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Should I cool the plug at TX 105*?
- Thread starter WNC-MY
- Start date
That would do absolutely nothing. Supercharger cables are already liquid cooled.
Works great on V2 superchargers, (they are not liquid cooled). Not sure how well cooled the actual end point on the charge cable is cooled on the V3, may or may not make a difference.
Keith
Keith
I think that the sc has temperature monitors built in. Yes, it my slow your charging speed but I don’t think it is a good idea to add anything not designed to be used with the chargers for safety reasons.
From what I've read, there's a temperature sensor located in the SC handle designed to measure the temperature of the SC cabling. The sun can heat up the handle enough to cause the sensor to report a temperature in excess of the actual temperature of the conductors inside the SC cable. On a hot day, that erroneously high reading can cause the SC to throttle back charging speed because it thinks the conductors are getting too toasty. That's the theory at least.
In actual experience, I haven't seen charging speed drop even when Supercharging on a hot and sunny day in Houston. And even if it did, I don't think it's wise to use the wet towel trick; given that the cable's putting out a massive amount of power, I'd much prefer to err on the side of caution.
So would you not use a supercharger in the rain, given that logic? The wet cloth hack is pretty well known for V2 SC’s and not an issue at all.
Can't believe we are (me included) talking about something like this.
Not quite.
In a perfect scenario the towel would provide just enough cooling so that the sensor's reported temperature matches the actual conductor temperature.
The issue is that we don't know what the magnitude of the discrepancy between the temperature reported by the sensor and the actual temperature of the conductors the sensors are designed to measure. That is, we know the sensor reading hotter than it should, but we don't know by how much. This, in turn, means we can't determine whether the damp towel is providing just enough cooling or too much cooling.
A damp towel that provides too much cooling will also cause the sensor to report a temperature different from that of the actual conductors it was designed to measure. The only difference is that the direction of the error flips--now the sensor is reporting a temperature lower than the actual conductor temperature.
It's more risky to have the sensor report an erroneously low temperature than an erroneously high one. The latter scenario makes the conductors run at a temperature lower than their maximum design temperature. The former leaves open the possibility that the conductors exceed the temperature at which they were designed to safely operate.
Now, sure, the marginal increase in risk is likely small. But the same is true with respect to the marginal benefit. While there probably won't be any significant consequences from using the damp towel trick, my opinion is that doing so is not cost justified. But, of course, reasonable minds can disagree.
fiehlsport
Tire Guy
A cooling cloth on V2 Superchargers in the desert has been shown to extend the amount of time you get before the charger starts throttling. I've seen many-a road trip video in the last few years where this strategy had a noticeable effect to maintain peak speeds for longer.
Yes, it sounds crazy, but it works. When the ambient temp is 110F, V2 supercharger handles hit their limits due to thermals.
Supercharger is not the only one experiencing the extreme temperature. Your car and the battery too. You can’t say for sure which one caused the throttling.
I never said that V2 cables need to be liquid cooled, and in fact said I am unsure if the liquid cooling of V3 cables mitigates the problems of high ambient temperature charging.
I do know that when the ambient temperature is high the thermal sensor in the cable indicates that it is overheating. It then derates the charging speed in an attempt to lower the cable temperature.
Keith
Actually you can. If the battery (or some other) temperature being the limiting factor was the issue, then placing a damp towel on the connector would have no benefit. On a recent trip while experiencing throttling I placed a damp cloth on the connector and watched my charging speed ramp back up from 70 KW to 85 KW, and it then followed the "normal" charging curve as SOC rose. If some other factor was the source of the throttling the damp cloth would have had zero impact on charging rate.
Keith
maybe. what if the speed was supposed to go up at the same time you placed your wet towel? Is there any scientific data/experiment out there? I am not trying to dismiss your experience. I am just genuinely curious.
This entire discussion is just ridiculous. Putting a wet towel on the connector is dangerous and anyone that does this is being irresponsible.
fiehlsport
Tire Guy
It's not though. Plenty of tests on YouTube (Road trip videos on Out of Spec Reviews, for one) show that this is totally fine, and does work. The handles get very toasty in the sun and this takes some of the temperature out of the hottest point, where the connection is made. The cables aren't the issue. Heat is generated the most at junction points - IE the connector/port interface. It's only a difference of maybe 10F, which is enough to unlock some extra KW.
For 99% of summer driving, the towel trick isn't even needed. It only helps in extreme temps.
Chewy13
https://ts.la/nick670348
Just put one of these on the connector, and set it and forget it.
There's an assumption in your analysis that I'm not sure is necessarily true. Is the sensor supposed to measure the conductor temperature or the handle exterior temperature?
There are design limits on both: the handle exterior can't become unsafe for a person to touch, and the conductors / cable interior has some much higher temperature limit that would be unsafe to exceed (due to the materials melting).
I think you're assuming the sensor is trying to measure the latter, but if it's measuring the former, then the wet towel isn't tricking anything. It's actually cooling the limiting component, namely the handle exterior.
I don't know if I'm right or not, but the temperature limits for the parts a person can touch are likely a lot lower than the melting points for plastic and metal.
Another thing to consider is that the wet towel trick has been known for long enough that if it actually posed a risk of tricking the sensors and letting the cable interior get too hot Tesla would have advised people to stop (or make a design change to make it not risky).
Thanks for actually giving a reasonable analysis, btw, and not just a knee jerk "you're tricking the sensor it's dangerous and irresponsible!" reaction.
If it's so dangerous, how come:
a) Tesla hasn't advised people to stop
b) made a design change to eliminate the risk (if the towel actually tricks the sensor, they're probably not well positioned in the handle to measure what they intend to measure)
c) nobody has shown something dangerous actually happen. The internet would be all over a "Tesla supercharger MELTS video!"
It doesn't make much sense.
