this thread here as well as for @Carbuilder as mentioned here.

 

[jason.tv]

So newest data point: I put about 35-40 miles on it yesterday, brought it home, let it cool down, and then put the charger on it. (Standard mode, 120V, 15A on the yellow cable) This morning the display shows "Done Charging" and the port has blue light. (I think this means the charge was not interupted) The ideal range is now 101 and the battery icon looks like its at about 57%. So it appears this issue is getting worse as time goes on. Unless I'm misreading something... The plan is to leave it plugged in for the next couple of days and see if the wake up cycles balance the battery and bring up the ideal range.

Did you have ovms while the car was in the shop? <Just read above you did not>

This does not sound to good to be honest; sounds like some of the sheets are improperly balanced and or went bad not getting enough volts into the battery while in this location.

My assumption is when your car was in the shop for the duration of 3 1/2 months they got tired of the heat from the exhaust or hearing the car charge like that every day so they probably unplugged it during this hot ass heat in Florida which caused your car not to go to sleep or idle and your car kept running (Coolant fan and pem runs 24/7 ) ; Which probably caused 8-10 miles of phantom drain every day in which at one point they realized the battery was probably low state of charge and used the 120v charger from low state of charge to bring back the battery.

I can literally visualize the situation above happening; car beeping signalling low battery state of charge where it went to 5-6 miles and they were like oh crap. lets plug it in. When the car is not plugged in and locked the vds display shuts off so they couldn't see the soc while unplugged thinking car was in idle state.

My car is not going to sleep right now during these summer months and i'm receiving about 10 miles of phantom drain daily. So more than likely this is what happened to you.

Just saying anything is a possibility; if your car went in at 185 miles on standard charge then your cac was well above "150" Do you remember what your cac was before it went into the shop?

yes your logs need to be pulled; because they can see if there is a brick or damaged or low state of charge during the time it was at this location.

For the time being; do not use the 120v 15a, I would use a 240v and charge at 24A and or try 32A as your battery and sheets are under voltage. If your battery charges to only 55% then some of the sheets are not being fed and they definitely went bad which is why charge at 240v and higher Amps to see if they come back to life or start balancing again.

Drive extremely slow to the charge port station and use the CAN and charge at 24a or 32a

Install a 240v in your garage and get a tesla wall charger and or non tesla charging station depending on what CAN adapter you use to charge; Or find / purchase the 240v roadster charging cable if anyone has an extra; this would be best option.

I would call grubermotors.com right now; ask for Peter in the Roadster department and he will diagnose you through couple things.

What's your battery temperature state?

best of luck.

 

[Marius]

When car stops charging you can manually force starting by pushing the button "top up". Maybe this will push the battery past some point and continue charging. Just an easy thing to try.

 

[Electric Swede]

So the latest is I pulled the logs and called Gruber. Gruber had me send them the logs and are looking over it. In the mean time, they suggested I don't do anything until they can digest what they can from the log file. I am looking through the logs like a pig looking at a wristwatch: The pig can stare at the watch as long as he wants, but he will never be able to tell you what time it is. I can see when someone drove the car, when someone charged it - which it appears the body shop only charged it on the weekends rather than every night like I asked and they said they did - and the SOC but other than that I'm just not sure what I'm looking at...or should be looking for. Hopefully the guys from Gruber get back to me today and we can start to diagnose this issue. I still have an appointment with the SC next Monday and am hoping I can drive the car there - about 65 miles - rather than tow it.

 

[drewski]

My yellow cable doesn't work. I get this message. Any suggestions? Car charges fine with all other devices.View attachment 558084

maybe sign the GFCI plug is going bad?

 

[gregd]

I can see when someone drove the car, when someone charged it - which it appears the body shop only charged it on the weekends rather than every night like I asked and they said they did - and the SOC but other than that I'm just not sure what I'm looking at...or should be looking for.

Run the VMSParser with the -p flag (VMSParser.exe -p 2020blahblah.tar) and it will display the various errors and alerts that the car has recorded. Give the pig some glasses to see clearer what's going on...

 

[Electric Swede]

Oh I've done that Greg, but I don't know what these codes are:
1065
65535
53
104
953

So this pig still can't tell you what time it is... l0l

 

[slcasner]

maybe sign the GFCI plug is going bad?

You might have something there. @Electric Swede said in one of these posts that the LED ring was blue after charging -- it should be green.

 

[slcasner]

1065 DMC FW: Line UnderVoltage warning
53 GPS: No data fault
104 TCM: Lost DMC comms
953 DMC FW: Line OverFrequency fault

65535 is -1, not a valid fault code. I see that sometimes.

TCM Transmission Control Module
DMC Digital Motor Controller
FW Firmware

 

[einhalv]

When car stops charging you can manually force starting by pushing the button "top up". Maybe this will push the battery past some point and continue charging. Just an easy thing to try.

Can someone enlighten me on what this "top up" is meant for under normal circumstances? My car seems to charge to 97-98% when plugged in and left to itself.

 

[Electric Swede]

1065 DMC FW: Line UnderVoltage warning
53 GPS: No data fault
104 TCM: Lost DMC comms
953 DMC FW: Line OverFrequency fault

65535 is -1, not a valid fault code. I see that sometimes.

TCM Transmission Control Module
DMC Digital Motor Controller
FW Firmware

The 1065 was when the neighborhood power went out as I was charging. It was not my GFCI nor my breaker. The power goes out here somewhat regularly: Not sure if it's all the AC units drawing power during the hot summer days but the whole house went dark for a few seconds and I remember when it happened.
53 means the GPS lost signal / data for a time. Shouldn't be anything to worry about.
Not sure why the DMC would lose comms but that fault has been on the system for a while. I have an appointment on Monday to take it to the SC and they should be able to correct that one.
That leaves 953, DMC FW - Line Over Frequency. I have no idea...

Interesting thing is the airbag light on the dash has been lit since the airbag cover popped open when I hit a bump about 5 months ago. I have the cover secured but the light is still on. I assumed there would be a fault for that, but I don't see it. The SC is prepared to take care of this issue next week as well.

 

[slcasner]

Can someone enlighten me on what this "top up" is meant for under normal circumstances? My car seems to charge to 97-98% when plugged in and left to itself.

The way I understand it, Top Up would not be used under normal circumstances, certainly not routinely. But if you are going for a long drive and the car finished charging some hours ago, you can use Top Up to squeeze in a little more. The few times I've tried it there was not much increase.

 

[jason.tv]

The way I understand it, Top Up would not be used under normal circumstances, certainly not routinely. But if you are going for a long drive and the car finished charging some hours ago, you can use Top Up to squeeze in a little more. The few times I've tried it there was not much increase.

right; seems like this will top off 100% to the 80% standard charge mode; perhaps when you charge the car at night and maybe phantom drain in the morning could lose 1-3% so top off could charge it back to the 80% state of charge at 100% in standard mode without unplugging and re plugging the charger back into the car if users don't have ovms to start the charge remotely.

 

[sethr]

If your battery was over 30°, the coolant pump running overnight would use up more than just a few percent, so that would potentially be the need for a "top off".