Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

[EU] What the charger "needs"?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I drive my Model S since Sept. 20, 2013. Up to now it works like a charm. I usually charge with my newly installed 400V outlet outside the house. No problems yet.
This weekend we went for a trip to visit my wifes parents, 330km away. I did a full charge and we cautiously went 100km/h on average (partialy autobahn). We arrived with another 112km to spare.
It was late and I went to bed without plugging in. The next day I tried to charge with their 400V / 16A (CEE red) at the back of their farm house. They usually plug in an electric mill over there. It is a farm in eastern Austria, near the hungarian border. I was baffled to see that the Tesla box on the charger cable didn't light up at all. No green or red light at all. The mill worked quite well with this outlet. I changed the charger cable adapter to Schuko 230V and tried another outlet in the garage, what we call "light bulb oulet" in the local tongue (roughly translated from "Lichtstrom"). At least it lit up but this time the Tesla box showed a red light. I went inside the house and tried another 230V outlet. The Tesla box showed a green light. We rolled out an extension cord and plugged it in again but the Tesla box went to red light again. I parked the car very close to the outside wall and we managed to pass the original Tesla cable throughout a window. Finally it worked. Charging took about 28 hours and the outlet was super hot afterwards.
So my question is: Does anyone know what kind of measurements the Tesla box does on the line? What does it need?
I am not exactly very tech savvy, but I understand what voltage, current and sine waves are. Do you have an idea in simple words what just happened?

greetings
Eumx
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I drive my Model S since Sept. 20, 2013. Up to now it works like a charm. I usually charge with my newly installed 400V outlet outside the house. No problems yet.
This weekend we went for a trip to visit my wifes parents, 330km away. I did a full charge and we cautiously went 100km/h on average (partialy autobahn). We arrived with another 112km to spare.
It was late and I went to bed without plugging in. The next day I tried to charge with their 400V / 16A (CEE red) at the back of their farm house. They usually plug in an electric mill over there. It is a farm in eastern Austria, near the hungarian border. I was baffled to see that the Tesla box on the charger cable didn't light up at all. No green or red light at all. The mill worked quite well with this outlet. I changed the charger cable adapter to Schuko 230V and tried another outlet in the garage, what we call "light bulb oulet" in the local tongue (roughly translated from "Lichtstrom"). At least it lit up but this time the Tesla box showed a red light. I went inside the house and tried another 230V outlet. The Tesla box showed a green light. We rolled out an extension cord and plugged it in again but the Tesla box went to red light again. I parked the car very close to the outside wall and we managed to pass the original Tesla cable throughout a window. Finally it worked. Charging took about 28 hours and the outlet was super hot afterwards.
So my question is: Does anyone know what kind of measurements the Tesla box does on the line? What does it need?
I am not exactly very tech savvy, but I understand what voltage, current and sine waves are. Do you have an idea in simple words what just happened?

greetings
Eumx


look in the package that your owners manual is in, their is a charging information card. match the lights and flashing, to the trouble shooting chart. red flashing is usually going to be a grounding issue.
 
look in the package that your owners manual is in, their is a charging information card. match the lights and flashing, to the trouble shooting chart. red flashing is usually going to be a grounding issue.

I agree that it is probably a grounding issue.

I'm sure that you can find the European UMC Users guide online, but here is a link to the U.S. version: Tesla UMC Guide, U.S.

In addition, here is the decoder ring from that U.S. users guide for what the lights mean. The European version is probably similar, but...
UMC Lights.png


Good Luck!
 
Thanx for your answers. The table to decode the light signals is actually the same in my manual. So.. I would say that it seemed like grounding issues but I hope to get to a more detailed understanding of what it measures.
The only working outlet (230v) functioned only without extension cord. I get that it showed a grounding problem.
But I still find it very mysterious that "no lights at all" means "Power lost" while the electric mill still functioned on that outlet (400v). I did the test two times between the mill and my Tesla cable.
Did anyone else ever experience that sensibility on the "outlet-quality"?
 
Try to test the pins in the CEE16 socket with a volt meter, maybe you see something out of the ordinary there that doesn't match the voltage or frequency the charger accepts?

http://www.teslamotors.com/de_AT/models/specs
Bord-Ladegerät mit 11 kW Leistung und folgender Eingangs-Kompatibilität: 85–265 V, 45–65 Hz, 1 Phase 40 A oder 3 Phasen 16 A (Optional 22 kW starker Doppellader, erhöht Eingang bei 3 Phasen auf 32 A und bei einer Phase auf 80 A)
Maximale Effizienz des Ladegeräts: 94 %
Universal Mobile Connector mit 11 kW Leistung, Adapter IEC 60309 5-polig, Rot, 16 A/3-phasig (400 V) oder IEC 60309 3-polig, Blau 32 A/1-phasig (240 V)