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Ford L1 EVSE - Design change


flyingcheesehead
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Your problem sound like mine as my first EVSE was failing.  I would get MFM emails saying my car stopped charging.  I would go look and it was tripped.  I would unplug, plug back in and it would work until finally it wouldn't charge at all and the EVSE was dead (no green power light).  Got the new one under warranty and so far all has been working great.  Maybe it isn't outlet problems, but your EVSE??

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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.

I think your EVSE is defective. The dealership procedure outlined in the service manual for this situation is to try to charge the car at the dealer via your 120V EVSE & see what happens. Then try to charge the car at the dealer using their 240V EVSE & see what happens. If the car charges fine via their 240V EVSE, but has issues when charging at 120V, then they'll give you a new 120V EVSE under warranty. Have you been able to document how long it takes for the 120V EVSE to start misbehaving? That will likely be crucial to getting the dealer to successfully test. Otherwise they may just plug it in for 5 minutes & conclude that it works.

 

Your problem sound like mine as my first EVSE was failing.  I would get MFM emails saying my car stopped charging.  I would go look and it was tripped.  I would unplug, plug back in and it would work until finally it wouldn't charge at all and the EVSE was dead (no green power light).  Got the new one under warranty and so far all has been working great.  Maybe it isn't outlet problems, but your EVSE??

My thought exactly!

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Timewellspent - Did you have to bring the entire car in to get them to swap out the charging cord, or just the cord?  Do you know if you had the latest version of the charging cord?

 

Thanks for replying.

 

Joe

 

Yes, they needed the whole car to do exactly what hybridbear said even though I told them they could see that the EVSE wasn't getting power (no power light).

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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.

 

Well, guess what happened to me now? I'm seeing the same thing you are - The red outlet warning is appearing frequently, on outlets that have worked just fine before. The car does finish charging just fine. If I leave the EVSE plugged in to the wall (and thus the outlet warning remains on) the car will charge again, though I'm not sure how many times as I take the EVSE with me each weekday to plug in at work. I think I charged it three times over the holiday weekend and it never stopped permanently, I always got a complete charge.

 

Maybe by the time this one fails they'll have another new design!

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I know it's not the cheapest option, but have you considered getting one of the "old" charger cables?  Hell, if you were near by I'd swap with you.  I just don't really ever use mine anymore.

 

No. I had the old one. It kept melting the plug. The new one doesn't do that, so even if it lights up, it still works and doesn't melt/burn anything like the old one did. :)

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Was the old one before or after the outlet replacement?

 

I replaced the outlet in my garage at the same time as I got the new cord, but the old cord lightly charred some other outlets I'd used as well, after cleaning them up (they're not mine, can't replace 'em) the new cord hasn't had any problems with those same outlets.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Small update: I've been pretty busy and not able to get into the dealer to leave the car with them.  I stopped charging the car for a couple of days, ran on gas, then charged it a few days on the 240V charger near my office.  The car then sat for a weekend.  Since that time, the car charges up just fine, no warning lights on the charging cord etc.  This makes no sense but I'm not complaining.  

 

Joe

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  • 3 weeks later...

Small update: I've been pretty busy and not able to get into the dealer to leave the car with them.  I stopped charging the car for a couple of days, ran on gas, then charged it a few days on the 240V charger near my office.  The car then sat for a weekend.  Since that time, the car charges up just fine, no warning lights on the charging cord etc.  This makes no sense but I'm not complaining.  

 

Joe

 

 

Weird. I've had quite a few instances now of the new warning light blinking but until just recently it never stopped charging. Now, it's stopped charging a couple of times. :(

 

I think I'm going to go get one of these instead: http://www.ev-institute.com/portable_products.html

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  • 4 weeks later...

Another update.  My L1 cord stopped working properly again.  I finally got the whole car to Ford.  They said they couldn't replicate the issue (find that hard to believe) but replaced my cord anyway.  The day they had the car, it was cold and that is one of the things I noticed about my issues was that when cold, the cord tended to work fine or give the outlet warning but continue charging.  When the temps were up, it failed every time.  The part number on the new cord matches the one listed on the first page of this thread.  My fingers are crossed that this solves the issue.  The car has been great for us and we really like driving it.  

 

Thank you,

 

Joe

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Another update.  My L1 cord stopped working properly again.  I finally got the whole car to Ford.  They said they couldn't replicate the issue (find that hard to believe) but replaced my cord anyway.  The day they had the car, it was cold and that is one of the things I noticed about my issues was that when cold, the cord tended to work fine or give the outlet warning but continue charging.  When the temps were up, it failed every time.  The part number on the new cord matches the one listed on the first page of this thread.  My fingers are crossed that this solves the issue.  The car has been great for us and we really like driving it.  

 

Thank you,

 

Joe

Just wondering if you have tried the car on a public L2? The L1 system depends on the vehicle to work correctly or it will not charge.

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Twice in the last week, despite the cold weather, my "new" L1 EVSE has cut off entirely, both times leaving me with 8 miles worth of juice for a 13-mile commute. :(

 

It works fine when I'm plugged in at work since it's winter and the plug can't heat up enough to trip. But, even in my just-barely-above-freezing garage, it's having problems again. And this is on the new fancy-schmancy AFCI outlet that I installed a few months ago (detailed in another thread). 

 

Sigh. I think I'm giving up on Ford's L1.

Edited by flyingcheesehead
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Ugh. It started not finishing the charge too often to tolerate - And I just didn't feel like going without an EVSE for a few days while Ford does their thing. So, I did get the EV Institute L1/L2 portable combo EVSE. Big improvement! I'll start another thread about that.

 

Now that I have that, I'll try to get another replacement L1 from the dealer, and maybe just leave it at home. I think that one of the problems with these things is durability - They seem to work fine at first, but after carting it to work and back home every day for a few months they just keep getting worse and worse. I think Ford probably thought the entire world would fork it over for an L2 at home and not charge at work and the portable L1 would be a rare-use item, rather than the primary means of charging. So, I'll make the next one the rare-use item it was designed to be. Disappointing.

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I wouldn't describe the Ford supplied Level 1 EVSE as rare-use, I would say it's for daily use in controlled conditions or for infrequent use in more random conditions, depending on your circumstances.

 

I would describe ALL EVSEs that are designed to be plugged into regular household 120V 15A outlets, regardless of who made them, as having limitations.

 

The biggest limitation is the widespread use in the US of VERY poor quality 120V, 15A outlets that are not fit for use with a 12A continuous load. I would guess that this applies to 80-90%+ of all 120V outlets installed in the US.  This limitation is mostly beyond the control of the car & EVSE manufacturers, but Chevy did try to address it in the Volt by having the 120V charge rate default to 8A, with owner intervention required to switch to 12A.  Both Nissan and Ford redesigned their L1 EVSEs to have thermistors in the plug to detect overheating in poor quality outlets and shut the EVSE down to prevent poor quality outlets from causing fires

 

Another major limitation that is difficult to overcome is that the NEMA 5-15 outlets/plugs do not hold up well to frequent plug/unplug cycles.  The 5-15 plug on the Ford EVSE is fine if it is plugged into a high quality outlet and unplugged infrequently, but if it is plugged and unplugged many times per week and used in a wide variety of outlets of questionable quality, it is bound to be damaged by wear and tear, but worse yet likely to be irreversibly damaged by excess heat generated when used with poor quality outlets.  Once the plug becomes damaged, it is likely to overheat when connect to any outlet regardless of quality.

 

My Ford provided L1 EVSE is mounted on the wall in my garage, plugged into a high quality outlet.  I use it to charge my Energi from nearly empty to full, every night. The plug/socket experiences no detectable warming, even after hours of full rate charging.  It has been unplugged/plugged less than a dozen times in the year I've owned the car. I don't take it with my when I drive.  I do use public charging where it is available, and purposefully frequent establishments that make public charging available, but won't generally risk plugging my L1 EVSE into an outlet that I don't know the quality/history of. The advantage of a PHEV is that you always have the option of using a little gas instead of charging when out and about.  Using it this way, I expect my Ford supplied EVSE to last the life of the car as the J1772 connector IS designed for frequent repeated plug/unplug cycles, unlike the 5-15 plug on the other end of the EVSE.  

 

I hope you have a great experience with the EV institute unit.  The fact that the 5-15 plug is part of a replaceable adapter bodes well for using it in a wide variety of environments without risking damage to the EVSE.  I also hope Ford gets you a properly functioning L1 EVSE to share duties or serve as a backup. Either way, it helps you get back to enjoying your car rather than fretting about whether the EVSE will do it's job each day.

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  • 1 month later...

What am I missing? My included 2016 120volt charger is labeled 120/250 volts at 50/60. Can I charge faster on 220?

The car does charge faster at 240 volts (there is no such thing as 220 volts in the USA).  I have a 240 volt charger and the car charges in 2 hours  Did they provide any way to connect it to a 240 volt receptacle?  It is illegal to put 240 volts on a 120 volt receptacle.

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