Thermal Cooling running off of 110V?

[wiztecy]

Thermal Cooling running off of 110V@15AMPS?

Curious if anyone can comment if the battery pack thermal cooling works when running off 110V. I'd like to cool the pack down any chance I can and just tried today running off the 110V roadster charger. It charges, I'm running 15AMPS, but I have not heard the condenser nor the fans kick on which makes me believe it isn't initiating the full cooling management process. Only thing running was the cooling pump which circulates the fluid. When charging off 110V the temps actually rose, from 31C to 32C. I shut it down since I didn't want to charge and really didn't want the pack to heat.

Any clues on this?

220V at 12 amps works fine.

 

[Doug_G]

Yes it should cool on 110V. That's a big reason why it's soooo slow - half the power goes to HVAC.

Try turning on Range mode. It'll chill the pack. Fortunately it'll take two days to charge so you won't have to worry about exceeding a Standard Mode charge.

 

[wiztecy]

Thanks Doug! I did have it in Range Mode. I'll try again. Its odd, usually I hear the fan's condensers kick on right away on 220V and for sure upon initiating the charge I can hear the condenser clicking and functioning. Nothing like that off the 110V.

... update ...
So I went down to see if there's any change in temp on the battery pack, nothing. Its charging 110v@15amp and in range mode. Outside temp is 25C and battery pack temp is 31C. No fans, no condenser running at all. I'll try as an experiment when I get home, the pack is usually at 36C then.

...update 2...
Well, all range mode did with 110v was raise the pack temp from 31C to 32C

No sign of HVAC action.

Can anyone confirm that around these temps their HVAC system kicks in to cool the pack? And if so is it instant when you plugged in the charger or 1, 2, n amount of hours into the charge?

 

[donauker]

My Roadster 1.5 never did active cooling at 12 or even 16 amps 120 volts. I had to go over 20 amps 120v to do cooling, even at 24 amps 120 volts it does cooling different then when on 240 volts. It does many frequent rather short cooling cycles.

Cooling will always happen on 240 volt charge initiation when the pack is over 30C, I am not sure what the minimum temp is below which cooling will not happen but believe it is around 25C

 

[wiztecy]

Thanks Donauker. In that case I don't recommend charging off of 110V @ 15AMP. When I got home my batter temp was at 39C, I'm usually around 34-36C. That 110V heated my pack up...

So I guess there's no way of getting 110V @ 15 to work with cool down. I'm curious if this can be overridden with OVMS or Tattler with some right code. If so I would highly recommend this feature update for sure.

Cooling it down now with 220V.

 

[tennis_trs]

Charging with 120V@12A, my fans definitely often/usually turn on and run at the start of charging. I never really pay attention to the battery temperature.

I just used the OVMS to wake up my car and see that the battery was at 86F after waking up. It wasn't charging, so I used the OVMS to start charging again (still in Standard mode). The battery temperature had changed to 82F before I went out to check the car. The fans weren't running, but the hood slats above the fans were a good bit warmer than the other body panels, so I believe that the fans had run. 86F==30C, so maybe 30C is a threshold. (Before finishing this post the OVMS showed 80F for the battery; I didn't go see if the fans were running again).

I have been charging with 120V@12A for 8 months now after previously charging with 208V@24A for the first 28 months.

 

[wiztecy]

Thanks for the data point, also see that you have a 2.0 Roadster. I sent Tesla an email to iron out and make some sense out of this behavior.

 

[donauker]

Charging with 120V@12A, my fans definitely often/usually turn on and run at the start of charging. I never really pay attention to the battery temperature.

I think this may be a 1.5 vs 2.0 thing. I would be interested in hearing from any 1.5 owners who see A/C operation while charging on 120 volts. I may also need to do some additional 120 volt testing to determine if a firmware update may have made a difference. Now that the summer temps are gone the battery isn't at 40C when arriving home each evening but I still see temps in the mid 30s and do a short charge cycle to cool it on arrival.

 

[tennis_trs]

There are other threads that talk about this, but I don't remember what they decided about cooling when charging at 120V. I looked at them when I moved and started charging at 120V, but since it seemed to be working well when I first got here, I didn't look too closely and didn't bother trying to get a 220V outlet added to the leased home.

 

[wiztecy]

So what I'm hearing from Tesla is that cooling on 110V will only kick in when hitting the 40C battery temp threshold. I possibly there was a revision that brought that temp down to 36C or 38C and may have been included with a firmware update. If anyone is on 110V please update what behavior you see. When running at 12 or 15 AMPS, when the HVAC is running only 4-5 Amps manages to reach the battery pack. My understanding why this threshold is so high is for that it would take way over 24 hours to fully charge the pack if the HVAC running more often. I wish there was a toggle that would flip the logic to do just cooling. So keep that in mind when charging off 110V, your pack will be sitting at higher temps and won't be managed as well as the 220V route.

Could it be possible to over-ride this temperature threshold in OVMS or Tattler? So that if say I'm at 32C I can issue a cooldown command when on 110V and have the condensor kick in? I really want cooling off a typical houseplug.

 

[Doug_G]

No, the Tattler just starts a Range mode charge, then stops and restarts it when the initial cooling cycle ends.

 

[wycolo]

> 110V . . . 220v [wiztechy]

Are these your actual voltages at your outdoor/garage outlet as measured by Roadster Touchscreen or a voltmeter? If so maybe Roadster is viewing this as a 'marginal extension cord'?

Just for grins I checked here: 118v to almost 119v with just a few UPS going- fridge off. At 7.2kw charging my TS is generally showing 115v to 117v (from memory). If you only get 110v at your meter maybe the power company can jump you up a tap to achieve 120v or more. In NYState I was getting 125v consistently. At both locations I have my own pole pig which is a big plus.
--

 

[chronopublish]

I think this may be a 1.5 vs 2.0 thing. I would be interested in hearing from any 1.5 owners who see A/C operation while charging on 120 volts. I may also need to do some additional 120 volt testing to determine if a firmware update may have made a difference. Now that the summer temps are gone the battery isn't at 40C when arriving home each evening but I still see temps in the mid 30s and do a short charge cycle to cool it on arrival.

Sorry for the month-late reply. I own a 1.5 and do the majority of my charging at 110V. I can confidently report that the full HVAC cooling cycle DOES run periodically when charging this way; it is just much less frequent and seldom comes on at the beginning of the charge. A lot of people who seldom charge at 110V do not realize this is happening and incorrectly report the HVAC cooling never runs on 110V.

 

[rgjones]

When experimenting with tattler cooldown I really wanted 110V cooling, but never saw it happen.
Makes sense that it only happens at 40C, which is higher than I usually see here in San Diego.
Tattler cooldown requires 200V+, overrides to range mode and uses the minimum 13A to keep the energy use down.
It restarts the charge cycle when the first cooling cycle completes and halts after either reaching a target temperature, timeout or number of cooling cycles. When done it restores the charge mode/limit to the original settings.
To get a similar effect with OVMS, plug into 200V+ then use OVMS to put car in range mode and limit current to 13A.
You'll need to monitor status and remember to restore the charge mode/limit when done.