Home Level 2 Charger Issues

[louibluey]

There is a relevant post #25 by @TheVirtualTim in Juicebox 40 issues.

Is this the end of all of the Illinois L2 problem?

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[jparduhn70]

There is a relevant post #25 by @TheVirtualTim in Juicebox 40 issues.

Is this the end of all of the Illinois L2 problem?

It'll be the end of the problem once we get that software update @TheVirtualTim mentioned in his post. Until then, it's still random ability to charge at 240V. I hope they get something to the dealers this week or next.

 

[louibluey]

I hope that we get some more technical explanation later.

In most home distribution, the 240 is created by the two 120V circuits, so it does not really add up that both 120V circuits are good sine waves, and the 240 is distorted ("dirty"). There must be some additional technical aspect to why the 240V is distorted, maybe the powerline signaling aspect some power companies use?

[As @CHeil402 mentioned this earlier, for hobbyists with a scope, don't even think about trying to look at the 240V line, unless you have the know how. Putting the "ground" of a scope probe on one of the 240V legs results in a direct short to ground (unless it's a fully isolated battery scope).]

 

[CHeil402]

There is a relevant post #25 by @TheVirtualTim in Juicebox 40 issues.

Is this the end of all of the Illinois L2 problem?

That would certainly make sense, especially given the high concentration of issues in IL. Although Ford has to deal with the majority of the complaints here since their product "doesn't work", it really isn't their fault so unfortunately they get a lot of undue blame. Really the power utility needs to clean up their system and reduce the higher than spec'd voltages and poor power quality.

It sounds like the electric utility just doesn't have a well formed grid distribution and you're seeing a lot of high voltages and distortions. This is an issue you might have running a simple gas generator compared to the much more expensive inverter gas generators where the power isn't properly conditioned. You can google issues people have with a UPS or other sensitive device not working on a gas generator. This "dirty" power can be measured with a Power Quality Factor (PQF) or in terms of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). Most generators will provide what they guarantee as a worst possible THD. Both are measured as percentages that generally compare how good the power generated is compared to a perfect sinusoidal signal. Here's a simple example image of one looks like compared to another.

At least it seems Ford is aware of the issue and can adjust the sensitivity of their equipment. At the end of the day Ford probably spec'd their system to accept power that was within industry standard values that power companies SHOULD be complying with. This was to protect your car from damage. Clearly other manufacturers weren't being so "picky" with the power quality they were willing to accept and now Ford has examples of places where this is causing issues with the customer and realize that it will be faster for them to change what they accept versus waiting for the utility companies to clean their power.

 

[louibluey]

The part that still bothers me is that if the home 240V AC is "dirty" distorted, then I would think each 120V line is just as distorted by 1/2 amplitude? That is if the 240V AC is provided from a local transformer into a conventional L1 / L2 home panel. (here L1/L2 means the individual 120V lines to ground).

I guess that might be the case, and it is not until the MME software measurement of the L1 to L2 voltage, the 240VAC, where the distortion reaches a threshold to cause the fault?

 

[CHeil402]

The part that still bothers me is that if the home 240V AC is "dirty" distorted, then I would think each 120V line is just as distorted by 1/2 amplitude? That is if the 240V AC is provided from a local transformer into a conventional L1 / L2 home panel. (here L1/L2 means the individual 120V lines to ground).

I guess that might be the case, and it is not until the MME software measurement of the L1 to L2 voltage, the 240VAC, where the distortion reaches a threshold to cause the fault?

I assume you're wondering why the charger works from a 120 V outlet when it doesn't from a 240 V outlet? It is likely that the 'dirty' power is present on all lines of the split-phase system that enters the house. However, one of two things (or both or more) might be at play here.

1. If the MME is upset about the THD, then as you pointed out, the amplitude of the distortions is likely cut in half on the 120 V circuits, so it stays below whatever threshold the MME is set to. Or if the issue is caused by an overburdened line of the split phase in the substation distribution, then it could affect 240 V circuits more than 120 V circuits.
2. If the MME is upset by the high voltages as the module in the car is probably capped based on the higher 240 V voltage, then any distortions added onto an already above spec voltage will push the actual "peak" of the voltage much higher than the cutoff threshold. For example, if the average high is already 255 V and then you have a 10 V dirty spike line up with the peak of the wave, then you have a peak of 265 V. But if that happened on a 127 V circuit, then it's only 137 V, which is high but below the cutoff.

This could possibly be solved by using a running average instead of peak sampling (if that's actually what's happening... all speculation at this point).

 

[Ponypower50]

Ok, who's fault is it. A 60K car should work as described.

 

[CHeil402]

Ok, who's fault is it. A 60K car should work as described.

It does work as described. Ford can't be responsible for an outside signal not being in compliance with agreed upon industry standards. That's why we have industry standards. For example, if you plugged your car into a broken DC fast charger that provided 800 V instead of 400 V as the MME was designed for and the car breaks, who is at fault? I'm going with the broken DCFC. If this USB device kills your computer, is it your computer's fault?

https://usbkill.com/

Price is irrelevant. A similar example would be if you plugged a lamp designed for 120 V into a 240 V outlet and it exploded, do you blame the lamp?

 

[generaltso]

A 60K car should work as described.

At what price point should a car not work as described?

 

[louibluey]

It does work as described. Ford can't be responsible for an outside signal not being in compliance with agreed upon industry standards. That's why we have industry standards. For example, if you plugged your car into a broken DC fast charger that provided 800 V instead of 400 V as the MME was designed for and the car breaks, who is at fault? I'm going with the broken DCFC. If this USB device kills your computer, is it your computer's fault?

https://usbkill.com/

Price is irrelevant. A similar example would be if you plugged a lamp designed for 120 V into a 240 V outlet and it exploded, do you blame the lamp?

I'm going to argue the other side a bit. Yes, the power company should supply in specification compliant power, no argument there.

However, every other EV / PHEV can accept the edge of spec, or out of spec power in Illinois. So, I am tentatively going with Ford is to blame for not correctly measuring the 240 VAC line in a real world Illinois scenario.

 

[TheVirtualTim]

I'm going to argue the other side a bit. Yes, the power company should supply in specification compliant power, no argument there.

However, every other EV / PHEV can accept the edge of spec, or out of spec power in Illinois. So, I am tentatively going with Ford is to blame for not correctly measuring the 240 VAC line in a real world Illinois scenario.

But I can use the same argument in the other direction -- all the other power utilities seem to be able to supply clean enough power and just this one location has a problem.

If you think about it... testing every possible "real world" location would be time-consuming and expensive. And if they built that R&D cost into the price of the car ... then we'd be paying even more for our cars. So how do they decide which cities and towns to test and which ones to skip? And if whatever method they used to pick locations happened to come up with any list that didn't include this one affected area, they would STILL have missed it.

Alternatively, they can build the car so that it works with any power system that is reasonably close to being in-spec ... and that's a lot more cost effective.

Ford didn't just throw their hands up in the air and say "not our fault" -- and they could have ... and some companies would have. Instead they got people out there to investigate why just this one area was having a problem and discovered the issue. Having done that, they realized they could deliver a software update to make the car accept of the out-of-spec power -- so now everyone is going to get a fix.

Having spoken with the engineers at Ford on numerous occasions, I can tell you they REALLY care about getting everything perfect on this car. But this car isn't like a typical new model launch. If this had been a new gasoline powered car then it likely would be using an existing engine, existing transmission, lots of other existing parts, etc. and very little of the car would genuinely be completely new. This car has loads of things that are completely new. This new car launch is probably as complicated as 3 new car launches all rolled into one car.

 

[CHeil402]

But I can use the same argument in the other direction -- all the other power utilities seem to be able to supply clean enough power and just this one location has a problem.

If you think about it... testing every possible "real world" location would be time-consuming and expensive. And if they built that R&D cost into the price of the car ... then we'd be paying even more for our cars. So how do they decide which cities and towns to test and which ones to skip? And if whatever method they used to pick locations happened to come up with any list that didn't include this one affected area, they would STILL have missed it.

Alternatively, they can build the car so that it works with any power system that is reasonably close to being in-spec ... and that's a lot more cost effective.

Ford didn't just throw their hands up in the air and say "not our fault" -- and they could have ... and some companies would have. Instead they got people out there to investigate why just this one area was having a problem and discovered the issue. Having done that, they realized they could deliver a software update to make the car accept of the out-of-spec power -- so now everyone is going to get a fix.

Having spoken with the engineers at Ford on numerous occasions, I can tell you they REALLY care about getting everything perfect on this car. But this car isn't like a typical new model launch. If this had been a new gasoline powered car then it likely would be using an existing engine, existing transmission, lots of other existing parts, etc. and very little of the car would genuinely be completely new. This car has loads of things that are completely new. This new car launch is probably as complicated as 3 new car launches all rolled into one car.

Exactly. That's why we have industry standards. Ford built their car to the same standards that should be employed everywhere. An ICE analogy is the Octane rating of fuel. If you purchased 87 Octane fuel, you're expecting that to actually be 87 Octane. Ford doesn't go around sampling gas stations to verify it works with that fuel, they ensure that it works with spec compliant 87 Octane fuel.

If there was a town that had 87 Octane labeled fuel actually being 75 Octane fuel and it worked in some cars and not others, I think it would be unfair to complain that Car X can handle it but Car Y can't. If Ford realized that all of Car Y in that town didn't work but realized that after investigating that they could OTA update their knock sensor to actually accept 75 Octane fuel and it wouldn't damage the car, then great!

In Ford's defense, they were protecting the car from an out of spec "fuel". Now they're realizing that even though the "fuel" is out of spec, they can still accept it, so they're updating the settings. Personally, I'd rather the car be overly protective in an "unknown" condition than be overly accepting and break something like might have happened with the other cars that "worked" in IL. Maybe this situation will actually force the IL power companies to fix their system if it gains attention with a big company like Ford who might work with them, although I'm not holding my breath on that one.

 

[louibluey]

But I can use the same argument in the other direction -- all the other power utilities seem to be able to supply clean enough power and just this one location has a problem.

If you think about it... testing every possible "real world" location would be time-consuming and expensive. And if they built that R&D cost into the price of the car ... then we'd be paying even more for our cars. So how do they decide which cities and towns to test and which ones to skip? And if whatever method they used to pick locations happened to come up with any list that didn't include this one affected area, they would STILL have missed it.

Alternatively, they can build the car so that it works with any power system that is reasonably close to being in-spec ... and that's a lot more cost effective.

Ford didn't just throw their hands up in the air and say "not our fault" -- and they could have ... and some companies would have. Instead they got people out there to investigate why just this one area was having a problem and discovered the issue. Having done that, they realized they could deliver a software update to make the car accept of the out-of-spec power -- so now everyone is going to get a fix.

Having spoken with the engineers at Ford on numerous occasions, I can tell you they REALLY care about getting everything perfect on this car. But this car isn't like a typical new model launch. If this had been a new gasoline powered car then it likely would be using an existing engine, existing transmission, lots of other existing parts, etc. and very little of the car would genuinely be completely new. This car has loads of things that are completely new. This new car launch is probably as complicated as 3 new car launches all rolled into one car.

First, I am a huge MME fan, and very happy with my GB FE. I am not at all against Ford, or Ford's possibly heroic efforts to get this (and every other MME problem) right.

Short of specific engineering details (dirty is not sufficient), it is too soon to say if the power is out of spec or non-compliant, or if Ford just got the measurement software wrong. I would say yes, Ford should be able to properly measure 240 VAC across America, just like every other EV PHEV does. It is probably just learning curve (which is forgivable, and still Ford's "fault").

It's not fatal, and sounds perfectly correctable. From a purely engineering view point, there is not enough information to know if MME's charger is any danger of damage from whatever is different about Chicagoland power, or if Ford simply got the 240VAC measurement wrong. Probably it is the latter (measurement error outside of the engineering lab, real world), because the solution appears to be simply correcting the measurement, for what they found in Illinois. Then MME's internal charger, just like every other EV and PHEV can safely charge MME in Illinois. That's a good thing, even if they got the measurement wrong, at least the existing charger in the car can still work okay.

 

[jparduhn70]

I am actually very pleased that Ford took the conservative approach, and it makes plenty of sense why. This launch was new territory and they could ill afford to mess it up, especially with other EVs like the F-150, Transit and others coming down the pike. I agree that ComEd needs to clean up their act, but the Illinois Commerce Commission lets them get away with it, and any attempt to force that change is a bureaucratic nightmare that no one seems to want to enter. Knowing what we're being told now only validates that other manufacturers were much more liberal with their tolerances, thus they charged when plugged in. My only fault with Ford is the dealers' unpreparedness to deal with the concerns tied to this issue. When I have a service advisor tell me that the people on these forums are a-holes that are ill-informed and spreading falsehoods about this issue and its resolution, which I did last week, I have to lay the blame for that kind of behavior on the manufacturer and their training to deal with BEV issues.

I just want the software update at this point. It's my only real complaint about the car, and I just want to enjoy having and driving it.

 

[AEtherScythe]

Reference here: https://www.quora.com/Is-the-power-...r-120VAC-How-about-220-or-is-it-240-or-235VAC

If the voltage is dirty and fluctuates below 228V, then it's out of spec -- the GRID is the problem, not the car. But sure, the car can easily through a software change be more accommodating of the poor power delivery in regions of the country where the power grid is out of spec.

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