eGolf no longer charges

[dublectric]

Hello -

Apologies if this has been discussed in another thread - but I hadn't seen one yet.

Starting today, my car no longer charges using the supplied 120v Level 1 charger (yes, I know that technically it's called an "EVSE" ). When I plug it in, the LED in the car's charge port illuminates yellow for about 10 seconds, then turns pulsating green (temporarily giving hope that it is indeed charging) but after about one minute turns yellow again, and then shortly thereafter goes out.

On the charger, the "Charging" LED comes on for a while, then goes out shortly after the car gives up charging. The "Power Fault" and "Charging Fault" LEDs never illuminate. The "Power" LED remains lit throughout.

The CarNet iPhone app shows that it is not charging. In e-manager, when I select "Start Charging" it thinks for a while, then returns with a "charging fault" message.

My wife's eGolf is fully charged, but even so when I plug it in, it appears to behave correctly using my car's charger (car's charge port LED illumintes steady green, showing "charged"). My car still misbehaves in same way using her car's charger as it does using my charger.

Since this has started, I haven't tried it yet at any public Level 2 charging station since I wouldn't have enough range to get to the VW dealer in the event that that would also fail.

Has anyone else heard of this kind of thing happening with an eGolf? Could there be some control setting that I'm not taking into account? I would doubt it's any kind of delayed charging thing since it appears to *try* to start charging, then gives up for some reason.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning at the nearest VW dealer (not the one I leased it from). This dealer is 11 miles away, and my car is showing 20 miles of range remaining. Wish me luck in my Eco+ cruise tomorrow morning. I'll follow up with how it turns out.

 

[PMC2015]

I experienced something very similar the first weekend I had the car. While trying out the app, I set the max amps to 5. I could not get it to charge from the level 1 at home. It would act like it was charging for 10-30 seconds showing the pulsing green, the charger would click under the hood and back to yellow. Then it would try again in an endless loop.

Check the delayed charging and the max amp settings in he Car Net app.

 

[dublectric]

Thanks for the suggestion. I did check this morning - there were no active charging profiles, and the charging current was already set to "maximum".

My wife suggested that before I try to go to the dealer this morning, just try one more time by plugging the charger into a different circuit. That was it! The car is now charging happily while plugged into the circuit which usually powers the garage fridge, and I've cancelled my dealer service appointment.

So, something went bad with the original circuit that it had been plugged into. This is odd, because that circuit still works fine with the other equipment which it powers (the washing machine, in this case). I had never thought it would make a difference to plug into a different outlet since nothing had changed in that circuit, the charger never reported either a charge fault or a power fault, and that circuit still worked fine for other uses. I'll have to check that circuit with a meter, and if necessary an oscilloscope, to see what is happening on it during the charging attempts - I'm wondering if I'll see any voltage fluctuations, spikes, or strange waveforms.

However the final solution is probably in the form of the Clipper Creek HCS-40 which is already mounted on the garage wall and is waiting to be connected. :mrgreen:

The bottom line(s):

1. The car appears to be fine which is probably the best news - I don't want to think that the car itself is untrustworthy.

2. The charging system appears to be rather picky about the circuit it is plugged into. If you're having charging problems, try a different outlet even if the first outlet appears to work fine when other equipment is plugged into it.

If I discover anything weird about the original circuit I'll pass along the information.

 

[miimura]

There have been cases of the car's on-board charger failing and had to be replaced by a dealer. I'm glad yours is OK. It would be interesting to see why the car didn't like that circuit.

 

[dublectric]

OK, I did find something weird, but I claim the mystery is solved. The extremely good news is that the car itself still appears to be blameless here - we were worried that our cars may not be trustworthy in this respect, but it appears that the car itself is fine so that's very comforting.

First of all, I had reported that my car had been successfully charging from a different outlet, but after about an hour it stopped charging on its own, even on the different outlet. So the different outlet did not fix the problem after all. I managed to re-book the service appointment and took my car in, where (as you might expect) they found nothing wrong. There were no stored codes, and it charged fine at the dealer both through their Level 2 charger, and through my Level 1 charger that I brought with me.

After leaving the dealer, I went straight home to do some more tests. It appears that the utility company lately may be sending us a bit more than 120v, at least on the leg of the circuit that we've been using to charge the car. (Or, heaven forbid, the 'neutral' for my electric service is flaky ... I'll check that next...) For whatever reason, when the voltage measured at the car charger is over 120v (we measured around 124v) the charging failed after a minute, as I'd described earlier. However, when connecting to the same outlet through a medium-duty extension cord (16 gauge, 12 feet long), the voltage drop due to the extension lowered the voltage to 115v at the charger and the charging worked fine, even when plugged into the original outlet that had previously been failing. Admittedly such an extension is not a good long-term solution but hopefully we can get our Clipper Creek charger connected soon, and this should no longer be an issue.

So from what we've seen, when using the supplied Level 1 charger, any input voltage over 120v will cause charging to fail.

Pure speculation: we wonder if the charging system on board the car has separate modes for 120v charging and 240v charging. When it "sees" an input voltage above 120v does it go into "240v mode"? And when in "240v mode" if it sees "only" 124v, of course it doesn't have enough voltage to charge properly so it shuts down. That's our speculation...

Anyway, I'm claiming the charging mystery is solved. I'm guessing that the reason the different outlet worked temporarily is that the voltage was temporarily below 120v. Now to see if our electric service neutral might be problematic... I'll have to see if one leg shows significantly more than 120v while the other leg is significantly less...

 

[miimura]

It is pretty unusual for one side of a split-voltage supply to different than the other because that would mean that the transformer was not tapped in the middle. Anyway, if it is truly the voltage that is the problem, I will relate this story that came from another EV forum, paraphrased.

"My Enphase inverters on my solar system were complaining that my utility voltage was 'out of range', so I looked at the electric meter and sure enough, the digital meter displayed a voltage that was quite high. I immediately called the utility and notified them of the problem. They sent someone out straight away and they adjusted a transformer somewhere upstream of my house so that the voltage was back within the allowable range. Evidently, they adjust the voltage seasonally to compensate for different loads and this one transformer did not get set back the way it should have been."

This is also a good time to remind people that extensions cords are usually not well made and most will melt an some point under long term constant draw like an EV charging. The voltage drop indicated above is a good indication that the one used was not "heavy duty" enough for the application. The voltage drop is caused by resistance, which generates heat, which degrades internal connections in the cord, which increases resistance, which makes more heat, and on and on until something melts and possibly causes a fire. Be warned.

 

[dublectric]

that would mean that the transformer was not tapped in the middle.

<digression...>

Agreed, a non-center-tapped utility-pole transformer is extremely unlikely. However a more likely reason for a potential voltage imbalance would have been a high resistance in the neutral; if somewhere downstream of that (either in my house or in a neighbor's house) there would be a significantly higher cumulative load on one leg than the other, combined with a faulty neutral it would cause the high-load leg to have lower than half voltage, driving the low-load leg to have higher than half voltage. Hence my statement "heaven forbid" that the neutral might be faulty, as that could be the cause of much bigger problems than a car that doesn't charge.

</digression>

Having said that, I just measured my electrical service, and at the moment it is a tad high on both legs - 123v on one side and 124v on the other - so I can breathe a sigh of relief that it at least doesn't appear to be a bad neutral.

This is also a good time to remind people that extensions cords are usually not well made

Also agreed, a medium-duty extension cord is not a good long-term solution (also as I stated above). This is intended to be in temporary use only, to allow us to use our cars over the next couple of days until our Clipper Creek HCS-40 can be connected.

they adjust the voltage seasonally to compensate for different loads

Thanks for the note about the utility company - I didn't realize that they could and would seasonally adjust the voltage delivered to the house, but that does make sense. I am fairly certain that this is indeed a voltage-related problem so if this was to continue to be a problem I would definitely call them.

 

[czar]

I have an outlet in the garage I have used for years with various appliances, and it would not charge my eGolf. Turns out it was a bad ground and a simple fix. With only one golf at the house, I didn't have the opportunity to check anything besides the outlet

 

[JoulesThief]

Is it not a requirement that these level 1 chargers need to be plugged into a circuit that is on a Ground Fault GFCI type of outlet, or connected on the Load side of a GFCI outlet? I know it is a requirement for the Level 2 chargers.

 

[miimura]

Is it not a requirement that these level 1 chargers need to be plugged into a circuit that is on a Ground Fault GFCI type of outlet, or connected on the Load side of a GFCI outlet? I know it is a requirement for the Level 2 chargers.

The EVSE itself detects ground faults, so the circuit does not need to. This applies to L1 and L2.

 

[dublectric]

The EVSE itself detects ground faults, so the circuit does not need to. This applies to L1 and L2.

I can confirm that the manual for the Clipper Creek HCS-40 (Level 2 EVSE) does not require it to be connected to a GFCI. The manual also states that the EVSE will detect ground faults, which will prevent it from charging and and will illuminate the "Power Fault" LED.

The same is true of the L1 EVSE that is supplied with the eGolf - at one point I plugged it into an outlet which did not have a ground connected, and indeed it showed a "power fault" and would not charge until plugged into a properly grounded outlet.