Rolec rcbo Tripping

[Christiez]

Afternoon,

Plugged in the car to charge last night and realised that I had no power to the charger, turns out the rcbo had tripped. Reset and let it charge for 5 minutes and then manually stopped to allow the schedule to run overnight. Woke up this morning to find no charge and the rcbo had tripped again, tried resetting and within minutes it's tripped again (tried 3 or 4 times).

The rcbo I've got is; pretty sure this should be the more reliable one.

Anyone had any experience with this and potential solutions? Had to visit a supercharger this morning (just) but don't want to make it a habit. I've contacted the installers although haven't had any feedback as yet.

 

[arg]

Yes, if your RCBO has the green lever/button like the one in your image (rather than blue) then it is the improved Rolec unit that isn't believed to have the "burning out" issue that earlier ones had.

If this installation had the OLEV grant, then you have a mandatory 3-year warranty, so the installer has to sort it out for you, assuming it's not the car that is at fault. Given you've supercharged successfully, that rules out some kinds of fault in the car; however it would be useful to try AC charging too - use the UMC into a 13A socket if you don't have any other options to try.

If the car is OK, then either the RCBO itself is faulty or there's some source of leakage in the cables etc. You could isolate the power at source and then take the front off the Rolec to look for signs of burning around the RCBO (not expected, but that's what used to happen with the blue ones), or water ingress or similar damage. Also worth inspecting the cable/connector for damage.

I believe this design of RCBO with the double lever is supposed to indicate whether it was leakage or overcurrent that tripped it by the position of the levers after tripping, but I've not handled one myself so I can't describe it exactly.

 

[Christiez]

Yes, if your RCBO has the green lever/button like the one in your image (rather than blue) then it is the improved Rolec unit that isn't believed to have the "burning out" issue that earlier ones had.

If this installation had the OLEV grant, then you have a mandatory 3-year warranty, so the installer has to sort it out for you, assuming it's not the car that is at fault. Given you've supercharged successfully, that rules out some kinds of fault in the car; however it would be useful to try AC charging too - use the UMC into a 13A socket if you don't have any other options to try.

If the car is OK, then either the RCBO itself is faulty or there's some source of leakage in the cables etc. You could isolate the power at source and then take the front off the Rolec to look for signs of burning around the RCBO (not expected, but that's what used to happen with the blue ones), or water ingress or similar damage. Also worth inspecting the cable/connector for damage.

I believe this design of RCBO with the double lever is supposed to indicate whether it was leakage or overcurrent that tripped it by the position of the levers after tripping, but I've not handled one myself so I can't describe it exactly.

Thanks for the feedback, is appreciated. I'll wait on the installer coming back to me and in the meantime use the UMC with a 13A socket and see how I get on.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that at one point the RCBO tripped and the car wasn't even plugged in - guess that rules out the car being the issue..

 

[MrBadger]

We recently had a Rolec multi fitted at in laws. The fitter showed me how to reset the RCBO between meter and charge point - its an odd one and I can't fully remember what he said. When I commented that thankfully it probably wouldn't need resetting, he said that it was actually not unusual if damp...

 

[Hatchie]

Just recently had to replace my rcbo after it burned out after 4years of use ( old blue type) however whist checking the wiring found the cause was a Lose wire on the isolater switch between the consumer unit and the rcbo which had been arcing as well. Have replaced both and can now charge at 32amp without issue.
Historically I also had the random trips over the previous 4 years and yes the damp Did seem to increase the chance ( even though was only charging at 16 amp.

 

[Christiez]

Unsure why but I was hopeful that on returning home all would be well, I was mistaken. The RCBO won't even reset now without switching off at the consumer unit but as soon as I switch back on it trips..definitely isn't a happy bunny.

When damp is mentioned, is this damp in the RCBO or the charge point itself?

 

[Hatchie]

Never worked out why the damp made a difference. If you can isolate the charger ,/ know a friendly electrion it's worth checking the connections in the rcbo as they can vibrate loose. Give all the connections a once over.
If it's being check by a electrician get the consumer unit wiring checked too as I have found them loose too in the past.
Ifi it will not reset without the car connected you may have a short some where.

 

[arg]

Unsure why but I was hopeful that on returning home all would be well, I was mistaken. The RCBO won't even reset now without switching off at the consumer unit but as soon as I switch back on it trips..definitely isn't a happy bunny.

This is actually good news. With a hard fault, it can easily be found and fixed. It's the "trips once in a blue moon" sort of fault that's difficult to find and difficult to ever be sure you've really fixed it.

When damp is mentioned, is this damp in the RCBO or the charge point itself?

Damp in the RCBO would definitely be bad, but isn't very likely unless there's water getting into the unit on a large scale. Damp in/around the cables and connectors is more likely. But it usually takes some kind of actual defect (tiny break in insulation or suchlike) that the damp then exacerbates it. Or a combination of water and dirt: the actual connector that plugs into the car is likely to get wet, and water should drain out harmlessly; the contacts are sufficiently far apart that a simple film of water shouldn't cause an issue (pure water isn't conductive). But water mixed with dirt/corrosion products can be quite conductive - so cleaning the connector can help. However, that sort of thing shouldn't be an issue with a brand new unit.

 

[Adopado]

The fitter showed me how to reset the RCBO between meter and charge point - its an odd one and I can't fully remember what he said.

Yes, that caught me out as it's not exactly intuitive .. but simple once you know .. after it has tripped and the 2 levers are down don't just try to push them back up as you would expect ... you have to push them further down, quite firmly against a strong spring, when they click you can then move them upwards in the way you would expect. If you don't do this the RCBO levers are just floppy and won't latch in the "up" position.

 

[i3m3Andrew]

Oh yes...., the state inside after 4 years use with a Leaf then i3 and now a M3.

 

[Christiez]

Update.

My installer has contacted Rolec who have advised that it's more than likely the mode 3 controller that has failed - new part has been ordered and I should have an engineer out on Tuesday afternoon.

 

[Christiez]

Evening,

Just to provide an update, engineer visited and fitted a new mode 3 controller. All working up till last night until same problem occurred, now waiting on next steps.

In the meantime, I'm charging using the 3 pin but having issues. The charging seems to start fine but randomly stopping forcing me to restart, I'm not getting any alerts to this happening so pot luck me finding out. Anyone else experience this and know a solution?

 

[awaghorn]

Oh yes...., the state inside after 4 years use with a Leaf then i3 and now a M3.

That looks quite concerning. I have the same unit I think I from a previous phev which I am planning to use when my car arrived. Do you know why it did that? Was there a fault?

 

[WannabeOwner]

Yes, if your RCBO has the green lever/button like the one in your image (rather than blue) then it is the improved Rolec unit that isn't believed to have the "burning out" issue that earlier ones had.

Just as a data point:

I had Blue Ones on both Rolecs (Home and Work), and they both burnt out and were replaced with green ones (and have been OK since bar only a couple of occasions when they have tripped)

The charging seems to start fine but randomly stopping forcing me to restart, I'm not getting any alerts to this happening so pot luck me finding out. Anyone else experience this and know a solution?

I have Scheduled Notifications set up in TeslaFi, basically based on "If the car is not at THIS %age by THIS time it is at risk of not reaching Full Charge by departure time".

TeslaFi trial extended from 14 days to a month with a Referral Code ... that might be long enough to tide you over getting it fixed?

May well be other API schedulers etc. that could alert (better?). The WishList for TeslaFi has raised "alert if power fails during charging" but I don't think that is a feature yet.

Here's the TeslaFi schedule I cobbled together for charge-at-work charger failure notification