piece of plastic stuck in charger plug

[dethman]

okay, a buddy has been staying with us while visiting from up north and we charged his model s on my wall connector at home. i went to charge my own car later and found out the plug wouldn't latch. when i checked the plug, there was a piece of plastic that had broke off my buddy's S and was now stuck in my HPWC. anyone know how to get this damned thing out? can't really charge my car until i get this fixed.

piece stuck in plug

piece broken off port

 

[OPRCE]

A sharpened screwdriver or chisel and hammer it into little bits?

 

[cgrubbe]

Had this happen with my UMC. With it unplugged I used a very small drill bit to drill a hole in the plastic piece that was stuck and then a pick through the hole to pull it out without damaging the internals of the plug.

 

[ajdelange]

Haemostat? Needle nose pliers?

 

[dethman]

It's waaay deep in there and there is no gap so I've tried needles, hemostats, scalpel, tiny screwdriver with no success. Pliers are too big to fit. Maybe ill have to try the drill...

 

[jboy210]

Call mobile service. They have a degree in this type of surgery.

 

[gaswalla]

Sounds like one should only stick their hpwc into cars that they they have a long term relationship

 

[CyberShy]

Is it me or doesn’t it look like a piece of the charger cable broke off onto the car, not vice-versa?

There’s an extra white ring on the cars left charge terminal. Or is that the flash fooling my eyes?

 

[ajdelange]

I had a bad though about this with respect to voltage on those pins so I checked. There isn't any. But that does bring a question to mind. Is the battery floating or is one side connected to chassis ground?

 

[animorph]

I had the same problem. I couldn't charge my loaner Tesla because a piece of plastic had come off my X charge port pin and stuck in the HPWC handle. Worked fine on the X since the plastic piece fit right back where it was supposed to be. But wouldn't charge anything else.

I'm pretty sure I drilled it a bit (very careful not to let it touch anything else) and it loosened enough to drop out. Be sure to turn the breaker for the HPWC off first of course.

I created a thread about it, but it's not a common problem. Maybe we'll see more of it as the cars age.

Glad to hear there isn't any voltage on the exposed metal post.

 

[Lasttoy]

I got pack of very small pick instruments from harbor freight. 6 in pack. They worked great

 

[mongo]

I had a bad though about this with respect to voltage on those pins so I checked. There isn't any. But that does bring a question to mind. Is the battery floating or is one side connected to chassis ground?

Floating. Both HV lines are totally isolated from chassis for safety. Vehicle systems check for high impedance as part of safety checks before contactor engagement and while energized.

Factory 3 phase systems delta systems can be set up similarly, that way it requires two faults to cause a short (they also have monitors for single phase leakage)

 

[ajdelange]

Thanks!

Two phase to ground faults. One phase to phase.

 

[mongo]

Thanks!

Two phase to ground faults. One phase to phase.

Right, and the car will error on the first phase to chassis fault. Pyro fuse will blow on the phase to phase.

 

[ajdelange]

Oh - thought you were talking about factories but of course the same would apply to the 3 phase circuits of the car. So that brings up another question. Is the 3ø circuitry floating or grounded (grounding transformer)?

 

[mongo]

Oh - thought you were talking about factories but of course the same would apply to the 3 phase circuits of the car. So that brings up another question. Is the 3ø circuitry floating or grounded (grounding transformer)?

Oh yeah, I was talking both

The 3 phase to the motor is also isolated from chassis, but directly connected (via switching devices) to the HV supply. The Tesla setup is pretty slick in that the motor bolts directly to the inverter as part of the driver unit, in contrast to system with separate motor and controller and 3 HV cable connecting them.

A 3 phase charger input is also isolated from the chassis. I'm not sure if the Tesla charge has an internal isolating transformer though, it wouldn't require it as the HV is already isolated, but may be there due to topology selected.

 

[ajdelange]

In the usual sense I would guess definitely not as an isolation transformer for ~ 10 kW at 50 Hz (three phase chargers are not installed in cars sold in North America) would have lots of steel. Now there could be isolation in the switching rectifier which doubtless runs north of 50 kHz and where much less steel would be required in transformers.

 

[Rocky_H]

Well, I see a lot of people mentioning it, but no one is giving links to show how to get the plastic piece out. Check out these two threads on the forum about this same issue.
Gen 1 UMC charging cable gives orange "charger not plugged in" error
Loaner Charging Problems (two different loaners)

 

[wycolo]

So what's the word from your buddy? Can he charge?

BTW a replacement charge port for an MS is ~$500 plus 1 hour labor = ~$700.
--

 

[Rocky_H]

So what's the word from your buddy? Can he charge?

The buddy should be fine anywhere. His charging port is just missing a small piece of plastic. So he could use any other charging handle (even this one with his plastic piece stuck in it), and it will work fine.
It's other cars that still have that plastic tip in their charge ports that are hitting the plastic piece in this particular charging handle that will have a problem of not being able to plug in all the way.