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Ford L1 EVSE - Design change


flyingcheesehead
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I am one of the people who has had problems with the L1 EVSE included with my Energi where it melts the rubber of the wall plug around the hot blade and leaves burn marks on the hot blade as well. 

 

After going to the dealer, they're going to replace mine, and the new one is supposed to have a thermistor in the wall plug that will shut down the charging and let the plug cool, then start charging at a reduced rate. It also has a new "plug fault" indicator light, though that is not visible until it turns on (they didn't change the label on the front, apparently).

 

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Check the wiring of the receptacle.  I'm betting that it was wired using the push-in slots instead of wrapping the wire around the screw.  They work fine for table lamps but not so well for maximum continuous loads.

 

Forget the wiring of the receptacle... I'm replacing it entirely, with a new high-grade AFCI outlet. No sense potentially melting another EVSE finding out that the problem was in the outlet!

 

However, I am curious to see how it was wired when I pull it out of the wall tonight.

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Forget the wiring of the receptacle... I'm replacing it entirely, with a new high-grade AFCI outlet. No sense potentially melting another EVSE finding out that the problem was in the outlet!

 

However, I am curious to see how it was wired when I pull it out of the wall tonight.

 

Did you mean GFCI or were you really planning on an arc fault interrupter? Just curious...

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Forget the wiring of the receptacle... I'm replacing it entirely, with a new high-grade AFCI outlet. No sense potentially melting another EVSE finding out that the problem was in the outlet!

 

However, I am curious to see how it was wired when I pull it out of the wall tonight.

I agree with fat fusion, pics please! :camera: It'll be a good learning experience for all of us!

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I agree with fat fusion, pics please! :camera: It'll be a good learning experience for all of us!

 

OK, here goes. We'll start with the "before" picture. This outlet got pretty burned up!

 

post-1389-0-63360600-1443730255_thumb.jpg

 

But, it seemed even worse once I got the plate off:

 

post-1389-0-89916400-1443730253_thumb.jpg

 

You can already see one error... There are two wires that are both on the ground post of the outlet. They should have a wire nut connecting them with a third "stub" to the screw on the outlet. But it's not as obvious until you see it all out:

 

post-1389-0-32163200-1443730259_thumb.jpg

 

So yes, it's backwired.

 

After another recent electrical improvement I made where I found that lots of things have been changed since the house was new (none of the circuits are exactly what they say they are in the breaker panel... Ugh), I was afraid that my entire garage would be on the same circuit. For background, my house was built in 1988, but I just moved into it a year ago so still getting to know it a little. 

 

Luckily, none of the other outlets on the garage, nor any of the lights, nor the garage door openers were on the same circuit as this outlet. As you can see, it's in series with something else - That is still a complete mystery, since I am only aware of two other outlets in the garage and they aren't on the same circuit as this one. 

 

This is on a 20-amp breaker, the line feeding it is 12-gauge but the line feeding whatever else is downstream is only 14-gauge. That, the backwiring, and the two-ground thing were as bad as it got.

 

So, I wired up the new AFCI - Sidewired, and no longer feeding the mystery outlet until I figure out what it was. (Maybe not even then.) Should work great with the new L1 EVSE:

 

post-1389-0-85872900-1443730251_thumb.jpg

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BTW, I've had some thoughts about this regarding Ford:

 

1) I had no idea until I read it here that I needed to check my outlets for backwiring, age, etc. until I read it here. Ford should provide some warnings in the manual and probably right on the EVSE as well that you really do need to check your wiring, and probably re-do it in the majority of cases!

 

2) I'm glad they fixed the problem on their end as well. The thermistor-in-the-plug design is probably what it should have been from the start, but clearly Ford's engineers are paying attention. Now if we could just get the marketing department and execs on board...

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2) I'm glad they fixed the problem on their end as well. The thermistor-in-the-plug design is probably what it should have been from the start, but clearly Ford's engineers are paying attention. Now if we could just get the marketing department and execs on board...

Could you please share some pics of that new design? I am curious what the new design looks like & at what point they started putting the new design in new vehicles at the factory.

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Could you please share some pics of that new design? I am curious what the new design looks like & at what point they started putting the new design in new vehicles at the factory.

 

It looks EXACTLY like the old one. Part number changed by a digit (I'll have to look at it later). If you hold it at the right angle in the right light, you can see where the plug fault indicator now lives, but that and the part number are the only external indications, the exterior physical design didn't really change at all.

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No, I really did mean AFCI.

Have you considered upgrading to a level 2 EVSE? I found the charger that came with the car works well for overnight charging. I am really enjoying the ability to be re-charged in under 2 hours. 

On another note the finance guy (who has an energi) did mention that Ford recommends that the 110v be plugged onto a dedicated outlet/circut (like one for just a freezer etc.). That is one of the 

main factors when I decided to get a dedicated 220v 40 amp line for the car.

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Have you considered upgrading to a level 2 EVSE? I found the charger that came with the car works well for overnight charging. I am really enjoying the ability to be re-charged in under 2 hours. 

On another note the finance guy (who has an energi) did mention that Ford recommends that the 110v be plugged onto a dedicated outlet/circut (like one for just a freezer etc.). That is one of the 

main factors when I decided to get a dedicated 220v 40 amp line for the car.

 

Considered? Most certainly. The hard part is going to be finding a good electrician. 

 

I've already decided on the JuiceBox Pro 40 - I'm sold enough on electric driving that I'm going to go all-electric on the car next time around and probably PHEV for the SUV - Unless something changes significantly, my next vehicle will be a Tesla Model 3. The Pro 40 has a handy little feature where you can run two of them on a single 50-amp circuit. If you plug one car in, it'll get the full 40 amps (if it can take it). If you plug both in, they'll automatically go down to 20 amps each. Cool.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It looks EXACTLY like the old one. Part number changed by a digit (I'll have to look at it later). If you hold it at the right angle in the right light, you can see where the plug fault indicator now lives, but that and the part number are the only external indications, the exterior physical design didn't really change at all.

 

OK, I didn't grab a pic of the old one's part number. The new one has a part number of:

 

FM58-10B706AG

 

The dealer did tell me that only one character changed, and I can also find eBay listings that end with D, E, and F, so apparently this isn't the first revision. I'm not sure how many there have been, or when the thermistor was added, but the G model does have it.

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FM58-10B706AG is what my replacement says as well.  Also says the Manufacture date is 1598 whatever that means.

Odd, but went here; http://www.fordparts.com/ and copy/paste FM58-10B706AG and got nothing. I even took out the dash, the FM...just odd that it doesnt work on their site unless i'm doing something wrong or let something out, but i have no clue..

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am one of the people who has had problems with the L1 EVSE included with my Energi where it melts the rubber of the wall plug around the hot blade and leaves burn marks on the hot blade as well. 

 

After going to the dealer, they're going to replace mine, and the new one is supposed to have a thermistor in the wall plug that will shut down the charging and let the plug cool, then start charging at a reduced rate. It also has a new "plug fault" indicator light, though that is not visible until it turns on (they didn't change the label on the front, apparently).

 

 

I've actually gotten this to trip a couple of times, on the same outlet, but it's rather odd, for two reasons:

 

1) This is the only outlet that *didn't* ever melt around the hot blade of the plug on the old L1.

 

2) It seemed to trip after I unplugged the car end first.

 

Both times, it appeared to be charging just fine, then when I unplugged the J1772 from the car, the plug fault indicator came on and started blinking. The plug and cord were warm, but not overly so. It started charging just fine as soon as I got home.

 

 

But, the new L1 hasn't melted or burned anything. I'm plugging into the new outlet at home, and at work I have a new 10 AWG 50-foot extension cord that it works very well with. The airport plug that's tripped the new L1 is an isolated ground plug, so not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. There's a non-IG outlet in there as well, but as the trip isn't consistent I'd have to do a lot of testing to see if that had any effect.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I bought my FFE in August, I'm just checked and I have the new model charger listed earlier in another post.  I kept getting the "Check outlet" flashing light on the cord.  I tried different outlets and had the same issue.  Most of the time, the car charged anyway.  I tried a 20amp outlet in my garage and it didn't give me the fault.  I'm curious as to why the L1 cord was built with 16awg wire?  I thought I read that the car wants 12amp to 16amp for L1 charging.  I'm no electrician but isn't it a big ask to pull 12amps through 16awg wire continuously for up to 7hrs?  Could that be what is heating up the plug?  

 

Sorry if this isn't the right place for the question.  I'm new.   :)

 

Thanks,

 

Joe

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I bought my FFE in August, I'm just checked and I have the new model charger listed earlier in another post.  I kept getting the "Check outlet" flashing light on the cord.  I tried different outlets and had the same issue.  Most of the time, the car charged anyway.  I tried a 20amp outlet in my garage and it didn't give me the fault.  I'm curious as to why the L1 cord was built with 16awg wire?  I thought I read that the car wants 12amp to 16amp for L1 charging.  I'm no electrician but isn't it a big ask to pull 12amps through 16awg wire continuously for up to 7hrs?  Could that be what is heating up the plug?  

 

Sorry if this isn't the right place for the question.  I'm new.   :)

 

Thanks,

 

Joe

 

Hi Joe,

 

Here's some information I found in your Owner Manual:

 

The AC outlet must be a three-prong 110-120 volt AC outlet that is properly grounded, 15–20 amps (or greater) and in good condition. You must use a dedicated line, which means you cannot have other appliances connected to the same circuit. If you do not use dedicated circuit, the circuit breaker could trip or open.

 

Pages 173 and 174 discuss the Check Outlet icon. It recommends having the outlet checked by a qualified electrician and make sure the AC plug fits firmly into the outlet. Contact an authorized EV certified dealer if problem persists.

 

Meagan

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I bought my FFE in August, I'm just checked and I have the new model charger listed earlier in another post.  I kept getting the "Check outlet" flashing light on the cord.  I tried different outlets and had the same issue.  Most of the time, the car charged anyway.  I tried a 20amp outlet in my garage and it didn't give me the fault.  I'm curious as to why the L1 cord was built with 16awg wire?  I thought I read that the car wants 12amp to 16amp for L1 charging.  I'm no electrician but isn't it a big ask to pull 12amps through 16awg wire continuously for up to 7hrs?  Could that be what is heating up the plug?  

 

Sorry if this isn't the right place for the question.  I'm new.   :)

 

Thanks,

 

Joe

 

Joe,

 

Were you getting the red flashing outlet light before or after you unplugged the J1772 plug from the car? I have seen that, as noted earlier in the thread, but not on my new home outlet.

 

I would suggest, if you're seeing this in your own garage, that you buy a new high-grade AFCI outlet (should be about $30) and put it in, making sure it's sidewired. Haven't seen a single problem on the outlet I put in (pics earlier in the thread). 

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Meagan,

 

Thanks for the info.  The outlet in my garage is a 20amp dedicated line, wires are wrapped around the screw post.  The outlet at work was just replaced with a new 20amp GFCI (?) and inspected by an electrician.  His comments to me were about the wire gauge chosen by Ford for this purpose.  He has installed chargers for other EV's so he is familiar with their needs.  He wanted to know how many amps the car wants while charging?  I wasn't sure of that.  The plug is very snug and I remove it with two hands so that it's not getting stressed.

 

I'm starting to think that temperature has something to do with this.  Yesterday the car charged up completely even though the Outlet warning was flashing.  Last night in my garage, the cord did the same thing.  It charged completely but the outlet warning was flashing.  Other times it has flashed but then the Triangle shaped warning pops up and it will stop charging.  The cord is warm, not hot.  

 

I've read my manual cover to cover, information overload :)  I contacted my dealer and I'm waiting for a reply.

 

FlyingCheesehead - When I first plug in the car, it seems to act normal and starts charging.  I've checked on it after 10 minutes and it's still fine.  I checked again after 30 minutes and it was flashing the red outlet warning but still said it was charging.  When the triangle warning lights up, I'll unplug it for a few minutes and then replug it all in.  I was able to charge twice per day since August 28th until about two weeks ago on these same two locations.  I changed outlets at the house to use the dedicated one and had an electrician install a new 20amp outlet at work.  Problem remains, but most of the time the car still charges.  No burn marks are appearing on the outlets at all.  Even the one we replaced had no indications of burning.  Do you happen to know how many amps the car is trying to draw while charging?  

 

My guess is that I'm hitting the temperature the charging cord plugs heat resistor shuts down at early in the charge cycle and then it shuts down, cools off, then starts up again.  It's just a guess.

 

Thank you,

 

Joe

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