UMC errors related to specific location, frustrated

[efusco]

The adaptor I have still needs the UMC in the middle. Yes, something is different but meets code and approvals. As for UL being for safety, it all depends on what kind of device. If you contract with UL to list/mark a device the first step is to figure out the applicable standards based on the device you are trying to mark. It is also for functionality and interoperability with other things to insure problems like this don't happen.

Hmmm, I don't think so. In fact, I can't think how that could possibly be.

Above is the photo of the J-1772 adapter from the TeslaMotors.com web site. The connection end shown is what plugs into the car. The not-show side is what the J-1772 cord/handle plugs into. No need or any way to use the UMC component.

Here's a video showing exactly how to do it:

- - - Updated - - -

one final thought, and I realize it's not ideal, but have you tried dialing back the amperage just a tad...maybe down to 10 amps from the default 12? I've had a couple of J1772 chargers that tried to charge at 30 amps but I would get errors and charging would stop, but then dialing back the amperage to just 28-29 amps seemed to do the trick. I assumed it was noise in the line or some other minor issue with wiring.

 

[CmdrThor]

Here is an example of an EVSE that is listed by a certification agency that might work for you: HCS-40P, 30A, 240V Charging, 25 Cord, NEMA 14-50 Plug | ClipperCreek Vehicle Charging Station

If that doesn't work, then you can return or sell it and you'd know the UL listing or lack thereof is not the issue with the UMC.

 

[NigelM]

@rainmaking: the entire problem boils down to one of three issues:

1. You have an on-board charging problem. If the car charges fine elsewhere you can eliminate this possibility.

2. You have a UMC problem. If the UMC works elsewhere you can eliminate this possibility.

3. You have a power issue at your building. If other UMCs don't function properly there, then bingo!

Banging on the drum of "my building is ok" is pretty clearly not going to fix the issue and will just continue the headache. Just follow a common sense process of elimination.

There's really nothing else to say.

 

[dsm363]

@rainmaking: the entire problem boils down to one of three issues:

1. You have an on-board charging problem. If the car charges fine elsewhere you can eliminate this possibility.

2. You have a UMC problem. If the UMC works elsewhere you can eliminate this possibility.

3. You have a power issue at your building. If other UMCs don't function properly there, then bingo!

Banging on the drum of "my building is ok" is pretty clearly not going to fix the issue and will just continue the headache. Just follow a common sense process of elimination.

There's really nothing else to say.

Well said!

I agree it's very clear what the issue is and that is the building's power as you said. Some people simply get something into their mind and reuse to listen to logic or look at the facts.

 

[efusco]

@rainmaking: the entire problem boils down to one of three issues:

1. You have an on-board charging problem. If the car charges fine elsewhere you can eliminate this possibility.

2. You have a UMC problem. If the UMC works elsewhere you can eliminate this possibility.

3. You have a power issue at your building. If other UMCs don't function properly there, then bingo!

Banging on the drum of "my building is ok" is pretty clearly not going to fix the issue and will just continue the headache. Just follow a common sense process of elimination.

There's really nothing else to say.

To add to that, banging of the drum of "You are all Tesla enthusiasts" as an excuse to ignore the facts that we're telling you won't solve the problem either. As laid out above, the issues are pretty clear cut. I know you're very very frustrated with this, and who wouldn't be. But I suggest that if you can accept that there is some sort of unusual and, as yet, undiagnosed issue with the power at your workplace and temporarily find an alternative means of charging until your home 240v service is hooked up, I think you'll find that you're going to be very satisfied with Tesla and your car.

 

[Chris TX]

I couldn't tell from the pages in this thread, but has the OP EVER successfully done a Level 2 charge session? If it works with the 120V adapter on the UMC but not 220V, maybe there is something wrong with the second leg in the car's onboard charger.

Rainmaking, go to a public L2 charging station and see if will take a charge.
Also, have you ever tried using a Supercharger? If both of those work, the car is working properly and the focus would need to be on the UMC (doubtful since 3 have been tried) or the power at work. Dirty/noisy power will trip the UMC's safety measures to protect the car's onboard charger.


One last thing, where is the UMC being used?
What's around it?
Anything that could emit strong EMF or EMP?
Is it next to a transformer?
Large pump motor?
HVAC equipment?


Is this 208V outlet dedicated all the way back to the breaker? 208V is already low enough. If something is causing it to dip below L2 voltages, it's going to shut off.

 

[hcsharp]

@rainmaking: the entire problem boils down to one of three issues:

1. You have an on-board charging problem. If the car charges fine elsewhere you can eliminate this possibility.

2. You have a UMC problem. If the UMC works elsewhere you can eliminate this possibility.

3. You have a power issue at your building. If other UMCs don't function properly there, then bingo!

Banging on the drum of "my building is ok" is pretty clearly not going to fix the issue and will just continue the headache. Just follow a common sense process of elimination.

There's really nothing else to say.

I think rainmaking is suggesting that Tesla's engineering is inadequate and the charging system design is too sensitive to mildly-dirty power. I suspect he thinks that if the car and charger were designed to comply with some standard that it isn't, such as UL, that it would charge at his workplace. He even went so far as to say that an inspector would probably tell him he couldn't plug the car in because it, and the UMC, are not UL listed. Possibly this could be issue #4 that Nigel didn't mention. Since all other appliances appear to work in the same building, it seems only reasonable for him to believe the problem is with Tesla's car or charging system.

I think rainmaker is correct in pointing out that Tesla's cars are sensitive to power supply anomalies. That wasn't his point at first, and I'm still not sure it is, and I can't help but wonder what else we're missing. I'm not defending his lack of providing all the facts up front, initial rant/blaming, or assertions about certifications, but I have to say that Tesla's charging systems have proven to be weak in many respects.

There's a neighborhood in South Burlington, VT where my car won't charge (along with at least 2 other Teslas) but Leafs, Volts, and iMievs will charge just fine. It's mostly light industrial.

 

[arg]

UL and CE testing generally have little to do with functionality and a lot to do with safety.

That's something of an overstatement, at least for CE.

Leaving aside the fact that CE is all self-certified and so many people just stick on the CE mark without doing any testing and hope they won't get caught, CE marking requires compliance with the EMC directive and therefore extensive testing if you are taking it seriously. For some categories of product, this is much more onerous than the safety requirements.

Certainly the intent of EMC testing is that that tested equipment will work together - in an ideal world, the susceptibility tests ensure that all equipment will tolerate a certain level of interference, and the emissions tests ensure that nothing puts out more than that level. In reality, there are huge variations in the way products are installed and used and the testing can only cover 'typical' conditions, so offers no guarantee that things will work in any particular installation even if all the equipment has been tested. Also, there are grey areas in formal testing - for susceptibility, the test is that the equipment has to 'operate in accordance with the manufacturer's specification' during or after testing, so sometimes you pass the test by changing the product specification to say that a certain loss of performance is acceptable rather than fixing the underlying problem.

Although imperfect, testing does improve things: I have often seen equipment that fails test giving problems in the real world (usually when I've been testing my gear and find that some of the third-party equipment that it interfaces to goes wrong during the test - such equipment then also giving trouble in the field).

Testing also helps in assigning blame in cases like the OP's (assuming his case is indeed an EMC issue, as everyone seems to believe but hasn't yet been proven). It isn't sufficient to say 'the car works OK elsewhere, therefore the problem is with your other equipment' - is the other equipment emitting too much or is the car too susceptible?

Also worth noting that other car manufacturers (GM for example) have their own standards for EMC testing of sub-assemblies supplied for their cars, often much stricter than the regulatory tests - though this is more about making sure the various parts of the car work together rather than outside issues.

 

[bonnie]

That's something of an overstatement, at least for CE.

Leaving aside the fact that CE is all self-certified and so many people just stick on the CE mark without doing any testing and hope they won't get caught, CE marking requires compliance with the EMC directive and therefore extensive testing if you are taking it seriously. For some categories of product, this is much more onerous than the safety requirements.

... only if your CE mark is declaring conformity with the EMC directive. There are a lot of other directives you could be declaring conformity with & totally ignoring EMC. People see the CE mark and just assume the right stuff must be covered, but unless you look at the declaration, there's no way of actually knowing.

Completely agree that the self-certifying aspect has resulted in a large number of companies just slapping the CE mark on their products and hoping for the best. It's a joke.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I have two UL listed external hard drive power supplies that cause noticeable amounts of interference to a TV tuner (also with UL listed power supply) I have. So a UL marking does not seem to have anything to do with compatibility or lack of noise or interference.

 

[GSP]

If I were the OP I would:

1) expedite installation of 240 V charging at home. Maybe install a temporary solution.
2) look for charging within walking distance of work
3) try a public J1772 charger to see if it works
4) try a third party plug-in EVSE, perhaps a UL listed one like the AeroVironment TurboCord (120/240 V, 15A for $650, very small and portable), or a clipper creek plug-in EVSE (15 A for $400, 20 A for $500, 30 A for $600, if I remember correctly)

GSP

 

[Seattle]

All these lists are great. He's in south florida he/she says, so there are lots of tesla owners there. And there are superchargers. I'm just piling on here with suggestions, but we all just want this person to have some understanding and success.

It's very likely the problem is the power supply inside your office is a little dirty, not too much to affect a lot of industrial equipment, but the tesla is more sensitive to this. They are trying to keep the car safe in adverse conditions. We are sorry you have run into this, but the Tesla is not a piece of voodoo electronics that only works when the moon is not out. It's pretty reliable and we should be able to figure out what the problem is. At the same time, like everything on the earth it can fail - but based on what you've told us, with multiple umcs, and your car working elsewhere, it's probably a building power supply issue.

I know others provided most of these things to try, but I wrote my own list with a little more explanation.

1. Try lower amperage when charging. I had exactly your results when I first got my car and was charging 120v at a hotel. It would stop charging at a random point, usually after I walked back to my room. Turning down the amperage to a really small value (like 8 amps) helped. This can happen with 240 v charging too. If the power supply can't provide reliable amperage and voltage at the charging rate, it will shut itself down.
2. Go to a supercharger and see if your car works (assuming you have an 85 or a 60 with the 2k payment). If it doesn't work, that should be fixed.
3. Try a public j1772 charger (find via plugshare.com). They are everywhere, and there are even lots of free ones. It's always nice to check comments that someone recently had success there. Blink chargers are often broken.
4. You could try a random 120v outlet somewhere near your office. That will probably work, and if 2, 3, 4 work you can be sure it's something about your office's power.
5. You could try to find someone else nearby who could try your office. You probably want to preserve your privacy, but if someone else's car tried your office during working hours when charging is delicate, that could give you more confidence its the building.

Good luck. I just want you to have success and understanding of your issue. Let us know what you can figure out.

 

[hiroshiy]

Isn't Fluke Scopemeter an Oscilloscope? If so wouldn't it be enough to see logs from the Scopemeter during the charge (stop)?

 

[TES-E]

From what I have heard, Teslas are very fussy about grounding. Are you SURE that your office power grounding is up to snuff? Built in ground fault could be shutting it down.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Yes, it charges at other places including my home. I NEED it to charge at my office. I am building a new house and will have a 220 outlet there but it's not finished yet so I am only on 120V outlet at home currently and it's not enough.

Just bite the bullet and install a 14-50 at your current home. Obviously that's easier than continuing to blame Tesla for something that is a problem at your work location, and much cheaper than selling your Model S and incurring the depreciation.

Can we consider this issue closed?

 

[rainmaking]

Many of the recent replies are helpful and thank you for that. Today I put in a 14-50 outlet on the temp box at the new house. I spend a lot of time there so that should help for now. Unfortunately the issue won't be resolved until I have a solution at the office. I will try some line filtering there and if that isn't successful then buy a 1772 charger to bypass the UMC.

Based on the conditions occurring when the charge fails the most likely cause is the power supply for the electronics in the UMC itself shuts off or faults, resetting its cpu. Most of the time there is no flashing code, the light goes from the normal charging pattern to solid green. As for the noise on the line, it is in the mV range and very hard to analyze without employing a spectrum analyzer or similar instrument. It would take a lot of work and is upsetting to me that it is my problem when the device with the trouble is not tested to the relevant standards. I admit there still could be a problem but the manufacturer would have the fall-back position of having done the testing.

Thanks again to those of you that were trying to help.

 

[hcsharp]

...Based on the conditions occurring when the charge fails the most likely cause is the power supply for the electronics in the UMC itself shuts off or faults, resetting its cpu. Most of the time there is no flashing code, the light goes from the normal charging pattern to solid green.

Usually when the UMC goes from charging pattern to solid green it means the car has stopped charging and the fault was not detected by the UMC. I realize the same thing could theoretically happen if the cpu was reset. I think you should isolate the problem better. Does the car sense a problem and stop, or does the UMC have a fault and stop? Do you get the "External Charger Error" when the UMC goes to solid grn? Or something different?

 

[rainmaking]

Usually when the UMC goes from charging pattern to solid green it means the car has stopped charging and the fault was not detected by the UMC. I realize the same thing could theoretically happen if the cpu was reset. I think you should isolate the problem better. Does the car sense a problem and stop, or does the UMC have a fault and stop? Do you get the "External Charger Error" when the UMC goes to solid grn? Or something different?

Tesla says car loses pilot signal. Car says charge cable fault.

 

[hiroshiy]

If the noise in the mV range it must be higher frequency, like MHz range? Then line filters should work very well I guess.

 

[Cosmacelf]

In another thread, it was mentioned that the Clipper Creek EVSEs have very good line filtering, FWIW.