J1772 Type 2 Plug Damage - Won't Charge - Flashing Red Light

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martinwinlow

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 1, 2012
Messages
111
J1772 Type 2 Plug Damage - Won't Charge - Flashing Red Charging Light

Hi,

Just thought I might post this to help others who may suffer a similar charging issue with a damaged T2 plug which is used on all the following vehicles:-

Nissan Leaf / eNV200Mitsubishi i-MiEV / Outlander

Vauxhall Ampera / Chevrolet Volt

Citroen C-Zero / Peugeot Ion

Toyota Prius PHEV

Renault Kangoo / Fluence

Kia Soul

Fisker Karma

Ford C-MAX Energi / Ford Focus EV

Lightning EV

Mercedes Vito E-Cell Van

MIA Electric

Toyota Prius PHEV

On the LEAF, the symptoms are that when the T1 plug is inserted into the car's charge port (whether the T1 end - if there is one - is also plugged in or not), the 3 blue charging lights on the LEAF's dash board flash together and beep for about 30 seconds and no charge starts.

On the I-MiEV/Ion/C-0 the red 'charge' icon flashes.

This indication from the car means (possibly amongst other things) that there is an incorrect coupling of T1 plug to T1 socket and is most likely caused by the locking latch not fully dropping down after plug insertion. This means that the microswitch inside the T1 plug is not switching back to a 'plug locked in' or 'button not pressed' state and the car reacts as mentioned before to let you know - as well as preventing charging from starting.

The temporary fix is to make sure the plug is fully inserted and to then push the locking catch fully down. If it won't go down, makers there is nothing blocking the plug from seating fully all the way into the socket. If you can't get at it due to the car's design, then insert something into the hole in the button (that is designed to take a padlock to lock the button and, therefore plug, into the charge port) and pull it up. You should be able to hear the microswitch clicking but it is a very faint noise so any background din will probably prevent you from hearing it. As long as the lip of the locking latch is fully down then you should be good to go.

The long term fix is to either replace the plug (expensive!), fit a stronger return spring (if you can find one) or file or sand away whatever is stopping the latch from moving and properly mating with the charge port under the power of the existing spring. Perhaps, if the plug has been dropped, some appropriate 're-allignmnet' of the catch may work. Anyway, do whatever is needed to allow the catch to move freely again as well as to engage with the car's charging port properly and cleanly.

One other thing of interest worth mentioning here that I came across researching this post, in that it relates specifically to the I-MiEV/Ion/C-0 (and possibly other Mitsu EVs/PIHs - or, indeed, EVs in general), is that if you plug the T1 plug into the car and walk off expecting the car to either carry on charging (if the connected EVSE is already supplying power) or charge later (if the connected EVSE is off but will come on later on a timer) and AFTER CHARGING HAS COMMENCED the mains power is interrupted, the car will NOT (according to the manual) resume charging once mains power is re-instated.

Thus, if you have left your car charging over night and there is a power cut at 0100 hrs, charging won't re-start until you get up, un-plug and re-connect your T1 plug. This might explain the one and only time my Ion didn't charge properly overnight but it's too long ago now to remember if we had a power cut that night. I assumed the plug had not engaged properly.

The other thing I found in the manual was that apparently the auxiliary battery is charged at the same time the main battery pack is charged. I guess this, too, only happens once per T1 plug cycling as I have left the Ion plugged in to the supplied portable EVSE (connected to the mains on a timer to come on from 0000 - 1000 hrs) for 10 days without using it and come back to it to find the auxiliary battery was flat. This suggests that despite leaving your Ion plugged in to an EVSE and leave it for a long period of time (a few months,say) you will come back to a car with both batteries flat. This MAY only happen if the mains power cycles, of course, rather than the EVSE power cycling as happens when you un-plug and re-connect the T1 plug. So, if you leave your car connected to a permanently powered up EVSE (assuming no power cuts) will the car charge up occasionally on its own?

Regards, Martin Winlow
EVBitz.uk
 
Martin,

Thank you for you post. It is a big help to me at the moment. Last week I was driving after charging all day and I realized that my car had not charged while I was at work. When I plugged it in at home the yellow charge light on the panasonic L1 evse turned on, and then went off after a few seconds. Concurrently the charge light on my dash was flashing and then turned off. I had no idea what this meant, but now I do. Thank you

I've tested the car at a few public chargers and it charges there so now I have to figure out what the problem with my EVSE is. The little switch in my j1772 connector is engaging, but I don't know if it is actually working, I destroyed my voltmeter recently so I can't test it right now.

Anybody have any ideas as to what I should look for?

thanks

Pete
 
WE have two iMiEV's - One SE (no QC and no blower in the battery pack) and the other is an SE Premium which does have those features

On either car, every once in a while we'll plug in the EVSE and it will click on as normal, but will shut itself off 45 seconds or so later and you'll come out to find your car had not charged. On the SE, there's no way to know if this is going to happen unless you stand there for a minute or two to make sure it doesn't shut off, *or* double check it 5, 10 or 15 minutes later to ensure it is still charging

On the SE Premium though, it's another story. Whenever you plug in *any* EVSE, the battery compartment blower comes on a couple seconds later and runs for 5 or 10 seconds. The other day, I plugged in the stock EVSE and the blower did NOT come on . . . . but the red charge light on the EVSE did as usual. I stood there watching it for a spell and about 15 or 20 seconds later, the EVSE shut off, just as it does every so often with the other car

So, for cars equipped with the battery blower, just listen for that - If it comes on when you plug in, you're good to go - If it doesn't, the charge process will shortly abort

Interesting to note that for us, this behavior is limited to the stock EVSE - My home made Open EVSE never fails to charge the car, ever - It has not aborted a charge session once on the last 30 or so months

Don
 
1pk, This sounds like an issue with the contactors/relays in the stock EVSE. Has anybody with the EVSEUpgrade noticed similar behavior?

I have one EVSEUpgrade and one stock unit. The clicks each makes when plugging in are different, leading me to believe that EVSEUpgrade changes out the relays. The stock relays sound more numerous, but smaller. The EVSEUpgrade unit gives two solid clicks when starting the charge, where the stock one sounds like one cracking their finger knuckles :lol: .

I have noticed that after a full charge, the car will occasionally re-engage the EVSE for an unidentified amount of time, during which the 12 volt battery receives a charge. To clarify, plugging in and charging the car, and leaving it plugged into a powered up EVSE after the car finishes charging. How did I discover this? I came out to the car one day to find the charge light on two hours after it was fully charged. I've also been curious why my OVMS module would send multiple notifications for full charge. Now I know why.
 
It turns out my problem is with the j1772 connector. It is not always connecting properly. There is a little wiggle room and if the connector is not in properly the charging stops. Im working with it but it is a pain in the butt. Does the behaviour of the car (i.e. flashing charge symbol) point to a problem with any particular pin in the connector?

I'd write it off to wear and tear, but its a fairly new connector, I destroyed my old one rolling down my driveway thinking I was driving. I need to find a solution, as I can't keep checking if my car is charging or not.

My Bosch 240v EVSE will be here next week thankfully.

Pete
 
1pk said:
It turns out my problem is with the j1772 connector. ...
I'd write it off to wear and tear, but its a fairly new connector, I destroyed my old one rolling down my driveway thinking I was driving...
Pete

If the old one was damaged by a forced pull-out from driving/rolling with the j1772 connected to the car, then i would consider that the onboard connector socket may have been damaged also, and so both sides may need to be replaced.
 
PV1 said:
1pk, This sounds like an issue with the contactors/relays in the stock EVSE. Has anybody with the EVSEUpgrade noticed similar behavior?
I also have one stock factory one and one Upgraded one. Our first one has had this quirk all along - It used to happen only to my wife and I used to rag her that she probably wasn't engaging the plug all the way, so charging stopped, but it has happened to me a few times too, so that's not the case. It did this before we had it upgraded and it does it with about the same frequency after the upgrade

I have the upgraded EVSE mounted next to my home built Open EVSE on the narrow wall between the two garage doors. The Open EVSE is always plugged in to 240 VAC and the Upgraded stock one is always plugged in to 120 VAC, so I don't know if the Panasonic unit would ever do this if plugged in to 240, nor do I know if the Open EVSE would exhibit the same behavior if I was using it on L1. We recharge on either L1 or L2 depending on how much charge we need to get over the available time. We seldom recharge to 100%, so the L1/L2 choice is mostly made factoring in when we'd like to unplug the car, which is frequently at bedtime

Don
 
turns out the thing just wouldn't charge after a few days, no matter how I wiggled it unplugged/plugged in. I did hear a rattle in the connector when I shook it so I took it apart.

The ground pin in this connector (which was a replacement for a broken j1772 and a different brand) is in two parts while the rest of the pins are one. I fiddled with the ground pin, put it back together and it has worked fine since.

Looks like a flashing charge indicator is signalling a problem with the ground (that's my theory anyway).

Pete
 
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