Strange Charging Problem???

13518 Views 34 Replies 16 Participants Last post by Harleyguy, Aug 22, 2013

Lambo

Discussion Starter · Aug 17, 2013

So whenever I plug in my 110 charger into the Karma, this red light comes on. I will leave it plugged in with this red light flashing and it still charges, but it takes 50 hours to charge the car!! Any ideas???

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Sandy Eggo

· #2 · Aug 17, 2013

Some basics:

- Make sure you're not using any kind of extension cord
- Make sure nothing else is plugged into the circuit that your charger is using
- Find a user manual for the charger and see what the red 'idiot light' is supposed to mean exactly.

See if that helps and report back.

smoothoperator

· #3 · Aug 17, 2013

do you have access to another J plug? can you try to charge at public station? Have you tried to plug the EVSE into another outlet on a different circuit? See attached information from the Fisker Users Manual. The blinking red light could mean a fault with the outlet or a fault with the EVSE.

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Ira

· #4 · Aug 17, 2013

smoothoperator said:
do you have access to another J plug? can you try to charge at public station? Have you tried to plug the EVSE into another outlet on a different circuit? See attached information from the Fisker Users Manual. The blinking red light could mean a fault with the outlet or a fault with the EVSE.

Ditto. It happened to me while traveling and it turned out to be a missing ground connection. Used another AC source and the problem went away.

Lambo

Discussion Starter · #5 · Aug 18, 2013

Ok. Here's what I got
- no I'm not using an extension cord

I plugged it into another outlet away from the garage, inside my condo and it is still blinking red. It must be the charging cord is messed up. Does anyone know how much a replacement is? Maybe it's time to buy a 220 charger? Ugh

Fabulist

· #6 · Aug 18, 2013

Lambo said:
Ok. Here's what I got
- no I'm not using an extension cord

I plugged it into another outlet away from the garage, inside my condo and it is still blinking red. It must be the charging cord is messed up. Does anyone know how much a replacement is? Maybe it's time to buy a 220 charger? Ugh

This may be a remote possibility, but your condo may have a bad ground connection. Most electrical devices are pretty oblivious to the ground connection, but a few, including EVSE gear actually checks it as part of its startup. If this is the case, the 220V charger would have the same problem. So to rule this out, I would suggest plugging in the portable charger at some other location, such as your office or a friend's house, just to rule out a bad ground connection at home. As I said, this is a fairly remote possibility, but not impossible, and it could have ramifications beyond just the Karma charger.

Lambo

Discussion Starter · #7 · Aug 18, 2013

Ok. Gonna try another plug at the office tomorrow. Hope it works

smoothoperator

· #8 · Aug 18, 2013

Lambo said:
Ok. Here's what I got
- no I'm not using an extension cord

I plugged it into another outlet away from the garage, inside my condo and it is still blinking red. It must be the charging cord is messed up. Does anyone know how much a replacement is? Maybe it's time to buy a 220 charger? Ugh

IMO the LEAR 110 EVSE that came with the Karma is trash. I usually just keep mine in the trunk and rarely use it. Look at replacing it with a Nissan Leaf EVSE (made by Panasonic). A minor modification to this EVSE will allow it to charge off both 110 as well as 220 (I use a NEMA 14-50 pigtail). Well worth the $$$ for a quality EVSE.

Makis

· #9 · Aug 19, 2013

Buy the Clipper Creek 220 charger Its on sale for 495. I bought one at the advise of Hurleyguy. Easy to install and works perfectly every time. http://www.clippercreek.com

smoothoperator

· #10 · Aug 19, 2013

Makis said:
Buy the Clipper Creek 220 charger Its on sale for 495. I bought one at the advise of Hurleyguy. Easy to install and works perfectly every time. http://www.clippercreek.com

Clipper Creek makes quality product and that is a great EVSE. Only problem is that you can't take it with you when you are away. With a portable EVSE that is capable of charging 110 as well as 220 you have the best of both worlds. All that is necessary is the installation of a 220 plug at your primary residence (or a normal 110 outlet). You also get the benefit of being able to plug into thousands of RV sites.

Lambo

Discussion Starter · #11 · Aug 19, 2013

Ok...the culprit is the charger. Plugged it into my office outlet today & exactly the same thing. I guess I'm going to the clipper creek charger

Roberta'sKarma

· #12 · Aug 20, 2013

OK, same charger, different problem. (at least mine looks like the one in the original post)

The name on my charger is Intertek. Lights are all green, never had a red. Use it every night. Since bringing the car home (~2mo), the charger box, cord and plug get hot when charging, sometimes to the point of almost burning my fingers when I unplug it.

Then one day, on one of the days the plug was extra hot, I noticed a blackish-brown ooze coming out of the socket. So I cleaned up the plug and went with another socket the next day and that seemed to address most of the issue. It still got pretty warm, but not as much as before. That was about 3 weeks ago. Then yesterday: uber hot and black goo again. I know the manual says if it gets hot its likely the socket/ house - so I guess I just need to call an electrician. But has anyone seen this before? Why would it be fine for weeks, then get all hot? and what is up with the black goo??

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ct-fiskerbuzz

· #13 · Aug 20, 2013

Roberta'sKarma said:
OK, same charger, different problem. (at least mine looks like the one in the original post)

The name on my charger is Intertek. Lights are all green, never had a red. Use it every night. Since bringing the car home (~2mo), the charger box, cord and plug get hot when charging, sometimes to the point of almost burning my fingers when I unplug it.

Then one day, on one of the days the plug was extra hot, I noticed a blackish-brown ooze coming out of the socket. So I cleaned up the plug and went with another socket the next day and that seemed to address most of the issue. It still got pretty warm, but not as much as before. That was about 3 weeks ago. Then yesterday: uber hot and black goo again. I know the manual says if it gets hot its likely the socket/ house - so I guess I just need to call an electrician. But has anyone seen this before? Why would it be fine for weeks, then get all hot? and what is up with the black goo??

Heat indicates power dissipation in the connection due to I²R losses. Here "I" is the current (more or less fixed at ~13 amps) and "R" is the resistance. Ideally "R" is tiny, as your socket's metal is in good contact with the plug's metal. Apparently ... not so much. I've seen this sort of thing with "old" sockets where the springy metal (the socket is supposed to sort of clamp down on the plug, due to springy metal) has lost its spring.

The black goo is probably melting plastic, but that's just a guess.

The odd thing is that the box itself gets that hot. I don't think mine ever did, not that I checked. Normally if there's a bad connection at the socket/plug, the plug gets hot and the cord connected to it gets pretty warm from heat flow, but the heat falls off rapidly as you get into the rest of the unit, which has a lot more surface area for dissipating heat.

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Roberta'sKarma

· #14 · Aug 20, 2013

the box never did get as hot as the plug itself.

I let the box hang from the socket, I try to support it a bit, but haven't found anything to fully support it - could the weight of the box be messing with the connection between socket and plug metal? Causing the problem?

ct-fiskerbuzz

· #15 · Aug 20, 2013

Roberta'sKarma said:
the box never did get as hot as the plug itself.

I let the box hang from the socket, I try to support it a bit, but haven't found anything to fully support it - could the weight of the box be messing with the connection between socket and plug metal? Causing the problem?

Yes, especially if the sockets are old and starting to loosen.

Brugge

· #16 · Aug 20, 2013

Smoothoperator is correct. The 110 chargers that came with the car are in general NOT GOOD. If they don't burn at the plug they do burn the connections inside. It is probably worth the money for a good 220 charger at home and a different 110 for on the road.

fiskerjim

· #17 · Aug 20, 2013

I have the original Karma charger but a different issue. When I plug the charger in to the Karma, I get about 10 seconds of streaming then the car "clicks' again and the charger stops streaming (green lights go solid).
Any suggestions?

Brugge

· #18 · Aug 20, 2013

First try a different location to plug the charger in. Then try another charger. If another charger works okay then you have a cooked unit. After that we might want to check fault codes.

fiskerjim

· #19 · Aug 20, 2013

Will do, Brugge. Will post after my experiment! have just had a code check and tech support to correct a "High Voltage Battery Fault' but this looks like a different issue.
Many thanks!

8AVGMPG

· #20 · Aug 20, 2013

fiskerjim said:
Will do, Brugge. Will post after my experiment! have just had a code check and tech support to correct a "High Voltage Battery Fault' but this looks like a different issue.
Many thanks!

this problem coupled with an engine light most likely indicates a faulty EDm relay in the battery. need the aardvark to be sure though

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