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FlasherZ

Sig Model S + Sig Model X + Model 3 Resv
Jun 21, 2012
7,030
1,032
Well, Friday the 13th rears its ugly head. Among about 5-6 other breakages around the place, my original 3 1/2 year old HPWC has decided to stop working. The HPWC still provides a pilot signal to the car, the green light is still lit on the HPWC. When the car sends the signal to start charging, there is no contactor close.

I isolated a car failure by trying it on a different car, and trying my other HPWC on the same car. I isolated a cable fault by putting the HPWC in test mode and holding down the reset button -- no luck and no voltage goes to the contactors.

It appears the board had a fatal failure. The main board of the wall connector has a red LED that's slow-blinking. I can hear a high-frequency noise coming from it.

It's dead, Jim. Anyone else experience a similar failure?
 
A potential warning to those of you with kids... I think this failure may have been accelerated by the recent rainbow-charger easter egg. They've exercised that about 20 times in the past week.
 
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Removed the old wall connector and gave it a thorough look-over. Couldn't see anything obviously wrong.

Replacement installed: previous third-gen unit (00-E), the best because a) I didn't need the new sharing functionality, b) mine are configured for 100A so no need for partial current, and c) I was able to reuse the backplate, no need to remove the lag bolts and install new brackets for the newer unit. All up and charging again.
 
Over in this thread here...
Effects of charging on home service voltage
...I talk about how I discovered my voltage has been running a bit high over the past couple of weeks (since a storm). This may be a contributing factor to the HPWC's failure as well, or it could be a combination of the two -- easter egg frequent disconnects and high-voltage stress. I won't be able to gather any more details, as Tesla now has the original HPWC for any failure analysis they want to do.
 
When you press the button on the HPWC connector, it not only unlocks the car, it also opens the contactors in the HPWC. When you release, it will shut them again. When you do that rapidly 10 times in a row, it's like flipping a circuit breaker open and closed as fast as you can.

While the contactors are rated for 1000's of cycles, exercising them in that way a significant number of times might be problematic. To put it in perspective, the 20 times FlasherZ's kids this probably equates to 6 months of normal "once-a-day" usage.
 
When you press the button on the HPWC connector, it not only unlocks the car, it also opens the contactors in the HPWC. When you release, it will shut them again. When you do that rapidly 10 times in a row, it's like flipping a circuit breaker open and closed as fast as you can.

Note that it only does this if the car has already started charging (has transitioned from blue ring to green ring) and if you're not configured for scheduled charging. If you do it while the car is not attempting to charge, it won't be a problem because it won't cycle the contactors - but once the car has started charging, it will.
 
Certainly true...I had thought I read on your other post on the subject that one of the concerns was the contractor cycling.. and thus I assumed that your kids had been doing this while charging...

Yes, you're correct - any time they walked out to the garage, I'd get a slew of "charging interrupted" messages on my phone. For those unsure of why it would impact the HPWC - because it doesn't for them - scheduled charging likely represents the difference.
 
Note that it only does this if the car has already started charging (has transitioned from blue ring to green ring) and if you're not configured for scheduled charging. If you do it while the car is not attempting to charge, it won't be a problem because it won't cycle the contactors - but once the car has started charging, it will.
Obviously kids do what they do, but if the car is locked, I thought pressing the button would not do anything, even if it was charging. When I wanted to try out the Easter egg thing, I specifically did not want to cycle the port lock or anything else. Car was not charging anyway, but I made sure to move my key fob far from the car, so it was locked, and then I could press the button without it clicking anything.
 
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Obviously kids do what they do, but if the car is locked, I thought pressing the button would not do anything, even if it was charging. When I wanted to try out the Easter egg thing, I specifically did not want to cycle the port lock or anything else. Car was not charging anyway, but I made sure to move my key fob far from the car, so it was locked, and then I could press the button without it clicking anything.

Our car stays unlocked a good chunk of the time as a result of the kids unloading sports equipment, etc. from the car. They typically come in to the house, the car locks, then they go back outside to unload it after unlocking the car.
 
I'm with you. Searched "HPWC dead" and found this. My vintage 2013 HPWC just failed and had the same situation. I have pushed the reset button and cycled the breaker several times, but no joy. No lights, green or otherwise. I popped the HPWC cover and verified that the unit is getting power. HPWC interior fuses don't appear to have blown, but I'm not an expert on that so maybe they did. I run it from a 60 amp circuit, not 100 amps, so shouldn't have stressed the unit. No lightning storms recently, it just failed. Tesla service wants me to have an electrician (pref the one who installed it) come to diagnose, and if the unit has indeed failed they say they will replace it. Seems like a bit of a fire drill to me, and will cost me a few $$ and several days but I'm cooperating, albeit grumpily. I'm so spoiled by Tesla service where they are usually falling all over themselves to make me happy, and I'm always delighted. A bit surprised that they won't take my word for it. Happy that the unit (which is no doubt out of warranty by now) would be replaced, just irritated at the "have a pro check please, because you aren't one" approach. I'm not one to complain on this forum, but I guess I am this time. Hoping someone might point me to an obvious solution that I missed ("Oh, that one. You just need to flip the big red switch on the inside which says 'flip here')or something. Thanks.
 
Hi Bob
I was having same exact issue with my hpwc. It won't reset and it charges fine but looks like when you do schedule charging it will keep interrupting model s so I already sold my car and they said they will send out ranger to take a look at it and I am waiting for my x to see if I get same issues while charging at schedule or not.I will find out if its car interrupting or its problem with hpwc