Can't charge at 5A?

[Nonyaz]

Background: 2015 SEL. I have a 2kW off grid solar system for my house that would have to dip into the batteries if I charged at the full 12A or whatever the max amps is for the 120V charger that came with the car supplies. For that reason from time to time I would like to charge at 5A so that I can remain net positive during the sun hours and still use other household appliances.

Problem: When set for 5A via Carnet app, the car refuses to charge for any significant length of time (usually sub minute). It will click on like it's beginning to charge and sometimes it starts to charge, other times it will not, but even if it does start, it will eventually stop with no errors, no charge fault error lights on the charger, no notification on the dash, just stopped. I have a Wattsup meter monitoring the charger and the household parameters all look acceptable before, during, and after charging, the voltage sag at 5A brings it down to like 116V, shouldn't be an issue there. At 12A it sags even more (113V) but is rock solid, never have I gone back to my car and discovered it just stopped charging like it does at 5A. I'm still collecting data at 10A setting, so far I've been charging at 10A for a few hours without it stopping, but I faintly remember having some problems at 10A before (this has been an ongoing issue that I'm now just getting around to troubleshooting). I'll keep it at 10A because the difference between 10A and MAX is about half a diddly squat with the 120V charger, so why not.

Not the answer: My initial though was it was my off grid inverter, maybe the sine wave wasn't as clean as it should be? Well, fortunately I still have access to grid power with the flip of a few breakers, and sure enough, same issue with grid power, so that's not it. My current theory is the Delphi charger will just autodisconnect if the power is less than some current draw, but I'm open to other ideas/suggestions.

 

[forbin404]

Background: 2015 SEL. I have a 2kW off grid solar system for my house that would have to dip into the batteries if I charged at the full 12A or whatever the max amps is for the 120V charger that came with the car supplies. For that reason from time to time I would like to charge at 5A so that I can remain net positive during the sun hours and still use other household appliances.

Problem: When set for 5A via Carnet app, the car refuses to charge for any significant length of time (usually sub minute). It will click on like it's beginning to charge and sometimes it starts to charge, other times it will not, but even if it does start, it will eventually stop with no errors, no charge fault error lights on the charger, no notification on the dash, just stopped. I have a Wattsup meter monitoring the charger and the household parameters all look acceptable before, during, and after charging, the voltage sag at 5A brings it down to like 116V, shouldn't be an issue there. At 12A it sags even more (113V) but is rock solid, never have I gone back to my car and discovered it just stopped charging like it does at 5A. I'm still collecting data at 10A setting, so far I've been charging at 10A for a few hours without it stopping, but I faintly remember having some problems at 10A before (this has been an ongoing issue that I'm now just getting around to troubleshooting). I'll keep it at 10A because the difference between 10A and MAX is about half a diddly squat with the 120V charger, so why not.

Not the answer: My initial though was it was my off grid inverter, maybe the sine wave wasn't as clean as it should be? Well, fortunately I still have access to grid power with the flip of a few breakers, and sure enough, same issue with grid power, so that's not it. My current theory is the Delphi charger will just autodisconnect if the power is less than some current draw, but I'm open to other ideas/suggestions.

What charger are you using? Most likely it's the charger that is seeing the 5a draw and thinking something is wrong.

 

[Nonyaz]

What charger are you using? Most likely it's the charger that is seeing the 5a draw and thinking something is wrong.

This one: http://imgur.com/a/0UBaQ

Do you think I would have any sort of warranty claim since I can't use a built in feature of my car with the factory hardware? I guess I really need to find another charger and start collecting data, but if 5A is too low for a 120V home charger I can only imagine the public chargers have the same sort of "quit wasting my time with this low of current" feature.

 

[JoulesThief]

VW gave you with the car, the absolute most minimum charge rate EVSE that they could with the car. It won't run on less watts, theres too much parasitic draw in the whole recharging system to run 5 amps. You need about 1400 watts or 12 amps at 120v to get something done with recharging your battery, at a measly 5 miles per hour or less, depending on your driving style.

Buy and install more panels. Most 270 to 320 watt 30v panels will give you at or just over 1 amp at 245v. 20 panels will give you more than enough to run 15 amps at 240V for recharging a e-Golf SE model in 5 to 7 hours.

 

[Nonyaz]

It won't run on less watts, theres too much parasitic draw in the whole recharging system to run 5 amps.

Source?

You need about 1400 watts or 12 amps at 120v to get something done with recharging your battery, at a measly 5 miles per hour or less, depending on your driving style.

My commute is 25 miles round trip, I sleep at night so 5 hours+ of charging is fine with me. Plus I have a multitude of free level 2/3 chargers around when needed.

Buy and install more panels. Most 270 to 320 watt 30v panels will give you at or just over 1 amp at 245v. 20 panels will give you more than enough to run 15 amps at 240V for recharging a e-Golf SE model in 5 to 7 hours.

So just to be clear, your proposed solution is for me to casually drop 3+ grand on more panels (ignoring permits and labor)? Gee whiz, why didn't I think of that!?

 

[miimura]

If I recall correctly, the J1772 pilot signal from the EVSE to the car is only defined down to 6 amps. However, in your case, the EVSE is sending 12 amps and the car is set to draw less. Also, VW should not let you set a value that won't work.

Anyway, try 6 amps and see if that works.

 

[Nonyaz]

If I recall correctly, the J1772 pilot signal from the EVSE to the car is only defined down to 6 amps. However, in your case, the EVSE is sending 12 amps and the car is set to draw less. Also, VW should not let you set a value that won't work.

Anyway, try 6 amps and see if that works.

Fantastic insight miimura, that certainly would explain my problem. I was about to respond with "Well that's nice and all but VW only gives me 4 settings: 5A, 10A, 13A, MAX" as seen here:

But then, I thought, well the website is just submitting whatever's in the dropdown menu, wonder what would happen if I changed what's in the menu? So I popped open Google Chromes inspect element feature, found the menu items, and gave them a tweak, I put in 7 because I thought 6 might be too marginal and hit submit, and it took it!

I ran downstairs and my meter is reading 6.35A, seems close enough to me. Now as I came back up to type all this up I realized my batt is almost charged so it's conceivable that it just happened to be around 7A in its normal charge cycle and I really did nothing, definitely more testing needed tomorrow, but if this actually worked this is very exciting news, I can now dial in any current I want (above 6A). I had previously found VW's presets very limiting, especially 13A, 13A was already my max so I had in essence had 5A (which didn't work), almost max, might as well be max, and real max, until now!

It's late, so no more testing tonight, but I do have one more piece of reassuring evidence, as seen in the screenshots, my charge time is 2hr 10m at 10A, I refreshed my status and its now at 3hr 5m (as you would expect as I cut the current back a few amps). I'm going to end the night hopeful and will report back tomorrow. Not sure if this will be helpful to anyone else, but it sure is cool news for me

 

[GlennD]

My Mercedes B came with a L1 EVSE that defaulted to 8A and it was switchable to 12A. At 8A it would charge the car. I do not know what the Tesla based drive train drew as overhead. The J1772 specification lists minimum current. Off hand the 6A earlier quoted sounds about right.

The specification is voluntary. For example the L1 limit is 16A but I have tested my SEL at 30A @120VAC. It does respect the pilot but it has no voltage restriction, only current. Same for my old Leaf. Most Chinese EVSE's do not implimit the GFCI protection but they work fine.

 

[GlennD]

You might go with an EVSE like OpenEVSE that lets you set the current. OpenEVSE has an L1 table and an L2 table. Both are settable in steps so you could set the L1 to a low level.

OpenEVSE says the L1 minimum is 6A and the L2 minimum is 10A. Chris follows the J1772 specification closely so they are likely the spec minimums.

 

[Nonyaz]

The specification is voluntary. For example the L1 limit is 16A but I have tested my SEL at 30A @120VAC. It does respect the pilot but it has no voltage restriction, only current.

Can you elaborate on how you accomplished this?

Also just to follow up on my last post, changing the parameters via web did in fact work, I'm quite content with this workaround.

 

[GlennD]

Since the tables are purely cosmetic I forced the L2 table and I set the EVSE to 32A. The eGolf charged at 30A at 120V for a short time on a 20A circuit. To me it makes no sense to charge at 120V unless you are at a RV Park or a Truck Stop with only 120V available.. 240V is more than twice as fast as 120V.

I only tried high current at 120V momentary to satisfy my curiosity. for sure 30A on a 20A circuit would blow the breaker real fast not to mention the wires heating up.

 

[JoulesThief]

It won't run on less watts, theres too much parasitic draw in the whole recharging system to run 5 amps.

Source?

You need about 1400 watts or 12 amps at 120v to get something done with recharging your battery, at a measly 5 miles per hour or less, depending on your driving style.

My commute is 25 miles round trip, I sleep at night so 5 hours+ of charging is fine with me. Plus I have a multitude of free level 2/3 chargers around when needed.

Buy and install more panels. Most 270 to 320 watt 30v panels will give you at or just over 1 amp at 245v. 20 panels will give you more than enough to run 15 amps at 240V for recharging a e-Golf SE model in 5 to 7 hours.

So just to be clear, your proposed solution is for me to casually drop 3+ grand on more panels (ignoring permits and labor)? Gee whiz, why didn't I think of that!?

I'm seeing panels down to about 50 to 55c a watt, from time to time. Being a general contractor, installation is no big deal or expense, to me. Running those panels, you should be getting 240V + not 120V at around an amp a panel. 5 amps or 6 amps at 120v for your panels is an anomaly. You should be striving to run on 240V and both legs, not one leg and a neutral.

A basic EVSE new starts around $400, and goes up from there. It's the infrastructure cost of recharging for less or for free from solar electricity. You, and only you have to weigh the break even point. If $3000 breaks your piggy bank, buy your electricity instead from the utilities company at off peak hours, for the best rates when recharging.

IMHO 6 amps at 120v is just plain under engineered and silly. You are trying to make silk purses out of sow's ears.

 

[Nonyaz]

I'm seeing panels down to about 50 to 55c a watt, from time to time.

Me too (and cheaper if you look hard enough), that's what I used in my calculation: 320x20x.50 = $3200 aka more than I have on hand at the moment.

Being a general contractor, installation is no big deal or expense, to me.

Good for you, how does this help me? Are you volunteering to do the work for me for free? What difference does it make to me what resources you have at your disposal?

Running those panels, you should be getting 240V + not 120V at around an amp a panel. 5 amps or 6 amps at 120v for your panels is an anomaly. You should be striving to run on 240V and both legs, not one leg and a neutral.

I've largely been trying to ignore your obsession with what voltage and amps my panels run at, I assure you there's no problem, some would say yuge amps, nobody produces more amps than my panels. The point that seems to be whizzing over your head is that my entire house is running off this when it's switched on, I would like to run other things when my car charges is the point. And as a side note, I do have have a 240V inverter, just no 240V line running to my garage, but as you mentioned you're a great contractor so by your logic my problem doesn't exist.

If $3000 breaks your piggy bank, buy your electricity instead from the utilities company at off peak hours, for the best rates when recharging.

My utility doesn't distinguish between peak and off peak hours, I'll forgive you for assuming I live in California, but I don't. My main short term objective with my solar system is to offset enough of my power consumption so that I don't go over 500kWh a month, because it's billed at a higher rate after that.

IMHO 6 amps at 120v is just plain under engineered and silly.

Again, you missed the big picture here, see above.

 

[forbin404]

The tool I have used to charge is only bestek 300w power inverter. It was used to charge camera and laptop in car when camping outside. This tool can transfer DC 12v to AC 110v. But sorry to say it can only meet in 4.8A, not 5A. Maybe you can know more about different watt power inverter on here.

OP isn't talking about power inverters, he's talking about main charging port at 5A

 

[miimura]

The tool I have used to charge is only bestek 300w power inverter. It was used to charge camera and laptop in car when camping outside. This tool can transfer DC 12v to AC 110v. But sorry to say it can only meet in 4.8A, not 5A. Maybe you can know more about different watt power inverter on here.

OP isn't talking about power inverters, he's talking about main charging port at 5A

That guy is a spammer. He put up several garbage posts so that he could post links to his site. A decent admin would just purge these posts and delete the account.

 

[forbin404]

oh.

Does this site have an active mod?

 

[JoulesThief]

I'm seeing panels down to about 50 to 55c a watt, from time to time.

Me too (and cheaper if you look hard enough), that's what I used in my calculation: 320x20x.50 = $3200 aka more than I have on hand at the moment.

Being a general contractor, installation is no big deal or expense, to me.

Good for you, how does this help me? Are you volunteering to do the work for me for free? What difference does it make to me what resources you have at your disposal?

Running those panels, you should be getting 240V + not 120V at around an amp a panel. 5 amps or 6 amps at 120v for your panels is an anomaly. You should be striving to run on 240V and both legs, not one leg and a neutral.

I've largely been trying to ignore your obsession with what voltage and amps my panels run at, I assure you there's no problem, some would say yuge amps, nobody produces more amps than my panels. The point that seems to be whizzing over your head is that my entire house is running off this when it's switched on, I would like to run other things when my car charges is the point. And as a side note, I do have have a 240V inverter, just no 240V line running to my garage, but as you mentioned you're a great contractor so by your logic my problem doesn't exist.

If $3000 breaks your piggy bank, buy your electricity instead from the utilities company at off peak hours, for the best rates when recharging.

My utility doesn't distinguish between peak and off peak hours, I'll forgive you for assuming I live in California, but I don't. My main short term objective with my solar system is to offset enough of my power consumption so that I don't go over 500kWh a month, because it's billed at a higher rate after that.

IMHO 6 amps at 120v is just plain under engineered and silly.

Again, you missed the big picture here, see above.

This is an e-Golf forum, not a "how to run my whole house on solar panels and keep my power consumption under 500kWh a month" forum. Is that picture big enough for you? Granted, a few here do use solar panels to make electricity, but that's not the pure function of this forum. You've problems, no one has volunteered a solution to your problem here. I'd take that as a sign. Champagne taste with a beer budget.