MY J-1772 Adapter Meltdown

[Phil Stasik]

I've seen threads about lots of J-1772 adapters melting on the S, X, and M3 forums, but I have not yet seen one here for the Model Y group, so maybe we're the first. Last night, my wife was about to plug our two month old Model Y into our Clipper Creek EVSE, in our garage, when she noticed that the Tesla/J-1772 adapter, at one of the AC pins, was quite melted. This was the adapter that was supplied with the vehicle.

We have used our Clipper Creek DS-100 EVSE (The grey, commercial, 30A style), which lives a clean and easy life in our garage, for our Chevy Volt since December 2013. Both my wife and I are very experienced EV drivers, and are disciplined enough to properly seat the adapter onto the plug, and to properly plug the car in.

We noticed that the plastic tip on one of the two AC pins seems to have completely melted away, and possibly transferred to the metal socket in the J-1772 plug.

From the first day that we charged our Model Y, we noticed that the plug, adapter, and cable were warmer than we ever noticed when charging our Volt. That was to be expected, since we're pulling the full 30A capability of this EVSE.

I do not believe that there was any contamination that would have increased resistance at the contacts. If there was arcing, I would expect our EVSE to have shut down.

Why is this happening?

I hope that Tesla will take a close look at the design of this adapter since there have been so many reports of meltdowns. Perhaps Bakelite would be more resistant to melting, but obviously the top concern is why so much heat is being generated in the first place. Is the metal in the contacts too thin?

I will contact both Tesla and Clipper Creek, and let you know what happens.

 

[Nakk]

My guess is either the adapter or the charger plug are defective. Probably a bad connection internally to the pin or socket. That would create a lot of heat under load. You're right though, the Tesla adapter should be made out of something more heat resistant.

 

[brkaus]

Clipper creek should have some sort of thermal detection in the charging plug.

 

[MP3Mike]

It could be that after 7 years of use the J1772 handle on your Clipper Creek unit has worn and the pins just don't make as good of contact anymore. (They don't last forever.)

It is also possible that the pins were slightly thicker on your Volt and expanded the receptacles on the J1772 handle.

 

[mark95476]

Thanks for the heads-up.

I checked my J1772 adapter and it's fine. I've been using with ChargePoint (30A @ 200V = 6kW) since late June when I got my car.

 

[user212_nr]

How many thousands of people must use the J1772 adapter every day, and now a few of them have melted a little and not caught fire.

 

[Rocky_H]

since there have been so many reports of meltdowns.

How many thousands of people must use the J1772 adapter every day, and now a few of them have melted a little and not caught fire.

Exactly. There have been very few reports of problems with the J1772 adapters.

 

[Flybuddy]

It could be that after 7 years of use the J1772 handle on your Clipper Creek unit has worn and the pins just don't make as good of contact anymore. (They don't last forever.)

It is also possible that the pins were slightly thicker on your Volt and expanded the receptacles on the J1772 handle.

Loose connections will cause an arc and subsequent heat. The worn pin theory has a lot of credence.

 

[SilverSp33d3r]

I think you answered your own question. How many “mate” / “de-mate” connections have been on your clipper creek unit?

We have used our Clipper Creek DS-100 EVSE (The grey, commercial, 30A style), which lives a clean and easy life in our garage, for our Chevy Volt since December 2013. Both my wife and I are very experienced EV drivers, and are disciplined enough to properly seat the adapter onto the plug, and to properly plug the car in.

 

[Phil Stasik]

I bought a replacement cord/J1772 plug from Clipper Creek, and installed it painlessly. So far, we have had no issues, and the plug has been as cool as a cucumber during all charging.

For seven years, we've plugged/unplugged our Volt almost every day. That's about 2500 cycles.

Our Tesla Service Center gave us a free replacement, and we bought a spare to carry in the car.

 

[TomServo]

Our CC HPC-50 EVSE is 2 years old and charges our 2017 Volt and Model Y with the J1772 adapter without any “heat” issues, but we will keep a close watch on it. But that could be difficult given the time we charge our cars.

 

[mark95476]

Glad to hear Tesla took care of you. Hopefully they dig into this and figure out what went wrong.

I charge every 2-3 days or so. 99% is with the Tesla J1772 adapter.

I bought a replacement cord/J1772 plug from Clipper Creek, and installed it painlessly. So far, we have had no issues, and the plug has been as cool as a cucumber during all charging.

For seven years, we've plugged/unplugged our Volt almost every day. That's about 2500 cycles.

Our Tesla Service Center gave us a free replacement, and we bought a spare to carry in the car.

 

[acarney]

I bought a replacement cord/J1772 plug from Clipper Creek, and installed it painlessly. So far, we have had no issues, and the plug has been as cool as a cucumber during all charging.

For seven years, we've plugged/unplugged our Volt almost every day. That's about 2500 cycles.

Our Tesla Service Center gave us a free replacement, and we bought a spare to carry in the car.

2500 cycles, or 5,000 "interactions" half pulling the plug out and possibly wiggling it a little and half pushing it in (probably not perfectly aligned) and "forcefully" seating it in there. That seems like it could add up to a lot of wear on it....

 

[DaveORD]

I once had to debug an electrical tester on the production floor for a device that used the NEMA C136-4 twist lock connector. After what I estimate were 1500 cycles of insert, twist to lock, twist to unlock, and remove there were a lot of brass shavings inside the tester enclosure box which caused a short in the tester circuitry, thus the reason I was called to investigate. Not my design, inherited it. So yeah, when they say not meant for repeated use, that is why. These are designed for specific purposes and if repeated insertion and removal is not one of them, then this kind of stuff will probably happen.