This is the second 2013 I bought at auction, not the one I posted about a few weeks ago. This one I bought last week has 199,000 miles. I drove it around the lot and it seemed fine although 16 miles of range left. Today I get back to the auction to pick up the title and check on the car. The range gauge shows 0 miles and it was parked next to a charger. So I stick the charging cable into the charge port, and it's flashing amber. The instrument cluster says a charge rate of 9 miles/hour. I leave it there and check back in about an hour. Still flashing amber but at least it's showing 7 miles range. Come back in another hour and now the port is green and range is at 17 miles. Was the port flashing amber because the battery was so low?
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New to me 2013 with flashing orange charge port
- Thread starter atikovi
- Start date
Amber means something else. See below:
| Color of charge port light | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| WHITE - SOLID (normal behavior) | Model S is ready to charge and the connector is not inserted, or the charge port latch is unlocked and the connector is ready to be removed. | Insert the charge connector if you want to charge, or remove the charge connector if done charging. |
| BLUE - BLINKING (normal behavior) | Model S is actively communicating with the charging station. | Nothing. Wait a few seconds for the charge port to either begin blinking green (charging) or turn to solid blue (a charging session is scheduled for the future). |
| BLUE - SOLID (action may be required) | Model S detects that a connector has been plugged in and the charging session is scheduled to begin at a specified future time. Not actively charging. | If you want to charge immediately, disable Scheduled Charging or touch Start Charging on the touchscreen or in your mobile app. If the Scheduled Charging setting is intended, no further action is required. As a reminder, Scheduled Charging remembers your location. |
| GREEN - BLINKING (normal behavior) | Charging is in progress. As Model S approaches a full charge, the frequency of the blinking slows. | Nothing. Remove the charge cable when you are done charging. |
| GREEN - SOLID (normal behavior) | Charging is complete. | Remove the charge cable when you are ready to drive. |
| AMBER - SOLID (action required) | The connector is not fully plugged in to the charge port. | Realign the connector to the charge port and insert fully. If the issue persists, inspect the charge port and connector for obstructions. If no obstructions are found, try a different charge cable. |
| AMBER - BLINKING (action required) | Model Y is charging at a reduced current because it is not fully plugged in to the charge port. | Realign the connector to the charge port and insert fully. If the issue persists, inspect the charge port and connector for obstructions. If no obstructions are found, try a different charge cable. |
| RED - SOLID (action required) | A fault is detected and charging has stopped or cannot begin. | Check the touchscreen for a fault message. If a fault is not present, try using a different charge cable or resetting the charging source (refer to the status lights on the Mobile Connector or Wall Connector if applicable). If a different charge cable does not work, turn the vehicle off and on using the touchscreen and try again. |
| NO LIGHT (normal behavior) | Model Y is locked and has been sleeping for a period of time. | Nothing. Unlocking the vehicle or pressing the button on charge handle will cause the charge port status light to display again. |
There's two signal leads, a ground lead, and the two power leads (the biggies). My understanding is that the longest pin is the ground, followed by the differential signal leads, followed by the mongo power leads.
I'm just hypothesizing here, but I've had to work with stuff like this for a living, sometimes. In no particular order:
- The signal leads are differential, in that one signal is going positive whilst the other is going negative; typically, these would go into some kind of rugged differential receiver with a single-ended output for use by the car's computer.
- Suppose that the ground wire isn't making contact, because of dirt/grunge/busted wires. Given that that's a differential receiver in there that probably has a decent common-mode range (i.e., the common dc offsets on the two signal leads may be non-zero), communications may be up, sorta, but there would be a distinct error in that those DC offsets aren't at zero with respect to the ground pin. No charging until that ground pin is actually grounded, so let's flash amber.
- Suppose that one of the two signal leads and the ground are making contact, but the other signal lead isn't. Well, it's a differential receiver, and let's just guess and say that the "open" wire defaults to ground, done with a resistor or something. Hence, signalling may be received, even with one signal wire open, but an activity detector on the open wire detects No Movement Today - and that's a fault. Flash the amber time.
- Going along with the grunge ideas, it's possible that the differential signal is below a required threshold, due to high resistance/broken driver/etc. Again, communications might be working, but not all that well. Flashing Amber Time.
Ha. One Day, Back In The Deeps Of Time, I got sent to the factory to find out why this particular system that they were trying to commission kept on failing, repetitively, even when circuit boards were swapped in, out, and sideways, leading to enormous amounts of head-scratching. I showed up with an o'scope, VOM, white wires, and a soldering iron and started to troubleshoot. Weird - there the signal was on the backplane, there it wasn't on the circuit board and.. the ohmmeter said Open. No bent pins, anywhere, and the connector on the circuit board was fine and said board worked just fine on another system.
Got this blame pin-puller (factories have stuff like that) and pulled the pin. The blame thing had something that I swear looked like shellac all over it. None of the other pins had that - just that one. Replaced the pin, everything comes back to life.
We took pictures with a microscope, called the pin manufacturer and the backplane build guys, and nobody could explain this. Weird.
Now, that was on a piece of gear that gets buried in nice, clean, central offices with air filters and all that jazz. Now you're talking about a NACS connector that's exposed to polluted air with NOx and SOx, water, humidity, dirt, bugs (I've pulled lots of bugs out of backplanes, I know a lot about Indian sub-continent bugs these days), and what-all. I'm not kidding about the grunge on pins. Time to get out a magnifying glass and a bright light.
brainhouston
Active Member
that is actually possible, it'll just reduce the current but since it switched to green without touching the handle, it can't be it
i'm guessing maybe when its charging the buffer capacity its amber, kinda like iphone that will show battery icon but won't turn on till it gets enough charge...
Actually...
Forget "buffer" follies. A Tesla isn't a cell phone.
But if you want to talk about intermittents on gunked up contacts, then I'm your man.
This is very possible if you would lay off the snark for a minute. When you push the plug in, the port has a latching pin that pushes up into the notch that is cut into the bottom of the handle. If it's almost all the way in there, but a millimeter or two short, the electrical pins will be contacting, but the latching pin is still blocked by the handle and not quite lined up to fit into the notch. So the car senses the connection but not latched and show the orange light to let you know it's not in all the way.
This has been happening kind of frequently to my 2014 S85 at Superchargers when I am on trips, but it doesn't happen at home. My theory is that it is trying to trigger that locking pin too quickly, despite my attempt to push the plug in very fast. It will flash orange for several seconds and show me the warning on the screen, but then seems to try again and does get the locking pin in, and it turns green, and away it goes.
What in the everlovin' heck?
brainhouston
Active Member
haha i was just throwing ideas since i've never saw orange light
was thinking that maybe if u drain HV past 0%, ie using up buffer capacity (4kw?) or even lower, it'll show orange while it charging up to zero...
i'm guessing thats not a thing...
The colors are staying in their lane about telling the status of charging or not, rather than telling about battery level. Blue is correctly plugged but waiting to charge. Green is actually running. Red is some kind of error. And orange is the partial connection.
I got the car home today and used the charging cable from my other Tesla. Charged normal with the flashing green light, but....can only charge to 29 miles range. Has the BMS_U018 code so I assume the battery is bad, but short of replacement, is there anything to improve range even a little? Would a few charge/discharge cycles help balance the pack? What about a BMS reset or disconnecting the 12V? The car runs and drives great otherwise and has free supercharging as well.
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