Mobile Charger Failure in High Ambient Temperature - Defect or Feature?

[electrongeek]

My Gen2 mobile charger has worked well in "normal" outdoor temperatures, but now a problem. I'm visiting family in North Texas, where daytime temps have been above 90F. During the winter, I was able to charge at this location at 24A on a 30A circuit. Yesterday I could only set it for 12A, any higher it would ramp up then drop to 0, doing this several times before totally giving up. This morning, with temps around 82F, I could charge at 24A. Later in the day it was close to 100F, and it would not even support 12A. I ended up putting a Blue Ice pack on the mobile charger electronic module, and with this trick 24A charge rate was fine. This is all out of direct sunlight, BTW.

So, my question is if this is expected behavior for the mobile charger, or is mine defective? Is there an over temperature protection that is working normally or is it working abnormally? Anyone else have similar experiences?

 

[365gtb4]

Check the fuses in the charger. They do fail.

 

[user212_nr]

So, my question is if this is expected behavior for the mobile charger, or is mine defective? Is there an over temperature protection that is working normally or is it working abnormally? Anyone else have similar experiences?

Yours is probably defective, as the normal operating range is -22F to 120F. Call support and they should give you another one. They are very frequently defective, or at least they break often.

You say that is doesn't even charge at 12A, that should give it away. Plenty of Tesla owners charging in hotter temperatures.

 

[Exscite]

Interesting... it is light rain, 61 degF in the morning here in LA- I've plugged in my 3 years old home Mobile Charger into my Model 3 and it started to charge as usual (at 32 Amp). But after some time I noticed that the top light on the charger is blinking red, while all the other green lights are still going as usual-BUT, the charge rate was reduced from the normal 30 Mi/h down to 10.
Suspecting that it has something to do with the weather (really?), I just removed and re-plugged the connector into my Tesla. And walla- all is well. So what gives? is it really the result of the 88 percent humidity? Intermittent grounding problem?
I wonder if the Tesla owners in the high humidity places like Miami suffer from similar home charging hiccups...

 

[rrolsbe]

If the sun is shining on the UMC2, I have had mine error out at temps around 80F. The suns radiant heat can really raise the UMC2 internal temps significantly. I shade the unit while charging at 24A/240V and have had no problems.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

Wire terminal screws are loose in the outlet.

Unplug it mid-charge and feel the L/R prongs - you'll likely see that one is much hotter than the other indicating that the corresponding terminal in the outlet is loose.