J1772 charging blues

[dhrivnak]

I received the Tesla cord to allow one to charge a Tesla on J1772 chargers that seem to the emerging standard for EV chargers. But I could not get the cord to charge. Does anyone know if there is a special sequence or trick to use the J1772 adapter? The local Nissan has two chargers on separate circuits and on both chargers I received a charger error 0x00000010000. (note I may be off a 0 or two in the middle) I tried to reduce amps down to 15 with no luck.

Or by chance is a firmware update needed to use the adapter?

The Nissan sales guy says the chargers have been successfully used by a Leaf and a Volt but I have my doubts as the one plug had a significant insect nest built in the plug that I first cleaned out with my pen knife.

Thank you

[qwk]

firmware update needed for cars vin# 500+

[dhrivnak]

Thank you for replying, I had read that before. But this seems backwards to me as I would think the older cars VIN < 500 would need an update not the newer cars. Mine is VIN 255 and I am contacting Tesla to see what I should do.

[ChargeIt!]

I reported this to Tesla on April 21 (prior to their official release and their note about FW update needed for VINs >= 500). It turns out older Roadsters (1.5) also need FW update for use on AeroVironment stations (what Nissan dealers usually have).

[bonnie1194]

I posted this on another thread:

Based on all this, I thought I'd best test out my adapter before heading out on a road trip. Conveniently, Clipper Creek is just 8 miles away, and has both a Tesla HPC and J1772 listed as available.

I had the same error message when connecting to the J1772 standard. But the good news is that the entire Clipper Creek engineering crew and CEO came out to troubleshoot the problem. First we tried the Tesla HPC. No problems charging. Then tried the J1772 again. Nope. Same error message.

Then the guys opened the charger, dropped the signal from 75 amps to 70 amps. It worked like a charm. Tried it back at 75. It quit working.

[ATTACH]Attachment 1800[/ATTACH]


We called Tesla and they're going to get back to me. And work with Clipper Creek on this. But clearly the cable didn't handle a 75amp signal as I thought it would. The firmware update didn't address this. Clipper Creek personnel were surprised, since they thought through conversations with Tesla that this had been addressed. But the phone call confirmed the firmware update was to handle problems with Coloumb only.

The adapter doesn't do me a whole lot of good if I'm not able to take advantage of higher amp charging stations. I'm not okay with that. I've been promised a reply - and will go back to Clipper Creek to test there once I know a solution.

Bleh.

[dhrivnak]

Well it appears that older Teslas need a firmware update to work with the Nissan Aero J1772 charging stations. As of late May the firware was not available and I was just told it was being worked on.

I did find a Columb and Eaton brand chargers and both worked with my #255 Roadster. They were both limited to 30 amps but that is far better than the 110V adapter.

[vfx]

I did find a Columb and Eaton brand chargers and both worked with my #255 Roadster. They were both limited to 30 amps but that is far better than the 110V adapter.

If 30 amps is all you need or can do, then a pigtail with a J connecor and the california plug on the other end would work with this. Has anyone made one?

[TEG]

If 30 amps is all you need or can do, then a pigtail with a J connector and the california plug on the other end would work with this. Has anyone made one?

I suspect that the J-Connector end would need something like a resistor on the pilot signal pins to make the EVSE think there is a car plugged in.

[doug]

I suspect that the J-Connector end would need something like a resistor on the pilot signal pins to make the EVSE think there is a car plugged in.

And the California plug end would need the coding to let the UMC know what signal to send to the Roadster. If you're using the UMC anyway, you're probably better off just getting a J1772 to NEMA 14-50 adapter and setting the current on the Roadster.

[TEG]

...If you're using the UMC anyway, you're probably better off just getting a J1772 to NEMA 14-50 adapter and setting the current on the Roadster...

Which seems true except for the price of the factory J1772/Tesla adapter cable. You could probably get a J1772->14-50 or J1772->"California" cable for less, but it does seem "kludgey" compared to the straight-through.

Plus, (as stated), having the J1772 EVSE able to signal the correct max current allowed to the Roadster makes it so you don't have to think as hard about the current capability so another vote for using the Tesla adapter cable instead of a custom UMC attachment. (Oh but wait, the Tesla adapters are still back-ordered... Maybe some do have to improvise for now...)