Tesla wall connector gen3 overheating fix

[onthecake]

Same thing happened to me while troubleshooting yesterday - dropped to 23/24A, stopped and started and it went to 6A. I ended up just flipping the breaker off and back on and it went back from 6A to 48A. It continued at 48 for the rest of my charge (only ~20 more minutes).

Definitely smells like a firmware issue, or at least they better hope so or they'll have a lot of replacements to perform...

Agreed. Seems like it keeps pointing to false temp readings but still not sure if that is firmware or defective sensor. I hope for ours and tesla's sake its firmware or they are going to have a long road to replacing all of these.

No way they can just tell the software to disable or ignore the sensor readings. At least it seems like its somewhat widespread so it's not just 1 or 2 people waiting for them to fix this.

 

[Aweedman]

I just got off the phone. They confirmed I have the latest firmware and since I'm still having the problem are sending me a replacement.

 

[Horktocken]

I talked to Tesla today too. They looked up my charger, confirmed it was currently connected to the Internet, said it looked like the firmware was interrupted at some point (?!) and that they were pushing the new firmware. They said not to charge for the next 2 hrs, and to turn off the breaker, wait one minute, turn it back on before using the charger again.

I was at work when I spoke with them. By the time I got home, it was 3+ hrs later. So I figured that was plenty of time. I turned off the breaker, waited just over a minute, turned it back on, then went to the wall connector to jump on its WiFi and check for the new firmware version. It was exactly the same number as before, 0.8.58, and the hexadecimal hash after the version number was the same too. So I don’t have high hopes for anything different.

I plugged in and started charging. No need to wait, nothing was hot and the day wasn’t that hot. Coincidentally, the car is again at 56%. I’m charging to 80%.

It’s doing 48A right now and said 1 hr 50 min at the start. I expect it to drop to 24A after about 50 minutes, like yesterday. This time I’ll just let it complete rather than try to reset and risk dropping to 6A. I don’t need another late night.

Tesla gave me an “inquiry number” and told me to call back if the amp-limited charging continued. I’ll call again tomorrow if it doesn’t charge at 48A the whole time.

I strongly hope this is software fixable because I do not want to have to replace the unit and don’t want to be out of a home charging solution (even if frustratingly slow) while I wait for a new one.

I really look forward to seeing if new hardware fixes it for you, like Aweedman. Please update! And I hope everyone here with the issue calls Tesla so they get on the fix! I have faith, I’m just currently frustrated.

 

[Horktocken]

Lol, sorry for the weird smiley at the star of my post. I’m on mobile and can’t figure out how I did that or how to undo it.

 

[Horktocken]

And... it has dropped to 24A. It only took 38 minutes this time. I'm not going to bother resetting to get 48A back but I will watch via the iPhone app to see if it goes the rest of the way to 80% at 24A without dropping further (now it's at 64% and says 2 hr 15 min remaining, ugh). I'll call Tesla again tomorrow.

 

[serendipitous]

And... it has dropped to 24A. It only took 38 minutes this time. I'm not going to bother resetting to get 48A back but I will watch via the iPhone app to see if it goes the rest of the way to 80% at 24A without dropping further (now it's at 64% and says 2 hr 15 min remaining, ugh). I'll call Tesla again tomorrow.

Mine dropped this morning after 5 minutes. Cool garage, all that good stuff. Very frustrating. At least when my last Gen2/14-50 failed, I could use my mobile connector in my outlet to charge at 32A while waiting for this replacement. Now that I've got it hard wired in I don't even have a backup solution other than 5-15 or taking advantage of FUSC at my local supercharger around the corner. Guess I'll start the ticket process since it doesn't seem like a software fix is imminent.

 

[unctarheels]

Started happening to me about a week ago. Installed the Gen 3 wall connector in mid June 2020. First Firmware version then was 0.8.4. It worked beautifully up until last week. My current firmware version is 0.8.58. Was on phone with support this morning. Asked me to send them screenshot of Wall Charger Model #, Serial # and Firmware version as well as a video of the 3 blinking red lights (odd request I thought). Told me I have the latest firmware. Charging at 5kW is useless to me. Paid $500 for charger and $700 for installation. Hoping for a solution fast.

 

[RAM482]

I have read through this thread and I am having the Sam problems as most. I installed 60amp circuit in my house $800 and bought the Gen 3 charger $500. I contacted Tesla after 1 week with the 3 red light Problem and they upgraded the firm ware to 0.8.58. I did not charge right away but Sunday I drove the car 100 mile and came home to charge and I had the same problem. Today I drove again about 100 miles came home to charges ad got the 3 red light problem after 15 min or less. Got on the phone to the Tesla Home charging and they had me reset the circuit breaker and then we got disconnected. The car started to charge at 48 amps for about 10 mins and then 3 red lights and dropped to 24 amps. I am back on hold with Tesla now to see what they are going to do. I have read previous post that suggest they will replace the unit. I hope that is the case.

 

[ShawnA]

Hi All,

From a parallel Model Y thread - Tesla believes they have identified the root cause of the failure.
A temperature sensor in the handle is being misread or giving bad information that it is overheated...
Please see thread below...

Gen 3 Wall Connector 3 red blinks fault code

Shawn

 

[Horktocken]

Gen 3 Wall Connector 3 red blinks fault code

I hope Tesla figures this out. In that thread it sounds like the new replacement wall connector Tesla sent to one of the posters did the same thing. I don’t want to go through the hassle of removing and replacing my unit unless I know that will fix it.

The most compelling thing to me is that, for seemingly all of us, the wall connector worked fine for weeks and then stopped working at around the same time. What are the chances we all got a weird hardware failure at the same time? It seems way more likely this was due to a software push.

 

[RAM482]

I have read through this thread and I am having the Sam problems as most. I installed 60amp circuit in my house $800 and bought the Gen 3 charger $500. I contacted Tesla after 1 week with the 3 red light Problem and they upgraded the firm ware to 0.8.58. I did not charge right away but Sunday I drove the car 100 mile and came home to charge and I had the same problem. Today I drove again about 100 miles came home to charges ad got the 3 red light problem after 15 min or less. Got on the phone to the Tesla Home charging and they had me reset the circuit breaker and then we got disconnected. The car started to charge at 48 amps for about 10 mins and then 3 red lights and dropped to 24 amps. I am back on hold with Tesla now to see what they are going to do. I have read previous post that suggest they will replace the unit. I hope that is the case.

After contacting Tesla home charging support they requested a short video of the wall charger blinking 3 red and a picture of the dash Powerwall Suport NA responded That they were escalating this to Tier 2 for review.

I am wondering if this has anything to do with the length of the cable? I have an 18’ cable is anyone having the same problem with the 8” cable?

 

[unctarheels]

After contacting Tesla home charging support they requested a short video of the wall charger blinking 3 red and a picture of the dash Powerwall Suport NA responded That they were escalating this to Tier 2 for review.

I am wondering if this has anything to do with the length of the cable? I have an 18’ cable is anyone having the same problem with the 8” cable?

My cable is also an 18’ but your question is a great one. Wondering if it’s happening with the shorter cable

 

[wreighven]

This is a weird thread. Is it known / expected that every Gen3 will have this problem? I am asking because I got one of the first models of the Gen3 back in early March and I am not having this problem (18' cable, FYI).

 

[serendipitous]

Just did an experiment today. I took temp readings of the faceplate (granted, there could be variation between the internal connectors and the faceplate) and the vehicle connector, plugged in, and began a charge. After 33 minutes, it had dropped down to 23/24A. Temps were only marginally higher on both ends.

Approx temps in Fahrenheit:
Faceplate - 91 --> 102
Vehicle plug - 92 --> 97

Start:

End:

 

[onthecake]

This is a weird thread. Is it known / expected that every Gen3 will have this problem? I am asking because I got one of the first models of the Gen3 back in early March and I am not having this problem (18' cable, FYI).

I have the 8" version.

Not sure anyone knows. Mine was fine the first 2-3 weeks after it was installed and then started doing it. Is your connected to WIFI all the time?

 

[wreighven]

I have the 8" version.

Not sure anyone knows. Mine was fine the first 2-3 weeks after it was installed and then started doing it. Is your connected to WIFI all the time?

Yeah mine is connected to wi-fi all the time. I've had mine installed for about 4 months now...

 

[Aweedman]

Yeah mine is connected to wi-fi all the time. I've had mine installed for about 4 months now...

Do you know what firmware version you're running?

 

[serendipitous]

Just spoke to a helpful person at Tesla Home Charging support. They do of course know about the issue, and he said they're going to pull logs from the car and see if the car also sees overheating. If so, there's a bad batch of wall connectors that this would likely fall into and they'll replace it. If the car doesn't believe it's overheating, they asked that owners stick it out for another week or so while they try to finish up and deploy another new firmware. He later came back after pulling the connector logs and said they'll replace it regardless, but will bump me to the top of the queue if they see actual overheating in the car logs. It may be a few weeks, though, to get a replacement.

That ends my third-party repeating of what this guy said. Now my speculation:

This all makes sense to me, and correlates with the claim in the other thread that it's the vehicle-end of the plug that's in question. It may be that they had a batch of units that really were overheating at that end due to too much resistance, and they pushed firmware out to trigger the current drop deliberately and aggressively if the wand-end thermistor was anything other than cold, in order to prevent an actual issue. Now maybe they're looking at how to back off that aggressiveness for the units that aren't actually overheating. That would explain why this seemed to occur suddenly and around the same time for a bunch of us who had no issues for months.

Of course, it could also be standard corporate CYA.

For what it's worth, mine is an 18', shipped on June 5th 2020. Part number 1457768-01-F

 

[wreighven]

Do you know what firmware version you're running?

0.8.58 ... is that enough numbers / characters?

 

[RAM482]

Just did an experiment today. I took temp readings of the faceplate (granted, there could be variation between the internal connectors and the faceplate) and the vehicle connector, plugged in, and began a charge. After 33 minutes, it had dropped down to 23/24A. Temps were only marginally higher on both ends.

Approx temps in Fahrenheit:
Faceplate - 91 --> 102
Vehicle plug - 92 --> 97

Start:

End:
View attachment 570583

I did the same thing and had similar numbers.