EVSE Stops working only on one of two vehicles

Keith Smith

Keith Smith

Active Member
If anyone has insight I would be curious. I have two vehicles a Kia Niro EV 2020, and a Hyundai Kona EV 2019. I had, what I thought was, a failure of my EVSE when it started to randomly stop working then refused to charge. What I didn't notice at the time, is it only stopped working with my Kona. I purchased another 32A unit which works with both, but apparently the 'broken' unit works just fine with the Kia.

I also have a two other L1/L2 combo units that go up to 16A that work fine with both. The J1772 connectors look fine, the Kona reports 'Charging Stopped' when I use the older EVSE. I had also abandoned a Clipper Creek I have, which I'm now wondering might be suffering the same issue only with the Kona, whatever that issue might be. Since I just successfully charged the Kia with the old EVSE, I'll need to wait. I might test tomorrow

I'm in a hot climate, and this seems like a communication problem between the EVSE and the vehicle. Any thoughts?
 
Unplugged from grid, measure the resistance of the ground and 'presence' pin both with the latch down or held open. A marginal presence resistor or latch switch with a little corrosion could explain the symptom.

Bob Wilson
 
Chinese variable rate 40A (flakey):
478/150. Connectors are as clean as the down on a thistle. Open seems maybe a little high, and 150 is on the cusp. Actuation is also clean.
Clipper Creek 32A (Also broken):
479/149. Interestingly the probe for the meter will not fit past the plastic shroud in the Clipper, I had to use a thinner wire to measure it.
Chinese variable rate working:
479/150. This also required a thinner wire to test
Spec, from Wikipedia. Should probably look at openEVSE, but this should rate the conductor/cable not the requested charge rate ID'd by the 1khz clock/pwm circuit duty cycle.

And I hooked the clipper up to the Kia, lo and behold, popped right on and started charging at 5.6K.

I note the 150/330 resistor series in the spec, the normally closed switch shunts 150 to ground, open adds 330 = 480, pretty much spot on, both are clean.

13 A 1.5 kΩ / 0.5 W 1–2.7 kΩ
20 A 680 Ω / 0.5 W 330 Ω – 1 kΩ
32 A 220 Ω / 1 W 150–330 Ω
70 A single-phase / 63 A three-phase 100 Ω / 1 W 50–150 Ω

I wonder if the larger pins have anything to do with it. Hmmm. I think I need to give some TLC to the charging port on the Kona.
 
Hummm, I thought the "presence" line had the fixed resistor and switch and the "control" line had the variable resistance to signal current limit. It wasn't clear which pins were being measured. Also, the control pin polarity signaled if working or not.

Certainly, a dodgy signal pin and socket would explain the symptom.

Bob Wilson
 
Last edited:
Thank you! Bun of a sitch! Dodgy socket (not a great leap of faith there, since two chargers were symptomatic). I grabbed a needle file and some WD-40. Worked over the pins lightly, sprayed it all out, mopped up the excess. All chargers are now operating on the Kona! On the Kona when the latch lock kicks in, I noticed the handle rocks down slightly, this is consistent with the symptom, it was starting the charge, then as soon as it locked it was notifying charging stopped. I'm pretty anal, and I'm having problems with the door latch. There is an SB on the latch that appears to push the bumper forward slighly. I may hunt down a replacement charge port, clean it up, and swap it, might be an expensive find we shall see. In the mean time, everything looked clean inside the socket, so it just goes to show, you can't really trust your eyes. Generally around here it's so hot, dry and gritty, stuff like that is not a problem. I know the car is from California, probably was in a coastal area.
 
A retired communications/network engineer, I'm used to starting with the Gawd D*ng connectors. Given the choice:
  • replace connectors (if affordable, tools, and parts available)
  • clean and add strain relief
  • dry wipe, reseat, and put the purchase/work order in
GOOD LUCK!

Bob Wilson

ps. A new, eBay or salvage part opportunity ... but I prefer self maintenance.
 
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