I just had an electrician install the wall connector today (new gen 3). It is connected via the specified wiring and circuit breaker. When I plug in the car initially, it ramps up to 48A, but later, I find it reduced to 32A. The notification I get is "PCS_a019 Power grid or vehicle issue limiting AC Charging" I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and saw it ramp up, but the error seemed to come back. The electrician is on his way back to evaluate further. Does anyone have any tips on what the issue might be? I haven't been experiencing any power issues like brownouts or flickering at my residence. My car didn't have an issue when I was using the Mobile Connector with the 240V outlet.
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New Wall Connector initially charges at 48A then reduces to 32A
- Thread starter CoolBuddy
- Start date
If the charge display in the car says 32/48, it's probably the car charger or charge port.
If it says 32/32, the charge connector is limiting current, possibly due to power wire connection heating or heating at the charge port.
Other option is grid voltage droop which requires watching it as the charge session starts.
So it is probably an issue with my car then. It will ramp up to 48A each time I plug it in, even if I unplug it after it drops it down, but when it does, it shows 32/48A. Electrician noted that the voltage was 4 to 5 vac measured at the input compared to what it is reporting too, but didn't find anything else wrong. It has been fine charging at SC and with the 32A prior. I need to go to a destination charger I guess.
ATPMSD
Active Member
PCS_a019Power grid or vehicle issue limiting AC chargingUnplug and retry / Try different charging location
What this alert means:Charging speed has been reduced due to a condition that affects your vehicle’s ability to charge with AC power. DC fast charging / Supercharging should still function as expected.
This may be due to power supply disturbances caused by the external charging equipment or by the electrical power grid. In some cases, this condition may be the result of using nearby electric devices that draw a lot of power.
If these possible causes can be ruled out, then a condition with your vehicle itself may also be affecting AC charging.
What to do:
If this alert is accompanied by another alert that specifies the condition affecting AC charging, start by investigating that alert.
Further troubleshooting tips based on equipment type:
- If using a Mobile Connector, try charging the vehicle with a different wall outlet.
- If the vehicle starts to charge, the issue was likely with the original wall outlet.
- If the vehicle still does not charge, the issue may be with the Mobile Connector.
- If using a Wall Connector, try charging the vehicle with different charging equipment like a Mobile Connector powered by a separate wall outlet.
- If the vehicle starts to charge, the issue was likely with the Wall Connector.
You can also try charging your vehicle using a Tesla Supercharger or Destination Charging location, all of which can be located through the map on your vehicle's touchscreen display. See Maps and Navigation for more details.
If this alert persists when attempting to charge at multiple locations and with different charging equipment, it is recommended that you schedule service.
Um. You may know this already, in which case my apologies: With Teslas that can charge from city 240 VAC power at 48A, there exist in the car three 16A rectifiers that work in parallel. You can kind of see this when the car starts charging: First, it'll ramp up from 0 to 16A; then bobble a bit, then go up to 32A; bobble again, and end up at 48A.
If one or more of those rectifiers die, then one would see the charging current go down by 16A for each one that's dead. That's been known to happen. If it's a new car, then the warranty applies, and you should give Tesla a ding. They'll have 240 VAC @ 48A circuit to test it.
If one or more of those rectifiers die, then one would see the charging current go down by 16A for each one that's dead. That's been known to happen. If it's a new car, then the warranty applies, and you should give Tesla a ding. They'll have 240 VAC @ 48A circuit to test it.
Yeah, that's a car issue and likely the one @Tronguy is talking about. The second number is what the connector can provide and the first number is how much the car is pulling.
ATPMSD
Active Member
If there is a Tesla SC within a reasonable distance I would go there and connect it to one of their Connectors, just so you know if the problem is with the car or your wall connector / wiring / etc.
Um. When doing my $DAY_JOB, I troubleshoot $RANDOM electronic hardware for a living. Under, "Guessing madly" sounds like something is overheating: It gets hot, fails, and stays that way. Turn everything off, the fault clears, start it up, then it gets hot again, and dies.
That advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.
There's lots else that could go wrong other than the trannies and stuff in the PCS: Loose wires, corrosion, who knows?
But there's another possible point. Say that you've been charging using a Mobile Connector all this time, or using lots of public AC chargers, like Charge Point. The first of those won't charge at a higher rate than 32A; lots of the second ones never charge faster than 32A. So, if you just put in a brand spanking-new Gen 3 charger, put it on a 60A breaker so you can get the whole 48A, it Just Might Be that that PCS module has been dead for a while, and now you're finding out.
Dunno. don't know what kinds of logs the car has. But there's the possibility that this PCS has been dead for a very long time. Long enough, possibly, to have been around when the car was still under warranty.
You're not going to get any true-blue joy out of Tesla on this one. But if you're nice to them and give the the hang-dog look, well, from time to time I've seen them take something off the bill.
A little searching around these forums reveals that, for one person, a PCS replacement ran $2000. But that (a) might be an actual dead PCS, which you may or may not have and (b) time moveth on, prices of things drop, so you Never Know; repair costs for this item may have dropped.
Finally: It's not common, but there are third-party Tesla repair people, and sometimes they're cheaper. Again, dunno, and depends upon where you live.
I was looking at my Emporia data and it looks like it made it about 41 minutes before dropping initially. I found a publicly available wall connector and am charging now. I've been at it for 15 minutes and have 50 min left to get to 90%. If it doesn't cut down before 90%, I may just bump up to 100% and give it another 30 to 60 minutes. Would it stay at 48A up until 100%. I'll be taking 13 to 15% off as soon as I leave so not too worried about going past 90. Edit: started the session at 8:18 PM, has now passed time period where it lowered previously. I figure if it makes it 70 minutes, that could be an indication it may be my new device. What do you guys think? I've submitted a support ticket regardless.
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Sorry for all the updates. I'm at 82 minutes now at this one with no drop. Is there a chance it is my new wall connector?
If you're getting 48A and no problems.. yeah, it's probably the new Gen 3 Wall Connector.
On another thread, it was revealed that the WC's contains a heat sensor. If things get warm, the WC tells the car and the car slows things down.
There's a help line (used to be phone, these days it's some other scheme, I think) but the WC maintenance people are reportedly active, fast on their feet, and pull vehicle logs (and other stuff) with gay abandon. They're also known to drop-ship WC's on the drop of a hat.
If your experiment comes up roses on your car, call them.
Isn't the temperature foldback different than 2/3? Even if 16A, it should result in a 32/32 readout though. That's how the EVSE communicates with the car.
@CoolBuddy, was the recent test somewhere cooler than your garage?
Yeah, it was outside where the temps were in the 80s and my garage was around 95. I'm not sure what my garage was at when it failed last night. I'm heading to Michigan today but when I get back tomorrow, I think I may keep my human door to the house open to the garage to cool the area near it since the device is close by.
I'm really leaning toward it being on the vehicle side. So I don't expect cooling the wall connector to help.
Safe travels!
It was cooler where the car was so the charger didn't overheat.
From the failure events, it seems thermal:
The car acts on it's own issues, voltage sag, and the charge connecter reported maximum. Since your readout and voltages stayed normal, the wall connector seems fine.
Some interesting info from charging yesterday. In the morning, the outside temp was 76F. I left the car for about an hour and it dropped in current to 32A. Later, i went to the same charger it was successful at, but left it and it dropped after maybe 30 minutes. I thought about what other variables were at play and when i charged at home last night. I left the cabin air on using "keep on" in the controls and charged from 14% to 90% maintaining 48A for the total charge time Temps in the garage were similar to temps from the outside in the morning
When I woke up in the middle of the night to see charge complete, i turned the climate off. My Emporia monitor shows that the cabin air was drawing roughly 6A after charging completed. I'm going to attempt my next charge at 42A with no air.
I wouldn't expect ambient air temperature to have an impact, but I can believe an issue with a component overheating due to that extra current is outpacing the ability to remove the heat.
This is only a sample size of one like the first location was. I am convinced it is my PCS module now, just interesting to see if it will be able to at least give me 42A on a consistent basis. I don't think I'll push it to 48A with nothing else to draw current again though. I certainly won't be spending $2K just to get an extra 16A from what I was getting before.
I guess this could be a caution to anyone thinking of getting a WC. Try a few sessions at public ones with no cabin air running before committing to the cost of the device plus materials and possibly labor.
By the way, I see you are in Michigan. I was just charging at a sushi restaurant near Horrock's Farm Market in Lansing. Have you been there? Awesome place. If it hadn't dropped to 32A on the way back to the car yesterday morning, I would've dropped the stuff off and returned to enjoy a beer at their beer garden.
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