Known problems with Coulomb chargers? (ChargePoint network)

Hello all,

I just moved into an apartment where they have Coulomb chargers that were installed around 2010 and haven't been used until I got here. For some reason, I get a "GROUND FAULT" from the charger every time I try to charge, and my Roadsters says "line voltage lost sync ID:954 Data:0x00200000" I've tried every sequence of restarting, and even got it to start charging once, but never since.

I read about the new 4.6.8 firmware release from January in another thread here (thanks, Tom!), and Tesla Service was kind enough to install this for me on the same day. But upon returning to the charger, it did not help. I suppose the firmware changes were to address problems in other brands of chargers, or perhaps for newer revisions of the Coulomb.

It seems to me that a 2010 model charger might not have all the latest updates with regard to the ever-changing J-1772 and other charging standards. But when my apartment's maintenance manager called Coulomb, they seemed to think there couldn't possibly be a problem.

Note that shortly after I moved in, a Tesla Model S owner got the charger right next to mine, and his Model S is charging fine with the appropriate adaptor. Coulomb seems to think that if their hardware charges one Tesla then it can charge any Tesla, and claims that there must be a problem with my car. However, I've charged on several other systems with no problems (other than the charger overheating), and we all know that the Roadster is not the same charging internally as the Model S.

I'm assuming that owners on this forum probably know more about Coulomb chargers than the telephone operator in their support section. ... or at least I hope somebody here has a clue about what could be wrong. These chargers are permanently wired via conduit, so there's no extension cord to suffer a real ground fault.

I'll grab the model number from the Coulomb charger in a minute and edit this post to document that.

Thanks!

p.s. the charger supplies 30 A, and my Roadster shows a healthy 208 V 30/30 A on the display until the charging fails.

Chris Lockfort said:

The roadster plug's GFCI has a few more mA of test current leakage than most things and can set off gfci farther up the chain.

A good many people (myself included) just remove the GFCI plug from the 120V charger, and replace it with a nice normal plug. This also helps in a lot of places where not only is there already GFCI provided, (aka already safe) but also where the huge gfci-inclusive adaptor would not fit in a receptacle.

You can always keep a GFCI-providing pass-through-adaptor around separately to plug the normal plug into, in case you want to have your cake and eat it too, and still have GFCI protection even from normal outlets without it already built in.

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Thanks for the info, Chris, but I'm not having problems with the 120V charger. I wouldn't be surprised if I were, because it has an obvious ground pin.

Where I'm having problems is with my Tesla J-1772 adaptor plugged directly into the Coulomb J-1772 cable. In this case, there is no plug to remove that I could replace with a "normal" one - there is only one J-1772 connector. I can't imagine carrying a J-1772 to J-1772 adaptor with me just for this.

hcsharp said:

Have you tried any of the other chargers in your complex? I've always had good luck with Coulomb chargers but a few times I've needed more than one attempt at starting due to ground fault.

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Yes. There is one other charger in my complex (2 total), and neither of them work. They work fine with a Model S.

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ChadS said:

I bought a Tesla J1772 adapter as soon as they came out. It worked for me at every EVSE*...except charge points, I got a ground failure at all of those. But they worked for every other roadster owner I talked to.

Neither Tesla nor Charge point had heard of the issue or wanted to look in to it. I eventually prodded them in to looking at it together, and they gave me a new PEM. The local service manager said it was a pain figuring out my problem, but a few months later they heard from another local owner that had the same issue and they immediately knew what it was. I think I heard of another one on these forums a year or two ago.

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Thanks for the info, Chad. Sounds like bad news for me, although if you have a 1.5 and needed a new PEM then I wonder if my 2.5 PEM is already "new" enough. Since my warranty is probably expired, I hope I don't need a new PEM just to charge.