Delphi 120 volt 12 amp portable charger showing 'power fault

[Mjstanding]

My Delphi portable charger indicates there is a power fault when I plug it into the garage. On the back it suggests there is a 'low resistance to ground'.

The charger works fine in my kitchen on a GFCI socket so I installed a GFCI receptacle in my garage but it didn't fix the problem.

Anyone know of any fixes for this it's driving me nuts!

 

[dublectric]

I believe that your garage outlet doesn't have the earth ground properly connected. That's the third wire connected to the outlet (other than the black "hot" and white "neutral" wires). It's usually uninsulated (bare copper) or has green insulation.

The Delphi EVSE requires a ground to be connected or else it will report the "Power Fault" that you're seeing.

 

[RonDawg]

Purchase or borrow an outlet tester like this one: http://www.amazon.com/GE-3-Wire-Receptacle-Tester-50542/dp/B002LZTKIA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1444553726&sr=8-2&keywords=outlet+tester

It will tell you if the outlet is properly grounded or not. The EVSE will refuse to work without a proper ground.

 

[nserig]

I have had my eGolf for 3 weeks now, have had a problem with the Delphi portable charger saying "Power Fault" from the start. It powerfaults around the same time every day with or without the car plugged in, with or without other appliances running. Please help if you can!
1. The charger is plugged into an outlet, confirmed grounded by an electrician. First he switched out the newer outlet for an old one without the trip buttons. Worked for the afternoon, then "powerfault" at 6:30 and all night. We unplugged everything, reset breakers, have tried every outlet in the house, it still says powerfault.
2. We installed a larger wire 220 outlet, with it's own breaker, so no other electricity being used on this outlet, thinking it might just need more power available even though it's a 110 charger. Worked all afternoon, around 6:30 it says powerfault.
3. Took car to dealership, nothing wrong with car end charger.
4. Took charger to dealership, they ordered us a new Delphi charger, and it does the same thing.
5 Here's what's weird: from 11:30 am it works and chargers the car just fine until around 6:30 at night. This is with other appliances running, lights on, etc. It works fine for 7 hours. Then it switches to powerfault. With lights on or off, appliances running, or not. All of this happens even if the car isn't plugged in and charging. Just the charger plugged into the wall does this.

 

[JoulesThief]

I have had my eGolf for 3 weeks now, have had a problem with the Delphi portable charger saying "Power Fault" from the start. It powerfaults around the same time every day with or without the car plugged in, with or without other appliances running. Please help if you can!
1. The charger is plugged into an outlet, confirmed grounded by an electrician. First he switched out the newer outlet for an old one without the trip buttons. Worked for the afternoon, then "powerfault" at 6:30 and all night. We unplugged everything, reset breakers, have tried every outlet in the house, it still says powerfault.
2. We installed a larger wire 220 outlet, with it's own breaker, so no other electricity being used on this outlet, thinking it might just need more power available even though it's a 110 charger. Worked all afternoon, around 6:30 it says powerfault.
3. Took car to dealership, nothing wrong with car end charger.
4. Took charger to dealership, they ordered us a new Delphi charger, and it does the same thing.
5 Here's what's weird: from 11:30 am it works and chargers the car just fine until around 6:30 at night. This is with other appliances running, lights on, etc. It works fine for 7 hours. Then it switches to powerfault. With lights on or off, appliances running, or not. All of this happens even if the car isn't plugged in and charging. Just the charger plugged into the wall does this.

You've got something going on at 6:30 PM that is causing an imbalance between your neutral wire and your ground wire. Go check all the ground and neutral connections on your main, and sub panel, and tighten up all the connections. You may also have to go to every outlet, fixture, and junction box to trouble shoot. You need a great electrical contractor that is good at trouble shooting.

Plug it in at 10:30 in the morning and see if it still faults around 6:30 pm. Do you have anything on automated power? Sprinkler system? Lights on at darkness sensors?

 

[nserig]

Thanks, we will start trouble shooting and post back how it goes. We don't have automated sprinklers or anything that changes at 6:30, so no idea what is triggering an imbalance. We tried turning off all the breakers as well, but it still powerfaulted with only that switch turned back on. We will see!

 

[nserig]

This is months later but I wanted to follow up to my previous post.

We had two different electricians to our house to figure out the grounding problem above, definitely a lot of trouble shooting! The second electrician figured out that before we moved into our house, some of the plumbing was replaced with a lot of plastic piping. He figured that disrupted our ground connection from the outside. Still not sure how grounding was still present some of the time during the day, rather than completely cut off. Anyway, he ended up running a new copper grounding wire from outside to our junction box inside, and now all our outlets can run the charger any time, day or night! No more power fault light!

 

[xchopp]

This is months later but I wanted to follow up to my previous post. ... ... ... No more power fault light!

Thank you for posting this to the forum; it might help other e-Golfers. I had a similar issue that was easily fixed by our electrician.

 

[forbin404]

damn the spammer is back.

 

[GlennD]

Most EVSE's that I have seen need a ground. The OpenEVSE runs about 3MA into the ground lead. As long as your ground is connected to the power companies ground then plastic pipe means nothing. You want the utility company ground for the EVSE to work.

 

[GlennD]

EVSE's are one item that will not work on the older 2 wire outlets. You must supply a connection(ground) from the panel and utility company ground.