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Help! car won't charge

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Hi Carbuilder,

You might need a 240 volt charger...
The blue light can indicate that it is HEATING the battery before charging it.
If my memory is correct this heater is 4000 to 6000 watts.
I do not think this will work on the 120 Volt setup.
After you have opened and closed the charger cover many times to reset things,
plug it into the 240 Volt setup and leave it there a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes
to see if you get results.

Good luck,

Shawn
 
The purple wire is the wire that tells the charger what amps to pull. The fact the ring turns blue is digestive of knowing what power, but it’s not indicating what power to supply. Knowing the previous owner I doubt the charging cables are an issue but they are known to fail without warning.
 
Where is this purple wire? I'll try leaving it plugged into the 240v outlet, but the 120v has been working fine for a year. Strange that the charging port lights are white when the plug is in but not connected at the wall. Then turns blue when plugged into the wall. So obviously part of the car knows the charger is plugged in and part doesn't.
 
Hi Carbuilder,

Are these the fuse holders for the fuses you checked in the 4" x 6" door on the top of the PEM???

Did you get alarms when you opened the little door???

Fuse Holder.jpg


The one on the right partially melted for me when the fuse blew...
I have the digi-key replacement part numbers if you need them...

Shawn
 
Purple wire goes from the charge port to the PEM. Where the fuses are. Maybe unplug it and make sure it’s seated. If it’s not charging, pull the plug or take the fuse cover off. Otherwise it will brick itself. At 14km you need to charge or shut it down
 
I just checked those fuses and they are good. The ones I checked previously were the very large, bolted-in ones.

I checked for power at various connections in the fuse box. I got no power at the AC1 or AC2 (with respect to the black B- ground) without the charger plugged in. With it plugged in I get 120v at AC2, but nothing at AC1. I don't really know if this helps at all, but it seems to show that the charger is supplying power. Oh, and I get power through the large fuse that AC2 is connected to. Maybe AC1 should be measured with respect to the other ground; the red one I just noticed in the picture. I'll check.

OK, obviously I see that purple wire now. I pull it, clean it, and put it back on.

And I see now that taking that fuse cover off unlatches a small pin under it that supposedly does something. But the car is still making noises and circulating coolant with the cover off.
 

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Check the charging screen that comes up when you plugin. Make sure it is not set to a timed charge (but is set to charge on plugin).

If that isn't the issue, with the car plugged in, I suggest you check the little VDS screen. Use the 1050 code to get into the diagnostics. You should check:
  1. The ESS / SOC screen. Make sure MIN% and MAX% are both within a few percent of LIM%, and about what you would expect for your SOC%. This rules out an issue with a bad brick bringing down MIN%, and MAX% limiting the charge.

  2. The charging screen (sorry, I can't remember the exact name). That should show the low-level status of the charging system. It will show you pilot signal, etc.

  3. The HVAC screen, to see if heating/cooling is being requested.
Regards, Mark.
 
With the cover off it effectively disabled the ESS. Not helpful to charge but good for reducing the power consumption. At 120v only one fuse would be supplied, the other is for 240v. If AC 1 has continuity no point t it looking any further there. Would much rather be working with 240v
 
Just checked some more things that were suggested.

I did have the charging set to start at a certain time, but changed that to "start on plug in" when I started this trouble-shooting.
LIM%=15, MIN%=15, MAX%=18.
Charging screen: pilot signal ON. Everything else looked OK, but not sure what I was looking for.
HVAC screen: 0% requested and 0% received.
On one of the screens I saw Vbatt = 369v.
 
Take a picture of the plug on your 110 Volt charger to see if it is "GCFI". We need a picture of the 110 Volt side and not the Tesla Roadster side. Post the picture here on this thread. If it is GCFI, the plugs go bad and require removal of the GCFI and replacement with a standard 30 amp 110 Volt plug.

Easy to do in about 5 minutes.

If the GCFI has gone bad, it won't permit the vehicle to charge.

If the problem is something else, I second Pete Gruber.
 
Here are some pictures of the charging cable plug. The test/reset works, and there was power into the PEM fuses with it hooked up, and nothing with it not hooked up. That tells me it is working, but maybe not?
 

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Try power cycling your VMS.

How and where to pull plug / power to the VMS?

I once had a situation where my car wasn't accurately managing the SOC and thought it was at 95% when I was at 80% based on my CAC. This was scary as my regen braking was completely lost and even when it became available to me, it would only slightly slow the car. After rebooting the VMS, the SOC recalibrated and was accurate and my regen was back at 100%.

Oh... make sure to grab your logs before you perform the power cycle as you'll lose them when the power's temporarily cut.
 
The solid blue light indicates you are getting a pilot signal. If it's blinking blue then it's heating. I agree with X.l.r.8 that you should be doing your testing with 240v. You should have 120v at each AC1 and 2. If the GFI on your plug is not bad, it will be soon. Replace it with a regular (non GFCI) plug proactively. Everything you're reporting indicates a bad connection between the wall and the PEM. I know you already checked the large 150A fuses, but check them again. Check the continuity of the whole cable from the plug to the PEM (going through the fuses).
 
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It is charging!

I rebooted the VMS this morning and that seems to have fixed whatever was going on. It is charging with the yellow 120v cable now. I may try my 240v charger later as I've never tried it before and should make sure it works. But for now, I'll leave it drinking in the electrons, slow as they may be.

Thank you very much all of you for responding so quickly and suggesting the various things to try. Beers are on me when we are allowed to go out and have one.

Rick
 
Great to hear! Yeah, I've found that's the cure for many Roadster SOC anomalies. Glad to hear your back on spec!

@markwj / @slcasner - is there an OVMS option/parameter to reboot the VMS without having to physically pull the plug to power cycle it?
I thought that the "quickly open and close the charge port 5 times" was actually the restart command. But yes, sometimes power-off is better.
 
Great to hear! Yeah, I've found that's the cure for many Roadster SOC anomalies. Glad to hear your back on spec!

@markwj / @slcasner - is there an OVMS option/parameter to reboot the VMS without having to physically pull the plug to power cycle it?

I don't know of any way to reboot the VMS other than power cycle. The charging port open-close-many-times thing is a soft 'reboot' (probably just restart services), I think. In general, if it can be done from the VDS then it can be done from OVMS remotely.
 
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