L2 charging speed recently dropped 33%

[Shayne]

Just checked. Can confirm I’m still being throttled for charging. Changed the Grizzl-E back to 40 amps. Plugged car in at 50°F. Initiated charge. OBDII/CarScanner confirmed drawing 40amps. 45 minutes later when I go back out, car is only drawing 30 amps. I watched for 10 minutes, jumped to 40 amps for almost a complete 2 minutes before falling to 30 amps again. Stayed at 30 amps for about 10 minutes then back to 40 amps for just under 2 minutes.
So her car appears to have received a bad charge port at the time of replacement. Can’t handle 40 amps continuously but with the software “fix” she’ll never see another DTC.

Mine started drawing 8+ Kw for the first 15 to 20 minutes just to let you know the charger can still do it the car just won't. Then it dropped down to 6+ Kw and sent a message it will charger out of the schedule time slot. I saw 4 Kw and 5 Kw also. If something in this vehicle is over heating such that it needs to be throttled it would be nice to have that dangerous condition fixed.

Sponsored

 

[Shayne]

@Mach-Lee I was checking my vin for HVJB and it comes up it needs to be replaced but it just was ?‍ This also came up

Customer Satisfaction Programs *
Reprogram hvac control module

Charge cord stuck - reprogram battery charge control module

Description
Charge cord stuck - reprogram battery charge control module
Campaign#
23B50
Next Steps
Contact your local dealer for next steps.

Would this have anything to do with the problem we are seeing?

 

[Shayne]

OK I caught up and as always @Mach-Lee is on top Here

My Thoughts

 

[Shayne]

Bump. Will be keeping this up top since it is the HVBJB scenario 2.0. Has anyone had any progress on this and if so how did you get it. Again the lucky few and no care or acknowledgement about it from Ford.

Us early adopters should have our L2 charging speed back without Ford being forced to by government bodies. Just tell us how to fix it and let us pay to have it fixed. I don't want a defective overheating charging port beside my home; even if it is throttled.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I wanted to share this relevant video, which is an investigation of the same charge port overheating issue on the IONIQ 5:



To summarize, Ioniq guy took apart his charge port (which was overheating), inspected the pins, tested the temperature sensor, verified it was reading accurately, and measured the temps of all the related components while charging. Exactly what I would do if I had this problem on my car. After he put the port back together, it was no longer overheating. Which remains a bit of a mystery. I'll give my take:

• The temperature sensor was reading accurately. That means the charge port was actually overheating before (I think he was seeing 220ºF+).
• This further cements that this was a physical CONNECTION ISSUE, not software.
• I agree the wires are sized correctly and the charging temps he observed afterwards (~160ºF) are normal for 48A.
• It's hard to say exactly how he fixed his issue by reinstalling the pins but a few ideas:
  • He may have cleaned the pins during the process, which does help
  • He may have rotated the pins slightly during reassembly and exposed a new wear surface
  • The insertion depth of the pins may have changed slightly after reassembly
  • He may have bent something back into alignment
  • Pulling on the wires may have inadvertently tightened up a crimp

One thing I observed is his AC pins were bent ever so slightly. One pin is bent worse than the other, and you can see a slight buckle at the crux of the bend. There are also score marks on one of the pins.

It is possible that bent pins could cause a poor quality connection (due to side load) that overheats. J1772 pins should be perfectly concentric so that there is equal socket tension on all four sides or quadrants of the female pin. A bent pin could reduce the surface area of contact (perhaps not touching one or more quadrants entirely), which could cause an overheat. The pins should be perfectly straight, smooth, clean, and free of oxidation for a perfect connection.

In the video, he relays that Hyundai thinks the overheating issue is a communication issue with the temperature sensor, but I totally disagree. It's a clearly contact issue. Their engineers don't understand the problem or refuse to concede it's a hardware issue.

I think the problem on the Mach-E is likely mostly the same, probably bent or damaged pins. Ford could tweak the temperature threshold a little higher than 80ºC to eliminate some of the derate issues, but for some vehicles the only fix will be to replace the charge port because those pins are actually overheating.

In the meantime, anyone experiencing overheat/derate should clean their charge port pins, and inspect them carefully for being bent or damaged.

 

[kennethjk]

Bump. Will be keeping this up top since it is the HVBJB scenario 2.0. Has anyone had any progress on this and if so how did you get it. Again the lucky few and no care or acknowledgement about it from Ford.

Us early adopters should have our L2 charging speed back without Ford being forced to by government bodies. Just tell us how to fix it and let us pay to have it fixed. I don't want a defective overheating charging port beside my home; even if it is throttled.

I have an appointment with Ford in Early Nov to perform the CSP ,
Charge cord stuck reprogram battery charge control module

maybe that will help but I won’t really know if it helps until the spring when I bring the car back to NY.

my car charges even 40 amp on my Autel in Florida. The problem is when I use the Juicebox in NY.

until I get the CSP I will charge at 32 amp so not to damage anything. My thought process is that maybe charging at 40 amp will damage the pins, who knows all guessing.

 

[mkhuffman]

I think the problem on the Mach-E is likely mostly the same, probably bent or damaged pins. Ford could tweak the temperature threshold a little higher than 80ºC to eliminate some of the derate issues, but for some vehicles the only fix will be to replace the charge port because those pins are actually overheating.

In the meantime, anyone experiencing overheat/derate should clean their charge port pins, and inspect them carefully for being bent or damaged.

Lee, I did a test and I can't correlate the results to the theory you presented above, which I agree with by the way.

A while ago I noticed that the derating stopped when I turned the car on and off during the charge cycle. I thought that was strange, and I was able to do a test a couple days ago to confirm that is exactly what is happening.

As shown below, the charge goes at full power for a couple of hours, and then it starts derating in a very consistent 15 minute cycle. But then I got in the car and turned on accessory power (not main power).

You can see the big drop in charge rate for two seconds when I turn on/off accessory power. And you can see that the charge finished without any derating. It seems like if it really were just a temperature issue, the derating would have started again, repeating the 15 minute cycle that was occurring previously.

Do you have any ideas why this may be happening? It is hard to believe less than a second of no charge reduced the heat enough to allow the charge to finish normally. But I guess that could be the reason.

Here is a zoom in of the what happened to the charge rate when I turned the accessory power on and off. The interruption in the charge was very, very short.

 

[hybrid2bev]

In the meantime, anyone experiencing overheat/derate should clean their charge port pins, and inspect them carefully for being bent or damaged.

So how would a non-technical/mechanical person clean their charge port pins? Is there a certain spray or brush to use?

 

[kodiakng]

So how would a non-technical/mechanical person clean their charge port pins? Is there a certain spray or brush to use?

as usual, @Mach-Lee is ahead of us on this:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/how-to-clean-your-charge-port.29901/

 

[Maquis]

I have an appointment with Ford in Early Nov to perform the CSP ,
Charge cord stuck reprogram battery charge control module

maybe that will help but I won’t really know if it helps until the spring when I bring the car back to NY.

my car charges even 40 amp on my Autel in Florida. The problem is when I use the Juicebox in NY.

until I get the CSP I will charge at 32 amp so not to damage anything. My thought process is that maybe charging at 40 amp will damage the pins, who knows all guessing.

I have had the 23C50 update applied. No change to my derating problem.

 

[kodiakng]

You can see the big drop in charge rate for two seconds when I turn on/off accessory power. And you can see that the charge finished without any derating. It seems like if it really were just a temperature issue, the derating would have started again, repeating the 15 minute cycle that was occurring previously.

Do you have any ideas why this may be happening? It is hard to believe less than a second of no charge reduced the heat enough to allow the charge to finish normally. But I guess that could be the reason.

Here is a zoom in of the what happened to the charge rate when I turned the accessory power on and off. The interruption in the charge was very, very short.

[ trimmed your post but great info - thanks]

this looks to indicate there might a different temperature threshold applied when the car is on (accessory here but probably also full on) vs when it is not. or possibly since the 12v system is fully on (with DC-DC charging activated) the temperature sensor is sending a more accurate value.

interesting.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Lee, I did a test and I can't correlate the results to the theory you presented above, which I agree with by the way.

A while ago I noticed that the derating stopped when I turned the car on and off during the charge cycle. I thought that was strange, and I was able to do a test a couple days ago to confirm that is exactly what is happening.

As shown below, the charge goes at full power for a couple of hours, and then it starts derating in a very consistent 15 minute cycle. But then I got in the car and turned on accessory power (not main power).

You can see the big drop in charge rate for two seconds when I turn on/off accessory power. And you can see that the charge finished without any derating. It seems like if it really were just a temperature issue, the derating would have started again, repeating the 15 minute cycle that was occurring previously.

Do you have any ideas why this may be happening? It is hard to believe less than a second of no charge reduced the heat enough to allow the charge to finish normally. But I guess that could be the reason.

Here is a zoom in of the what happened to the charge rate when I turned the accessory power on and off. The interruption in the charge was very, very short.

Mike, it could still be a thermal issue with that data. Essentially what I see is yours is just barely at the point of overheating. From studying charge port temp data, what happens is it heats up quickly at first, and then much more slowly past about 30 minutes. The temp rise is asymptotic in nature (see graphs in video). So temp can still be rising very slowly after an hour. When they are marginal like yours, it can take an hour, sometimes longer for the port temp to reach derate threshold.

What I've also observed is the temp drop when charging stops is extremely rapid due to the kinetics of thermal dissipation (Newton's Law of heating/cooling). Stopping the charge for only a couple seconds can cause the port temp to go down 5-10ºC. And it can take an hour+ for the temp to warm back up that amount. A lot of people don't realize how fast the pins cool off, and how long they take to warm back up again. So in your case after that interruption, I'm fairly confident the port would have started derating again given enough time to warm back up, probably within 90 minutes after the restart. The temp threshold for accessory mode is not any different.

As an analogy, the charge port temp kinetics is similar to an airplane trying to reach maximum altitude, or a car reaching drag-limited top speed. It takes a very long time to reach the maximum value, but if the plane loses altitude or the car slows down, you're back a square one and it takes a surprisingly long time to regain what you lost.

This rapid cooldown is also why the derate strategy is so effective at controlling charge port temps.

People with worse damaged charge ports that overheat in 30 minutes or less will see the derating start again much sooner after a charging interruption. It's just hard to see in your case when it takes several hours of charging to warm up enough, the car is likely to finish charging before you see it again.

So how would a non-technical/mechanical person clean their charge port pins? Is there a certain spray or brush to use?

Q-tip. See my article there on how to do it.

 

[azerik]

I wanted to share this relevant video, which is an investigation of the same charge port overheating issue on the IONIQ 5:



To summarize, Ioniq guy took apart his charge port (which was overheating), inspected the pins, tested the temperature sensor, verified it was reading accurately, and measured the temps of all the related components while charging. Exactly what I would do if I had this problem on my car. After he put the port back together, it was no longer overheating. Which remains a bit of a mystery. I'll give my take:

• The temperature sensor was reading accurately. That means the charge port was actually overheating before (I think he was seeing 220ºF+).
• This further cements that this was a physical CONNECTION ISSUE, not software.
• I agree the wires are sized correctly and the charging temps he observed afterwards (~160ºF) are normal for 48A.
• It's hard to say exactly how he fixed his issue by reinstalling the pins but a few ideas:
  • He may have cleaned the pins during the process, which does help
  • He may have rotated the pins slightly during reassembly and exposed a new wear surface
  • The insertion depth of the pins may have changed slightly after reassembly
  • He may have bent something back into alignment
  • Pulling on the wires may have inadvertently tightened up a crimp

One thing I observed is his AC pins were bent ever so slightly. One pin is bent worse than the other, and you can see a slight buckle at the crux of the bend. There are also score marks on one of the pins.

It is possible that bent pins could cause a poor quality connection (due to side load) that overheats. J1772 pins should be perfectly concentric so that there is equal socket tension on all four sides or quadrants of the female pin. A bent pin could reduce the surface area of contact (perhaps not touching one or more quadrants entirely), which could cause an overheat. The pins should be perfectly straight, smooth, clean, and free of oxidation for a perfect connection.

In the video, he relays that Hyundai thinks the overheating issue is a communication issue with the temperature sensor, but I totally disagree. It's a clearly contact issue. Their engineers don't understand the problem or refuse to concede it's a hardware issue.

I think the problem on the Mach-E is likely mostly the same, probably bent or damaged pins. Ford could tweak the temperature threshold a little higher than 80ºC to eliminate some of the derate issues, but for some vehicles the only fix will be to replace the charge port because those pins are actually overheating.

In the meantime, anyone experiencing overheat/derate should clean their charge port pins, and inspect them carefully for being bent or damaged.

That's what mine looks like I assume. Slight bent inwards. Though 4 different ESVE's all acted the same over 32amps. I can even get a derate at 33 amps. Go figure.

 

[Shayne]

I think the problem on the Mach-E is likely mostly the same, probably bent or damaged pins. Ford could tweak the temperature threshold a little higher than 80ºC to eliminate some of the derate issues, but for some vehicles the only fix will be to replace the charge port because those pins are actually overheating.

In the meantime, anyone experiencing overheat/derate should clean their charge port pins, and inspect them carefully for being bent or damaged.

I had no problems charging until the threshold was lowered to 80C. It always charged like a champ before the Ford software fix.

I have cleaned the port pins since the threshold was lowered and pins are now bright and shiny and dead straight. Charge drops to 6 KW after 15 minutes and pretty much stay there for hours. Will no longer do 40 amps.

Frustrating that Ford take something that was working and updates me so it does not.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I had no problems charging until the threshold was lowered to 80C. It always charged like a champ before the Ford software fix.

I have cleaned the port pins since the threshold was lowered and pins are now bright and shiny and dead straight. Charge drops to 6 KW after 15 minutes and pretty much stay there for hours. Will no longer do 40 amps.

Frustrating that Ford take something that was working and updates me so it does not.

Does a Q-tip fit all the way around the AC pins with equal tightness? If the Q-tip is tighter on one side than the other, the pin could be bent.

Otherwise you could have some other issue with the connections on the backside or a faulty temp sensor that's reading high.

Sponsored