Electrical genius required?

[Skie]

A spark with a megger tester should be able to spot anything untoward happening. Tossing ideas out now, but I'd check for earth leakage- it's not unusual to get some voltage on earth but perhaps a Tesla and those chargers don't play nice and it's making the gate controller unhappy.

To exclude RF issues, buy a tube of pringles, eat them all and remove the bottom from the can. Stand where you can't get the gate to work, then stick the transmitter in the bottom end of the tube and point the business end at the receiver. Might have to walk a bit closer, but the pringles tube will help focus the signal a bit and avoid the handset itself being overwhelmed. Unless it's built into the car then you've just eaten a load of tasty crisps for nothing.

 

[GPDP]

Pringles are always good to eat!

Someone had asked for a graph showing the charging rates etc, I can't find a graph on Teslafi, but have found a chart, I attach an extract from it.
Voltage ranges from 226 to 230.

 

[init6]

Thanks. No sudden voltage drops of over a minute. Looks like a sparky might be in your future

 

[Adopado]

I'm really looking forward to the outcome of this curious mystery!!

 

[Adopado]

Meantime here's an odd interaction that I solved. I have a wifi access point in a garage a good distance from the house. It would work OK most of the time but would drop the connection on a random pattern. Went through loads of network related changes to no avail. I had extra complications because I extend the network to the access point using Powerline adapters so I started looking for noise on the mains. Long story short I found that when an LED spotlight outside the garage came on it caused the network to drop. I have a mains socket extension that I bought years ago that claimed to smooth mains supplies used for home HIFI to stop clicks and pops and supposedly improve sound quality but don't believe that one ... it has a couple of chokes and other components and I didn't honestly expect it to work but I put it on the supply to the spotlight and the problem was cured.

I've just looked back my Amazon orders and I bought it in 2009! https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000PS5700/

 

[Sean.]

Pringles are always good to eat!

Someone had asked for a graph showing the charging rates etc, I can't find a graph on Teslafi, but have found a chart, I attach an extract from it.
Voltage ranges from 226 to 230.View attachment 901991

What’s the mains voltage before you load it though?

Is the charger pulling it down (as expected) then the voltage available to the gate drive will be lower…subtract the voltage drop for the 40m of mystery sized mains cable to the gate.

Gate motor then tries to draw current, voltage drops again - gate motor pulls more current, more voltage drop. Gate control possibly sensing an over-current on the motor drive circuit (thinking it’s an obstruction etc) but it’s just pulling too much juice because of the above. Then stop.

 

[MrBadger]

Pringles are always good to eat!

Someone had asked for a graph showing the charging rates etc, I can't find a graph on Teslafi, but have found a chart, I attach an extract from it.
Voltage ranges from 226 to 230.View attachment 901991

For future reference, it’s accessible from the charge icon (very left column) in the main daily timeline table. It’s in a graph with several other parameters along with a table like you posted lower down the page.

 

[Hessles]

Reading all of the OPs replies I’d be inclined to think that it’s harmonic interference from the AC/DC conversion in the Tesla compared to the BMW.

 

[Sean.]

Reading all of the OPs replies I’d be inclined to think that it’s harmonic interference from the AC/DC conversion in the Tesla compared to the BMW.

That would have to be some crazy amount of harmonic disturbance pushed back onto the power supply. Why then only the gate (which is dumb electronically speaking) affected and no other more sensitive electronics so seriously affected.

Why do both Tesla cars produce the same issue - if so are Tesla producing really terribly poor harmonically noisy rectification in the car chargers.

Why isn’t this a widespread reported issue?

 

[LiamPope]

What’s the mains voltage before you load it though?

Is the charger pulling it down (as expected) then the voltage available to the gate drive will be lower…subtract the voltage drop for the 40m of mystery sized mains cable to the gate.

Gate motor then tries to draw current, voltage drops again - gate motor pulls more current, more voltage drop. Gate control possibly sensing an over-current on the motor drive circuit (thinking it’s an obstruction etc) but it’s just pulling too much juice because of the above. Then stop.

But he's already tested a pretty worst case scenario for volt drop - with a 9.5 kW shower running in the house and the BMW on charge at 32 A on the garage charger (same circuit as the gate). In that situation you have 41 A from the shower + 32 A from the car + gate motor inrush current (possibly 40-50 A very briefly) all at the same time. So that large overall draw from the whole installation gives maximum external voltage drop (drop in the supply cable in the street/pole) so the lowest voltage at the fuse box. Then you have the car and gate on the same circuit, so you have worst case volt drop on the cable from house to garage with 32 A from the car plus motor inrush current, then further volt drop in the cable to the gate with only the motor inrush current. That's about as bad as it can possibly get for voltage at the gate, yet it works fine every time.

When he tests with the Tesla on his other charger (not on garage circuit) at only 18 A, this is a much better situation for volt drop. Only the 18 A plus motor inrush in total, so less external volt drop, higher voltage at fuse box, then the 18 A charging current is on it's own circuit, so the cable from house to garage only has the motor inrush current, so less volt drop to the garage, then volt drop in the gate cable same as before. So there's no way this case has worse volt drop than the previous case, but the gate doesn't work.

So I don't see how it can be pure volt drop at this point. Must be Teslas doing something funky with the supply.

 

[init6]

I'm tempted to jump on the ferry with my multimeter

 

[guru1]

I'm really looking forward to the outcome of this curious mystery!!

Like his gates, we need closure on this mystery!

 

[Casss]

So I don't see how it can be pure volt drop at this point. Must be Teslas doing something funky with the supply.

This is the mysterious bit though isn't it... what on earth could the Tesla possibly be doing to the charger or supply when plugged in and charging that could cause this, if it's not EM/RF related. Aside from the Proximity pin and Control pilot pin on the charger plug doing their thing, it should be a 'one-way street' entirely.

The fact the gate is 40m from the parked cars seems to rule out any EM interference from the charging Tesla but maybe not entirely.... My money is on some EM/RF black magickery or something ultra weird and edge case like the Tesla just happens to always be parked over the top of the armoured cable for the gate which is damaged or something if it runs under the parking area which is causing an intermittent fault...

Edit: could a faulty Control Pilot Pin on the CCS plug for the charger be causing an issue unique to the way the charge port works on Teslas? This should throw an error in the car though so maybe I've just debunked that idea myself.

 

[Hessles]

That would have to be some crazy amount of harmonic disturbance pushed back onto the power supply. Why then only the gate (which is dumb electronically speaking) affected and no other more sensitive electronics so seriously affected.

Why do both Tesla cars produce the same issue - if so are Tesla producing really terribly poor harmonically noisy rectification in the car chargers.

Why isn’t this a widespread reported issue?

It’s the only plausible explanation left. We have discounted volt drop and RF interference. The fact that 2 Teslas cause the same issue would suggest they do something different, in terms of charging, to the BMW.

I imagine it’s not more widespread because of the unique blend of equipment the OP has. It may be that his gates controller is particularly affected by the harmonics kicked out by Teslas.

The common denominator is Tesla, just my 2p.

 

[LiamPope]

I'm tempted to jump on the ferry with my multimeter

Do it! We are all invested in this and need to solve it! You might need more than a multimeter though!

 

[Casss]

That would have to be some crazy amount of harmonic disturbance pushed back onto the power supply. Why then only the gate (which is dumb electronically speaking) affected and no other more sensitive electronics so seriously affected.

Why do both Tesla cars produce the same issue - if so are Tesla producing really terribly poor harmonically noisy rectification in the car chargers.

Why isn’t this a widespread reported issue?

This would be so bizarre though. If the onboard charger or the charge port electrics are that poor, it would be a widespread issue and OP has tested two cars (presumably showing no errors).

On top - the wall charger should be shielded for this, as should it's source surely? It's not like the wall charger shares a direct path to the gates. Other weird stuff would be happening in the house otherwise I'd imagine.

 

[LiamPope]

Yep it's super weird for sure! Without having a clue what the Tesla does or doesn't do to a supply, nor what this gate motor controller is susceptible to, I'm out of ideas. Also agree it could be some crazy interaction with potentially damaged/degraded underground cable to the gate. That's why I'd like to see details of what protection it has and an IR reading. Also why I half expect the idea of running a temporary new cable to the gate to magically solve the problem!

 

[MrBadger]

It’s the only plausible explanation left. We have discounted volt drop and RF interference. The fact that 2 Teslas cause the same issue would suggest they do something different, in terms of charging, to the BMW.

Or is it. Without being 100% sure that OP is going back to exactly the same starting scenarios and basics, something may be causing the differences. I'm not saying that OP has, but its easy to skip something or pick up a diagnostics which is not comparing like for like.

If it was me, I would be turning the whole house off at the consumer unit and be performing the tests only with the circuits necessary to investigate the problem to see at what point something starts to behave differently by running through the exact same scenario with both cars. Unless that is done, you cannot rule out some other interaction. Just because the Tesla behaves different to the BMW doesn't mean that the issue lies with the Teslas. There may for example be an unknown interaction elsewhere (eg existing fault or close to tolerance) that only occurs in certain scenarios. Its quite possible that things will work and you won't know that until you turn off all but that necessary. As you start reintroducing circuits, you may then trigger the issue - in which case, it may be something related to an individual circuit, or may be something cumulative where that circuit just happens to be enough to trigger - those are the fun ones to track down. I'm sure a decent sparky will take the same approach when they have ruled out the obvious, and imho, if you are able to, better to use a couple of hours of your time to investigate confirm/rule out something than paying a sparky to do it. It may well be that you hit the issue straight away with only minimal circuits, but unless you have tested in that scenario, you cannot assume anything for definite.

 

[LiamPope]

Definitely a worthwhile test - switch on only the garage circuit, everything else off, put the Tesla on charge on the garage charger and see if it still kills the gates. Don't do it when the wife is cooking, watching TV or drying her hair though!

 

[MrT3]

Once you go above 16 A, a second of the three on-board 16 A AC to DC converters needs to be used. The circuitry that is load-balancing the power between them must be causing interference that the gates don't like.