Tesla Wall Connector with J1772 plug instead of Tesla proprietary plug

[WhipperDipper]

First results were a no go.
My Leaf recognized the J1772 and initiated charging, but after 5 minutes, stopped (based on 3 blue lights on dash). When pressing the latch handle on J1772, I can hear an audible click as it seems the pilot Is correctly landed.
When plugging this setup into a Model 3 with adapter, everything starts to initiate, but eventually errors out with a red T and message on screen ‘Unable to charge-charge station not powered’. Via the Model 3 screen, it shows 0/32A and 1V when plugged in.

Thinking I may have a bad J1772 cable (unlikely), I swapped the Tesla cable back into the HPWC to use on Model 3 only. Same results. Seems that I have a bad HPWC. Looking further into diag on this, but any help appreciated.
There is a red flashing LED on the board, near the connection for L1/L2 to cable. This flashes steady while powered, regardless of any actions. Wondering if this is normal, or indication of error. As far as the cover goes, only green lights. It passes test mode when initially installing. For reference, I have a 14-50 cable wired into input. 14-50 plug is good, and measured 240V at fuses.

 

[Sorensen]

First results were a no go.
My Leaf recognized the J1772 and initiated charging, but after 5 minutes, stopped (based on 3 blue lights on dash). When pressing the latch handle on J1772, I can hear an audible click as it seems the pilot Is correctly landed.
When plugging this setup into a Model 3 with adapter, everything starts to initiate, but eventually errors out with a red T and message on screen ‘Unable to charge-charge station not powered’. Via the Model 3 screen, it shows 0/32A and 1V when plugged in.

Thinking I may have a bad J1772 cable (unlikely), I swapped the Tesla cable back into the HPWC to use on Model 3 only. Same results. Seems that I have a bad HPWC. Looking further into diag on this, but any help appreciated.
There is a red flashing LED on the board, near the connection for L1/L2 to cable. This flashes steady while powered, regardless of any actions. Wondering if this is normal, or indication of error. As far as the cover goes, only green lights. It passes test mode when initially installing. For reference, I have a 14-50 cable wired into input. 14-50 plug is good, and measured 240V at fuses.

Are you going to give up, then, since your HPWC is bad?

I've been scavenging bits of info from various places for this as well, though I plan to swap j1772 onto a gen 3. I've learned a bit about what the wires are, and what the electronics look like inside the Tesla connector/handle. I don't know if the same things apply to the gen 1, but depending on what your plan is perhaps we can share information here.

At least for gen2/3 there's apparently a temperature sensing circuit on the extra two wires in the Tesla cable (orange and... brown?). Not sure if this is a simple thermistor based circuit or what, but if I must I'll crack open the Tesla connector to take a closer look. I have a photo of the circuit in there but it's damaged/incomplete.

My thinking is that since the standard j1772s don't have this circuit, or do it in a way that doesn't require the extra wires (I've seen patents showing temperature shutoff options for j1772 that simply send a small current to ground and trigger the GFCI), maybe this function can just be mocked up inside the HPWC, which would enable us to use a prewired j1772, 5 wire cable.

I've got a gen 3 coming Wednesday so I'll begin playing with it in the coming week.

 

[WhipperDipper]

Are you going to give up, then, since your HPWC is bad?

I've been scavenging bits of info from various places for this as well, though I plan to swap j1772 onto a gen 3. I've learned a bit about what the wires are, and what the electronics look like inside the Tesla connector/handle. I don't know if the same things apply to the gen 1, but depending on what your plan is perhaps we can share information here.

At least for gen2/3 there's apparently a temperature sensing circuit on the extra two wires in the Tesla cable (orange and... brown?). Not sure if this is a simple thermistor based circuit or what, but if I must I'll crack open the Tesla connector to take a closer look. I have a photo of the circuit in there but it's damaged/incomplete.

My thinking is that since the standard j1772s don't have this circuit, or do it in a way that doesn't require the extra wires (I've seen patents showing temperature shutoff options for j1772 that simply send a small current to ground and trigger the GFCI), maybe this function can just be mocked up inside the HPWC, which would enable us to use a prewired j1772, 5 wire cable.

I've got a gen 3 coming Wednesday so I'll begin playing with it in the coming week.

Work got in the way then we had a road trip. Haven’t revisited since I reverted everything back. Plan to dig further into the gen 1 HPWC to understand what is bad. Depending on that, may give up. Kinda needing a Level 2 J1772 option sooner than later...

 

[Sorensen]

Work got in the way then we had a road trip. Haven’t revisited since I reverted everything back. Plan to dig further into the gen 1 HPWC to understand what is bad. Depending on that, may give up. Kinda needing a Level 2 J1772 option sooner than later...

Ok, well I’ve got my XC90 charging right now via the j1772 connector on a gen 3 Tesla charger. I can share the details if you end up getting a new HPWC, it isn’t very difficult.

 

[WhipperDipper]

Ok, well I’ve got my XC90 charging right now via the j1772 connector on a gen 3 Tesla charger. I can share the details if you end up getting a new HPWC, it isn’t very difficult.

Very much interested! Have any knowledge of gen 1? I felt my original wiring setup would have worked considering the simplicity and confirmed pilot signal, but believe I have a bad board or contractor in HPWC.

 

[Sorensen]

Very much interested! Have any knowledge of gen 1? I felt my original wiring setup would have worked considering the simplicity and confirmed pilot signal, but believe I have a bad board or contractor in HPWC.

Unfortunately, I know nothing about the gen 1. I’d be surprised if it were more complex, but it is probably easier than gen 2/3.

The gen 2 and 3 have the L1/L2, ground, and then four small wires: blue, orange, purple, and then the last is white on mine but it may be a black/brown on the gen 2.

The trick with these that I’m not sure applies to the gen 1 is that they have a thermistor in the handle to shut off if it gets too hot.

I spoke with a few people and they agreed with me that since other j1772 handles do not incorporate temperature monitoring, there’s probably not a need to transfer this over to the swapped handle.

Another thing to note is that there is a 10 second delay or so before charging starts, I think maybe the wall connector is looking to establish CAN comms with the car during this period, I’m looking into it but for all practical purposes 10 seconds to start charging is insignificant.

I bought a cord with a j1772 handle prewired from OpenEVSE, it’s very high quality and has the three large power conductors + purple. This way I don’t need to worry about proper crimping, and if others do this they can keep the Tesla cord intact and swap back later.

So my current wiring looks like this:

Blue: 3.3v for the electronics in the Tesla handle - just cut and terminated with tape.

Purple: Control pilot signal - wired to purple on new charging cord.

Orange: proximity pilot - normally this doesn’t go all the way back to the EVSE, but just from the pin on the car to a button in the charging handle. On Tesla’s it did go through the cord back to the EVSE, as well as to their handle button. Tried this both ways and found no difference, so it can be terminated in the EVSE and taped off.

White (gen3, black/brown on gen 2?): thermistor. To defeat this you need to put a 10k resistor between it and ground in the EVSE.

Out of all four small wires, only the purple needs to go through the cable to the handle.

Something else to note is that for the small wires, the gen 2 has simple screw terminals while the gen 3 has a micro fit molex connector. If anyone wants to swap cables but keep their Tesla cable pristine for swapping back, they’ll need to buy a micro fit molex and use that to make all of the necessary mods. I believe it is molex part 145132-400 but I have one on order and I’ll need to confirm when I get mine.

Otherwise, I had a fun time tearing apart my Tesla handle to confirm what was going on in there and probe their circuits! The whole handle is injected with a very firm rubber/plastic, so all of the wiring is entombed and difficult to trace.

 

[Sorensen]

Oh, and I also have a steady red flashing LED on the internal board, like you. I’m not sure they are the same, but if they are it seems normal.

 

[WhipperDipper]

Wow, nice work. I’ll have to dig into mine soon. The red flashing light helps. Need to find my bench PSU and try to energize the contractor to see if it’s working properly.

 

[UncleCreepy]

energize the contractor

That'll teach him!

 

[Sorensen]

I threw this video together, and this thread seems like the perfect place for it. I’m not super eloquent but hopefully if someone is looking for info around swapping connectors they find this helpful.

 

[WhipperDipper]

Video was great, unfortunately with my older Gen 1, the contactor may be the culprit, or the board just doesn’t recognize pilot signal. I’ve confirmed the pilot at the board drops from 12V to 9V once vehicle is plugged in. Researching a contactor now.

 

[Sorensen]

Good luck with figuring it out, let us know what you find. It probably is something in the relay, if I’m reading right you do hear a click so the relay is being triggered but apparently you’re not getting a proper voltage or current. If you don’t mind working around high voltage there are probably plenty of places to probe and see what’s going on.

On the gen 3 everything is soldered together, I’m not sure I would try swapping out a relay or anything else that has large solder joints to clean, I’m sure it’s possible with some patience, a rework station, and skill!

 

[WhipperDipper]

Good luck with figuring it out, let us know what you find. It probably is something in the relay, if I’m reading right you do hear a click so the relay is being triggered but apparently you’re not getting a proper voltage or current. If you don’t mind working around high voltage there are probably plenty of places to probe and see what’s going on.

On the gen 3 everything is soldered together, I’m not sure I would try swapping out a relay or anything else that has large solder joints to clean, I’m sure it’s possible with some patience, a rework station, and skill!

I get no click. I suspect the relay coil is bad. A quick check with meter last night showed voltage on both sides of relay when check to ground. This was with car plugged in and not plugged in. Will try and source the Curtis contactor assembly and swap, go from there. If this doesn’t work, may give up and go with a new Gen 3 and Teslatap, OpenEVSE, or Grizzle unit. Free time to tinker just doesn’t come as easy as it used to...

 

[WhipperDipper]

Free time has dried up. Purchased an OpenEVSE advanced kit, assembled and put the J1772 on it for now. With 2 EV’s, need L2 to keep options. L1 for a Leaf was just barely cutting it.

As for the Tesla HPWC, the Curtis contactor is more or less proprietary. Will need to spend more time to see if this is the issue. I purchased an additional Packard contactor from OpenEVSE to test with in the HPWC. If that works, it confirms my suspicion that the Tesla cable or board is bad. This might have been a $180 lesson...

 

[cwerdna]

Native J1772 wall connectors are apparently a real thing provided by Tesla.

from Reddit. Tesla wall connector (HPWC) with native J1772 connector : teslamotors

I can say I've personally charged my Bolt on one of these today at Supercharger - San Jose, CA - 925 Blossom Hill Road (Westfield Oakridge - LIVE 24 Jun 2021, 24 V3 stalls).

It is pretty weird to plug into such a thing. The J1772 handle style is also unlike any I've personally seen before and held.

I wonder if the J1772's there will soon become much busier as I amended the Plugshare entry to include the 20 WCs (w/Tesla plugs) + 4 J1772 plugs.

Bolt says I was getting 7 kW (it only shows whole numbers if >=1 kW) but I can't see the voltage nor amperage via my car's instruments.

 

[cwerdna]

Seems like they went on sale recently and journalists like Tesla launches a new home charger that works with all electric cars have been unaware they've been installed in public for quite awhile already.

 

[Enahmias]

Ok, well I’ve got my XC90 charging right now via the j1772 connector on a gen 3 Tesla charger. I can share the details if you end up getting a new HPWC, it isn’t very difficult.

Swapping from charging my xc90 to my so's tesla on a grizzl e 240 charger. Tesla now cannot charge except at supercharger. Any ideas?

 

[Rocky_H]

Swapping from charging my xc90 to my so's tesla on a grizzl e 240 charger. Tesla now cannot charge except at supercharger. Any ideas?

I've got an idea. How about you tell us some details of what is happening?

Is the car's screen showing some warning? Is the car's charge port light showing some different colors or blinking? Is the Grizzle-e unit showing any warnings of flashing error lights?