Home Level 2 Charger Issues

[jparduhn70]

OP here. Last night, I got the Mobile Charger to work plugged into my garage's 120v outlet. Today, I set out to experiment, but before I did anything, I tried the ChargePoint HomeFlex. It worked! I cannot figure out why, but it's working fine right now. I did not see any indications in the car that I had received any OTA update. It's a mystery.

Tried mine again today, no luck. The 120V is getting me charged for the first leg of the trip to Tennessee tomorrow.

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[Moogly]

OP here. Last night, I got the Mobile Charger to work plugged into my garage's 120v outlet. Today, I set out to experiment, but before I did anything, I tried the ChargePoint HomeFlex. It worked! I cannot figure out why, but it's working fine right now. I did not see any indications in the car that I had received any OTA update. It's a mystery.

Lucky you. I am still stick with 120v. It won't charge with my Juice box.

Can I share you fordpass charging setup? Do u have it to charge when plugged in or do you have a charging schedule.?

 

[Ponypower50]

It looks like this is not going to be an easy fix, taking too long for a solution.

 

[jparduhn70]

We took a very nice road trip down to Tennessee yesterday. I had to install a NEMA 14-50 outlet in the garage when I got here last night. I got it wired up this morning. Good news is that the car charges with the Ford mobile charger at 240V here. I'm certain the ChargePoint will work as well. I'm reading 248V at the outlet, so 10V less than what I'm seeing in Illinois. Looks like Ford needs to tweak something now with the voltage tolerances. Trust me, I'm happy it works.

 

[CHeil402]

I'm in IL with rooftop solar and net metering with ComEd. My ChargePoint HomeFlex worked great on day 1 (3/9 & 3/10) next try was 3/17, and no-go. Car won't charge with Chargepoint in my garage; won't charge with the mobile charger plugged into that same 240 outlet. Mobile charger DOES work plugged into a 120 outlet. Car accepted charge just fine yesterday (3/18) from public charge point AC charger and a public ChargePoint DC fast charger. So, 240 at home not working with Chargepoint or mobile charger. Cannot see why solar would impact things, because again, the Chargepoint worked fine 10 days ago.

When it was working, was it overnight? The more power a solar inverter is inverting, the more EMI noise it can put out. For example, my wife's garage door opener remote (closest in the garage to the inverter) rarely works at high noon but works fine at night.

 

[louibluey]

I have one more possibility, but it's way out there in unlikely territory. In addition to power line communications with home and building meters, I believe that some utilities might also do power line communications with various sensors and controlled units on the grid. Given the common geographic element, in this unlikely scenario, either proper or defective local/regional power line signaling could somehow be interfering with some detection aspect of MME's process. Unlikely, but not impossible.

My money is on the 240V too high (257V) and/or some kind of power line distortion (harmonics and other factors distorting the sine wave).

 

[capt_jak_harkness]

We took a very nice road trip down to Tennessee yesterday. I had to install a NEMA 14-50 outlet in the garage when I got here last night. I got it wired up this morning. Good news is that the car charges with the Ford mobile charger at 240V here. I'm certain the ChargePoint will work as well. I'm reading 248V at the outlet, so 10V less than what I'm seeing in Illinois. Looks like Ford needs to tweak something now with the voltage tolerances. Trust me, I'm happy it works.

Not that this should be needed, but if your house has slightly higher than normal voltage, or noisier power in general, is there anything you can do as the homeowner to limit or clean up the power?

Also, if it is just a case of higher than anticipated voltage from the MMEs side, is that an easy fix?

Also, why would the MME be more sensitive than other BEVs that seem to charge fine in IL often times at the same house/same plug?

 

[CHeil402]

Not that this should be needed, but if your house has slightly higher than normal voltage, or noisier power in general, is there anything you can do as the homeowner to limit or clean up the power?

Also, if it is just a case of higher than anticipated voltage from the MMEs side, is that an easy fix?

Also, why would the MME be more sensitive than other BEVs that seem to charge fine in IL often times at the same house/same plug?

The utilities have standards for voltage and power quality that they need to meet. If you can prove to them that they aren't meeting it, they should be more than willing to fix it. Technically the home owner can fix it, but they really shouldn't have to and it wouldn't be cheap.

Who knows why the MME is more sensitive. Perhaps they set the tolerances assuming they wouldn't see these issues, maybe it's something with the specific install? I'd be very interested in the actual fix from Ford... but I doubt we'd get that level of detail on the fix. Welcome to the dark arts of electrical engineering of EMI design.

 

[louibluey]

To my experience, 257V + is more than a little high, that is unacceptably high voltage at the home. Possibly +5% is allowable, but I would say +/- 2.5% is probably more acceptable for the norm (for a 240V design, not talking 220V, or 208V from 3 phase). A few volts either way is a non issue. +17V on a home 240V ac line, is way too high IMHO.

Depends on the local hardware, but generally the fix is "tap" change somewhere on a utility company transformer. Most utilities also have auto tap changers at some distribution points that can automatically notch up or down a tap or two to maintain the proper line voltages.

At low power, say for a high end stereo system, or some sensitive electronic instrumentation, there are lots of options for 100W, 200W, almost all under 1kW. Last century there were voltage regulating transformers that were effective, but not efficient and ran hot. Now there are much better electronic AC voltage stabilization systems. However, not practical or affordable at 7kW to 11kW. Plus, there is no need to finely regulate the AC voltage to an EV. So, unfortunately, there are no easy practical solutions to lower 257V to 240V ac in the home, certainly not at 11kW.

 

[Rumin8Raps]

Interesing note that I realized when messing around with the ford pass app.

I noticed that the app shows I am at one location when it shows where the car is. It shows a different location when I look at the Charge Session. Neither are of my actual address, but being that these are different, could this be part of the issue ?

 

[jparduhn70]

Not that this should be needed, but if your house has slightly higher than normal voltage, or noisier power in general, is there anything you can do as the homeowner to limit or clean up the power?

Also, if it is just a case of higher than anticipated voltage from the MMEs side, is that an easy fix?

Also, why would the MME be more sensitive than other BEVs that seem to charge fine in IL often times at the same house/same plug?

I am completely at a loss. ComEd has already come out and said they’re within the limits. Ford has a very conservative threshold for voltage. Neither seems to be willing to do anything to address my issue. My electrician has found a step-down solution that’s going to cost me at least $500. I’m irritated that I have to do this because other manufacturers’ EVs are tolerant of ComEd’s supply voltage.

 

[louibluey]

I am completely at a loss. ComEd has already come out and said they’re within the limits. Ford has a very conservative threshold for voltage. Neither seems to be willing to do anything to address my issue. My electrician has found a step-down solution that’s going to cost me at least $500. I’m irritated that I have to do this because other manufacturers’ EVs are tolerant of ComEd’s supply voltage.

Could you post the approach and company/part number for what you electrician is proposing? There are a lot of engineers/electricians/technicians here. Maybe one of the electricians could post at the Mike Holt forum?

Short of a 1:1.nnn transformer rated to 15kVA or more, or something 1:1 with taps, not sure how you would do it. We had bunch of 15kVA 480V UPS at the national lab. I imagine they are are available for 240V too, but they cost $10k+ (not for the back up, but for the inverter that outputs a set voltage).

Theoretically, you could install an 8-10V 60-75A secondary winding in series in both 120V legs to subtract some voltage (opposing phase) from both sides. Or, possibly 16 to 20v in one side, not sure if MME can tell the difference, possibly not for a two wire L1 L2 powered system with no neutral.

I can't image the size / cost of a variac transformer at 50A+. I guess they must be available too.

This is the old style Sola regulator, they run hot and are inefficient, but are available to 15 kVA. It's been a lot of years, but I think they would regulate the output voltage down to a tighter spec. (±3% for an input line variation of +10/-20%). It also filters the sine wave to remove distortion. I used a lot these too, but much smaller ones. They are just under $4k new, but funny, I see pallets of them on eBay. I think it is kind of a last choice although it might perform well (it also might heat your entire garage) https://solahevidutysales.com/mcr_hardwired_power_line_conditioner.htm
(Sola 63-28-315-8 15kVA input 208, 240, 480 output 120, 208, 240). Oh yea, it might be noisy too

 

[Curt]

I am completely at a loss. ComEd has already come out and said they’re within the limits. Ford has a very conservative threshold for voltage. Neither seems to be willing to do anything to address my issue. My electrician has found a step-down solution that’s going to cost me at least $500. I’m irritated that I have to do this because other manufacturers’ EVs are tolerant of ComEd’s supply voltage.

I'm in Florida and am at 248V and have never been able to charge. I would see what the Ford engineering team comes up with because this isn't geographic/provider specific and given the range of voltages on the tracking spreadsheet I'm not convinced that's the issue either.

 

[Sweetwater]

I am completely at a loss. ComEd has already come out and said they’re within the limits. Ford has a very conservative threshold for voltage. Neither seems to be willing to do anything to address my issue. My electrician has found a step-down solution that’s going to cost me at least $500. I’m irritated that I have to do this because other manufacturers’ EVs are tolerant of ComEd’s supply voltage.

Sounds as if your electrician is going to install "Buck/Boost"
transformer. Better read up on that. This is not what you may
need. If he "Bucks" it down 6 volts it will always Buck down.
So incoming 240 volts would become 234 volts.
And incoming 249 volts would become 243 volts.

 

[jparduhn70]

Sounds as if your electrician is going to install "Buck/Boost"
transformer. Better read up on that. This is not what you may
need. If he "Bucks" it down 6 volts it will always Buck down.
So incoming 240 volts would become 234 volts.
And incoming 249 volts would become 243 volts.

This is exactly what he was talking about. I'm at 257V, so his thought is that it will drop it below 250V. I suppose I should read into this some more.

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