Recovering from a Charging Failure after Power Outage

[bob_p]

We're in the Houston area - and after the hurricane landfall, we lost power for several hours. When the power was restored, our S 100D was able to charge without problems. However, our S P85 (with the dual chargers) failed - and showed the "red ring of death" on the charging port.

When that happened I tried moving it from a 14-50 outlet to our HPWC, and tried modifying the charging amps, and was not able to get the charging to start - with a "charging problem" error displayed on the console.

I tried doing a reboot of the processors - and also a "power off" - and that didn't fix it.

I then put the 110 outlet adapter on the UMC and plugged the car into a standard outlet.

And... charging began successfully.

I then went back to the 14-50 - and it charged without problems.

Evidently switching from 220V to 110V charging cleared whatever was failing - and the charger now appears to be operating correctly.

[Which is good - because we evacuated in the S P85 - and have been able to use a destination charger at our hotel.]

 

[boaterva]

Weird... Wonder if maybe the 240 supply was just wonky enough and it stabilized... why would a lower charge rate correct the problem? It has no way of knowing that the 'external' power is 120 or 240, the UMC is the 'same' on the inside, just fewer amps. Unless I'm totally confused...

Glad you guys made it out!

 

[bob_p]

Yesterday, we had a Car Needs Service warning after disconnecting from the hotel's HPWC.

Evidently the DC-to-DC charging circuit is having problems - possible from the power outage or from the high water we had to drive through (for about a half mile) on the way out of town.

The local Service Center has the car now and should have it fixed by this afternoon.

If a power outage is anticipated, may be prudent to disconnect the charging cable - until there's confidence power will be stable...

 

[Darmie]

Bob, let us know what they find out. Hope for the best for you and your family.

 

[rxlawdude]

I've seen something similar, but I use a Clipper Creek HCS-40P with the J1772->Tesla adapter. When we have any power glitches, I see the "red ring of death" on the car and two red fault LEDs on the Clipper Creek unit. No amount of unplugging and plugging the car back in resolves this.

The ONLY way that works to clear it is to unplug the Clipper Creek from the main power, then reconnect to the car. I theorize that a software flag gets set in the Clipper Creek indicating "bad power", and that when the EVSE negotiates with the car's chargers, the car recognizes the fault and displays red rings.

It sounds like your situation you tried both the UMC and the HPWC at 240V and both failed. So a slightly different issue.

 

[bob_p]

It looks like the power outage on Saturday damaged the DC-to-DC charging circuit in the car. It was replaced by Tesla under our extra 50K extended warranty (for a $200 deductible).

When we had our last power problems, Tesla's charging team told me the Tesla onboard hardware has built in surge protection, so we didn't install a surge protector on the 100A circuit used for charging our two Model S cars.

We've now had Tesla hardware failures in two power outages. Last year, the secondary charger had to be replaced. This week, the DC-to-DC charging circuit had to be replaced after an outage.

When we can get an electrician out here (which could be a while, due to all of the Hurricane damage) we'll add a surge protector to the panel serving the EV chargers.

Though, if we suspect there could be an outage, we'll also likely unplug both cars, or throw the breakers to turn off those circuits.