New 240v outlet pulling 0 amps

[davewill]

It's reading the right voltage, which means it used the control pilot (the same pin that signals the amperage) to signal the UMC to turn on the AC pins and the 14-50 isn't delivering the wrong voltage. I suppose a bad ground could cause weird symptoms like this, but the UMC should detect a bad ground and show red lights.

It's not really that hard to get the 14-50 right, and you had the electrician back to check it. I suppose you could have someone else double check it. You should have 240v across the two hots and 120v between each hot and the ground. You should also have 120v between each hot and neutral, but neutral isn't used by the UMC and doesn't matter.

You've replaced every item that I would have thought had anything to do with the signaling of AC charging. I suppose it's back to the service center.

 

[mongo]

Service center is finished with the vehicle.

They replaced the Charge Port ECU and the Charge Port itself after saying the Pilot Pin was corroded causing a communication issue between the UMC and CP ECU (which I thought was pretty ridiculous since 120v, HPWC, and supercharging still work, AFAIK the Pilot Pin is still used for supercharging.) They plugged in their UMC and it worked fine. Upon pickup, I requested to use my own UMC to verify that it was fixed, which they agreed to. We tested with my UMC which showed the same 0/0amps. They warranty replaced the UMC, tested it in front of me (which worked 32/32a), and I was on my way. Got home, plugged it in, same thing. 0/0amps.

Could a 14-50 outlet be bricking UMCs? I would think there would be internal protections against overvoltages/currents.

Hummm...
The 14-50 isn't bricking it. If it were dead, the car wouldn't register it and you previously tried with the 120V adapter.

Proximity Pilot signal is working as shown by voltage at the car
If Control Pilot works for 12A (check this again) it sounds like a SW/ tolerance issue for the PWM at 32A.

 

[CosmicBrownMan]

Does anyone have a reference for the charging requirements/tolerances?

I've shot power at the outlet like 50 times out of insanity and am showing everything correct. I do show a variance of about 1.5v or so between L1 and L2, but that seems expected as the L2 bus in the box is loaded with more breakers and might just be dropping a bit more voltage that L1.

 

[CosmicBrownMan]

Even, albeit sketchily, slaved in another 50a breaker and 6/3 to a 14-50 externally to just test if it was a bad breaker/cable/outlet and no change.

Reminder that Toki is the original poster, I just have the same issue.

 

[davewill]

Does anyone have a reference for the charging requirements/tolerances?

I've shot power at the outlet like 50 times out of insanity and am showing everything correct. I do show a variance of about 1.5v or so between L1 and L2, but that seems expected as the L2 bus in the box is loaded with more breakers and might just be dropping a bit more voltage that L1.

Are you wired into a subpanel, by any chance? If so, it might be worth checking to see if the ground is erroneously tied to neutral in the subpanel. They should remain separate all the way back to the main panel.

Yeah, that kind of minor difference should not have any consequence. Did you try 120v to see if that works? If so, it's kind of hard to buy the guess that the control pilot has a bad connection.

 

[CosmicBrownMan]

Are you wired into a subpanel, by any chance? If so, it might be worth checking to see if the ground is erroneously tied to neutral in the subpanel. They should remain separate all the way back to the main panel.

Yeah, that kind of minor difference should not have any consequence. Did you try 120v to see if that works? If so, it's kind of hard to buy the guess that the control pilot has a bad connection.

Just a single main panel.

120v works just fine.

I agree, the control pilot idea sounded like a way to check the box that they did something.

 

[toki]

So I ended up going to the Tesla Service Center with my Mobile Charger and they determined that the 14-50 adapter was defective. They tested it with a known working charger and it reproduced the no-charge error I had at home.

After swapping the 14-50 adapter for a brand new one, my Mobile Charger at home is charging speedily as expected (50% to 100% in 5 hours).

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[RayK]

So I ended up going to the Tesla Service Center with my Mobile Charger and they determined that the 14-50 adapter was defective. They tested it with a known working charger and it reproduced the no-charge error I had at home.

After swapping the 14-50 adapter for a brand new one, my Mobile Charger at home is charging speedily as expected (50% to 100% in 5 hours).

Thanks for the help everyone!

Service center is finished with the vehicle.

They replaced the Charge Port ECU and the Charge Port itself after saying the Pilot Pin was corroded causing a communication issue between the UMC and CP ECU (which I thought was pretty ridiculous since 120v, HPWC, and supercharging still work, AFAIK the Pilot Pin is still used for supercharging.) They plugged in their UMC and it worked fine. Upon pickup, I requested to use my own UMC to verify that it was fixed, which they agreed to. We tested with my UMC which showed the same 0/0amps. They warranty replaced the UMC, tested it in front of me (which worked 32/32a), and I was on my way. Got home, plugged it in, same thing. 0/0amps.

Could a 14-50 outlet be bricking UMCs? I would think there would be internal protections against overvoltages/currents.

@CosmicBrownMan Given what @toki just reported, when you tested the new UMC at the service center, did you use YOUR 14-50 adapter or one of theirs?

 

[toki]

@toki

I suggest it is time to rule out the car itself. I appreciate it works when using the 5-15 adapter but that is 120v.

Take your car to a public L2 station (not a Supercharger, such as ChargePoint, and see what happens. Most of these will charge the car at either 24a or 32a. It this does not work then the problem is with the car’s charging system.

It did work with a Supercharger last night which is why I ended up taking the Mobile Charger today where they swapped the 14-50 adapter.

My opinion is that you have a problem with the Tesla 14-50 NEMA adapter. Since the 5-15 adapter seems to tell the mobile connector correctly that it can provide 12A, that should say the 5-15 adapter and the MC is okay. If possible I'd try your existing 14-50 adapter on another 50A outlet and see what happens. Or try a different 14-50 NEMA adapter on your new socket.

This was spot on, thank you!

I have also seen some "strange stuff" when people get a new tesla and sign up for multiple third party services that interact with the car in some way. Things like Optiwatt, or any other thing that can interact with the car to "automate stuff" or "charge from green energy!" or monitor / interact with charging in any way.


OP, do you, or have you at any time at all (ever) downloaded anything that interacts with your car charging (perhaps under the premise of saving energy, green energy, optimizing charging, etc etc) even if you downloaded it, logged in and then decided you didnt want it anymore?

If your unsure, change your tesla account password to break the connection to anything like that.

I haven’t downloaded anything that wasn’t already on the car when I picked it up last week. I actually didn’t know I even could.

 

[fholbert]

So I ended up going to the Tesla Service Center with my Mobile Charger and they determined that the 14-50 adapter was defective. They tested it with a known working charger and it reproduced the no-charge error I had at home.

After swapping the 14-50 adapter for a brand new one, my Mobile Charger at home is charging speedily as expected (50% to 100% in 5 hours).

Thanks for the help everyone!

Thanks for following up with the fix.

 

[Tronguy]

Interesting. Got no doubt that if the Service Center says the adapter is bad, then the adapter is bad.

But: When the SO and I got our first M3 back in 2018 and was charging it from the 120 VAC wall outlet, discovered that it was required to slam the adapter, hard, into the TMC. Once done, it worked fine. But clearly there was a bit of "shove it in until it breaks, then back off a quarter turn" flavor about it.

 

[davewill]

I'm amazed they didn't replace the adapter when they replaced the UMC. Never even occurred to me to ask.

 

[mongo]

I'm amazed they didn't replace the adapter when they replaced the UMC. Never even occurred to me to ask.

That's two different people.
@toki (Original thread author) only had adapter replaced
@CosmicBrownMan had charge port, ECU, and UMC replaced. We don't know if adapter was replaced or not.

 

[CosmicBrownMan]

@CosmicBrownMan Given what @toki just reported, when you tested the new UMC at the service center, did you use YOUR 14-50 adapter or one of theirs?

We used my adapter and UMC which didn't pull voltage. They replaced both adapter and UMC, tested it in front of me and it worked. Got home, plugged it in, and showed 0/0amps again, tried a different outlet at a different address and same thing.

Charger and car aren't throwing any faults. Dumbfounded

 

[CosmicBrownMan]

Back at the service center now, and this charger is still not working with their outlet. So, would my outlet be frying chargers? It worked at the service center, didn't work at home, and does not work at the service center the next day...

I don't see how that would happen. Didn't see voltage spikes on my multimeter. L1, L2, neutral and ground are all reading correct. Voltage is a little high (246v), but not out of spec.

They are replacing the charger and adaptor again. I'm going to first test at the alternate location prior to plugging it in at my house.

 

[mongo]

Back at the service center now, and this charger is still not working with their outlet. So, would my outlet be frying chargers? It worked at the service center, didn't work at home, and does not work at the service center the next day...

I don't see how that would happen. Didn't see voltage spikes on my multimeter. L1, L2, neutral and ground are all reading correct. Voltage is a little high (246v), but not out of spec.

They are replacing the charger and adaptor again. I'm going to first test at the alternate location prior to plugging it in at my house.

Your outlet should not be the issue, nor would the behavior make sense with a fried unit.
Did the 12A adapter get tried again after 0/0?

 

[CosmicBrownMan]

Your outlet should not be the issue, nor would the behavior make sense with a fried unit.
Did the 12A adapter get tried again after 0/0?

Yes, the 120v worked. 12/12a

 

[davewill]

Back at the service center now, and this charger is still not working with their outlet. So, would my outlet be frying chargers? It worked at the service center, didn't work at home, and does not work at the service center the next day...

I don't see how that would happen. Didn't see voltage spikes on my multimeter. L1, L2, neutral and ground are all reading correct. Voltage is a little high (246v), but not out of spec.

They are replacing the charger and adaptor again. I'm going to first test at the alternate location prior to plugging it in at my house.

I have trouble seeing how that could be, but it's hard to ignore the possibility. You might want to have the circuit checked out more thoroughly before trying it yet again.

 

[mongo]

Yes, the 120v worked. 12/12a

Yeah, so nothing is fried. Either the 14-50 adapter id connection or 32A communication has an issue.
I'd lean toward the communication link since it seems like the UMC wouldn't default to "I'll charge you at zero amps"

 

[Tronguy]

I've been listening to all the chatter. And I'm seriously wondering if there's a neutral/grounding problem on the NEMA14-50. Like.. 120 VAC is on neutral, or ground, or something equally weird. And, whatever it is, is could be blowing up hardware.

Somebody remind me: Has there been an honest-to-golly voltmeter/ohmmeter check about what wires are wired to what on the NEMA14-50 socket?