Connector/charger problems.

[clovi]

After search on this forum and somewhere else, I could not find an answer for my problem. Hope you guys can help.
Bianco, my white IMIEV , is now 4 years old and has now 77 k miles , and Vino, (3.5 years old) my wife’s one , around 29 K.
No problems one single problem till now, only general maintenance. Bianco is my commuter, which I use almost every day. My commutes are long, so 32 miles each way, sometimes even longer, here in Northern Virginia/Maryland/DC.
I have EVLink home connector, which is level 2.
At work, normally I use level 1, sometimes level 2.
Recently, only at my house, Bianco started to don’t accept level 2 juice, which Vino can do without any problem.
Level 1 for Bianco is fine , and also it accept level 2 on public connectors!!! Never had any problem, with any connector outside my house!!!!
Level 3 isn’t problem, which I did only few times on this past 4 years.
What is going on? Connector, charger, or something else?
Did one of you have similar problem on the past?
I’ll appreciate any input!
Ciao,

 

[PV1]

Which Level 2 EVSE do you use at home?

77,000 miles, that has to be near the top for highest mileage i-MiEV.

 

[mdbuilder]

Other day, with less than 2 miles on the RR, I could charge only 13 KW/h.

What does this mean? Is that a level 3 charge that only went to 13Kw / h or a level 1 or 2 that only charge to 13 Kw? If the former that is a symptom of a tired battery with rising internal resistance.

If your car charges fine on a level 2 charger out and about but does not charge at all or unreliably on the home level 2, AND charges fine at home on level 1 then that sounds like the connector pins are worn / no longer fitting tightly. Unless on course the breaker tripped . With 77K miles on one car and more on another I bet you have well over a couple thousand mate / de-mate cycles on that J1772 plug...

 

[PV1]

I'm guessing that energy consumption is metered, and it would only take 13 kWh (energy, not power).

About a month ago, I charged from 0 bars (3 miles RR) to full, and the car used 16.38 kWh, meaning that Clovi's car has 20% less capacity than mine (~75% of nameplate capacity).

I'm betting on the connector being worn out in a particular way that causes issues for one car but not the other, unless the same EVSE is used for level 1 and level 2.

(kW is power, and kWh is energy. 50 kW is our motor's power output, and 16 kWh is the energy that can allow 60 miles of travel.)

 

[JoeS]

clovi, sorry to hear -

I'm still trying to understand your problem exactly. A few random questions:

1. At home, using Level 2, Bianco charged using only 13kWh (measured on your EVSE) starting from RR=2miles. I presume this was starting charging with one bar blinking on the fuel gauge?

2, Using L2 at home and when it stops charging prematurely, how many bars does this show on the fuel gauge and what's the RR when it stops?

3. What is the ambient temperature when you did this? Had the car been sitting cold all night? Just trying to understand the battery temperature at the time this occurs.

4. Level 1 is no problem: can you measure the L1 kWh inputted and the fuel gauge starting point?

5. Does the no-problem Level 1 charging go up to the full 16 bars on the fuel gauge? RR?

Sure wish you had a CaniOn setup. Whereabouts are you located as maybe one of our members with CaniOn could plug in and see what your cells are doing?

 

[clovi]

Cool.
1) Using Sema Level 2 public charging station , I could only get 13 KWh of energy on the battery after having 1 mile to go on the RR, so zero bars blinking before the charge!!! This means ~ 20 % loss . Am I right?

2) I can use the EVLink from Schneider , which I have at my house, on the Vino. Vino get juice without any problem. Bianco sometimes does , sometimes does not. Tricky part of that is, sometimes , using the remote, I started the heather and after that, it charged!!!!!????? Crazy!!! Yesterday, even using this technique , the heather worked, but juice on the battery, not at all. Level 1 at home on the Bianco is fine, with bot level 1 connectors we have from Mitsu.

3) Sometimes it starts, but stops after 1 minute, or one hour. Sometimes charges 1 or 2 bars , sometimes more , sometimes full charge!!!!!!! Kind of insane!!!!!!!!

4) Temperature is around 50/60 degrees. I usually connect when I get home, or when I get to work. No time lapse in between stop and start charging.
5) The starting point is from 0/1 bars to 6 bars. Never measured level 1 inputted. As I told , using level 2 having only 0/1 bars, only got 13Kwh of energy on the batts.
6) Yes, using level 1 or level 2 public, I can see 16 bars on it.
7) Yes , I need to start to use CanIon ! Are someone here in NOVA/MD/DC using?

Cheers

 

[JoeS]

clovi, thanks for the update.

Two areas of interest: the charging mechanical interface and the battery pack itself.

From what you described I can't see a correlation between the various L1 and L2 J1772 connectors and EVSEs and your inexplicable charging problems.

Focusing on the battery pack, as far as I know, every time charging has stopped short of the full 16 bars is when a battery pack had one or more cells that were defective. Those cells were not achieving their full charge voltage while the rest of the cells were ever-so-slightly above their max limit. When the combination of overall voltage and reduced charging current reached the BMS preset, the charger shut down.

Purely speculating, charging on Level 1 applies a very low current into the battery pack so maybe the weaker cells have more time to come up to a higher voltage. :?:

CaniOn would show a cell issue immediately.

Anyone else have any ideas?

 

[mdbuilder]

As far as #1 goes, @ 77K miles I would be expecting around a 20% loss of capacity. On the other hand, @ 1 mile remaining on the range meter there is typically still 10-12% capacity in the pack so putting 13 Kwh back in is not bad.

FWIW, my 2012 with now 16,400 miles (same age, less miles and age counts here) is down to approximately 84% capacity.

 

[Don]

On the other hand, @ 1 mile remaining on the range meter there is typically still 10-12% capacity in the pack so putting 13 Kwh back in is not bad.

I believe 10% or so hidden under zero is typical for new packs, but I think that number decreases as the pack capacity decreases - A pretty clever way Mitsu is hiding the decreasing capacity of the pack. I sure wouldn't try going another 10 or 12 miles after zero with a pack with 77K on it

Don

 

[PV1]

...At least not without CaniOn showing SoC % and cell voltages.

If the car is charging to 16 bars, then there's no failure within the pack (or at least not bad enough to cause more than 5% SoC loss). It sounds like the pack is healthy but starting to show its age. If the car went to full charge and only pulled 13 kWh, then yes, there is some capacity loss (normal with that many miles on, especially for 2012 models with the LEV50 cells (as compared to the newer LEV50n, which mine seems to gain capacity as it ages )).

The main issue seems to be that it doesn't reliably charge from your home level 2 unit, but the other car does. Having charged the car (what I presume is) 2 times a day almost every day for four years, that is about 2,800 mate cycles (plug/unplug is one cycle). I'm not sure what the J1772 connector/port mate rating is, but I would expect some wear on the pins at this point. Given that the behavior is erratic, the main power pins are likely fine, but I would suspect the ground, pilot, or proximity pins (the three at the bottom) as not mating correctly. Since the pilot and proximity pins are low voltage with low current, it could be simple enough that they are dirty and need cleaned. I see this issue with my audio amplifier at home. Lower volume cuts out due to dirty points in the relays, but high volume works fine. The power connectors are much stronger as they deal with high current, and since the car sometimes charges fully or pre-heating works after a failed charge session, it doesn't seem to be a power delivery issue. If it is a weak power connection, then one or both of the top pins in the J1772 connector would be warm/hot.

I'll need to check a few things with my car before I can come to a conclusion.

**UPDATE**
I can rule out a proximity circuit issue. Testing my car last night, if the proximity circuit gets interrupted and re-established, the car will resume/restart charging.

 

[Aerowhatt]

It charges to 16 bars when it does charge. so you can pretty much rule out a cell failure.

The onboard charger works sporadically with little, if any pattern.

Given those facts I would be first looking at the controls wiring at the onboard charger and other locations (under the back seat etc). Vibration temperature etc. perhaps keeps changing the situation giving the random and erratic charging results.

I would guess this is a wiring contact problem in the cars harness. Either in the control and feedback wiring or in the supply of AC power to the onboard charger. It could also be a loose BMS connection or a intermittent fault on a BMS board inside the pack. This I believe is less likely though since the pack is sealed and everything in it leads a clean and pampered life compared to other connections in the system outside of the pack. Plus if it were a BMS related issue it would be very likely to occasionally cause the system to shut down while driving.

Aerowhatt

 

[mdbuilder]

There is a pattern, it is erratic at home not elsewhere with other evse's

 

[clovi]

Sorry for the delay!! Busy... I'll contact Schneider first ( I have it for more than 3 years now) and run CanIon and I'll let you know. The car charged fine today, with my Level 2 Schneider at home! Went to Fairfax and back (60 miles) using the heather sometimes. Got home with the turtle on ! It was 30/40 degrees! Not bad! I need also to install the gas heather! Thanks for all the help. I'll keep you guys posted!! Cheers

 

[mdbuilder]

60 miles with any degree of heat? Nothing wrong with the battery!

 

[clovi]

Yes, not bad at all. BTW, with plug connector works with CanIon?
Thanks

 

[mdbuilder]

If you are asking about the blue tooth adapter needed: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H9S71LW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[clovi]

After run the CaniOn on my Bianco with my wife tablet, seems that I have no problems with the batteries. Bought a RCA Voyager Tablet only to use for CaniOn, but seems that CaniOn isn't compatible with this "Android Marshmallow". Did someone tried? Thanks, Ciao!

 

[JoeS]

clovi, delighted that running CaniOn on your wife's Android tablet showed no issues with your battery!

I have not heard of the RCA Voyager tablet, but before this thread gets derailed, CaniOn compatibility is normally discussed on the CaniOn thread:
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1762&p=12637

Another thought, having used many different EVSE connectors (some of which have been quite touchy): perhaps it just needs to be shoved in HARD, and be sure the catch clicks all the way down.

Do let us know when you finally solve your home EVSE interface problem.