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J1772 charging blues

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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
 
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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.
 
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).
 
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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.

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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.
 
J1772 Charging progress

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.
 
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?

MobileConnector_Image.png
 
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.
 
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.
 
...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...)
 
Hang on... are you saying if I already have a UMC, and want to add J1772 charging for less than $750, I can cobble together a J1772 - NEMA 14-50 cable and make it work? Do I need something to signal to the J1772 that I can draw 40A?
 
Hang on... are you saying if I already have a UMC, and want to add J1772 charging for less than $750, I can cobble together a J1772 - NEMA 14-50 cable and make it work? Do I need something to signal to the J1772 that I can draw 40A?

It is the other way around - the J1772 plug would output a signal saying that some amount of amps is available.
The custom cable would simply tell the J1772 EVSE that a vehicle is plugged in so it would supply power.
Then the twist connector plug that goes into the UMC would have a component to signal to the UMC what power it should advertise to the Roadster.
This could be error prone, if for instance you ran into a J1772 that only had a 20amp breaker (and was advertising a 16amp available signal), but the signal would not be passed through to the UMC and the UMC may tell that Roadster that 30amps is OK to draw. So one big caveat of this arrangement is that you would be regenerating a current available signal at the UMC that is disassociated with the actual signal coming from the J1772. So it would be up to the Roadster driver to program their VDS to pull no more current than the J1772 EVSE can actually deliver. (In other words, this would have the ability to blow circuit breakers at public charge spots if you aren't careful.)

That is the "beauty" of the simple straight through cable - it passes the actual EVSE generated ampacity level signal all the way through to the Roadster. The UMC custom cable "hack" would disassociate the EVSE ampacity signal from the one generated by the UMC.
 
I'll confuse things a little more. My J1772 to 14-50 adapter simply trips the J1772 relay so that I now have a always hot 14-50 outlet that I plug my mobile UMC into. I then have to tell my Roadster what amperage it is allowed to pull.
 
The problem with the J1772 to 14-50 arrangement is that there is no way to tell the car to draw only 30 amps. The options are 24 amps or 32 amps. As far as I know the UMC is like the RFMC in that it only supports pilot signals for 16, 24 and 40 amps.
 
At one end of the spectrum, the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt come with portable 12amp mini EVSEs with J1772 output like so:
Nissan_LEAF_Level_1_EVSE.jpg

If one were to take the J1772 output from the that, and run it through a "doohickey" that converts it to a NEMA14-50, then tried to charge a Roadster with it they might burn out something in the portable EVSE, or at least trip the breaker behind it. They have only 12 gauge wiring inside the box, so it isn't rated for anything like 24amp or 40amp current draw.

My point is, that the pilot signal is there for a reason. Just because something has a J1772 plug doesn't mean it can deliver Roadster friendly current levels. If you make one of these "cheater adapters" and plug into random J1772s you could end up damaging someone else's equipment.
 
Yeah I realize that there is a risk of overloading the charger if you're stupid about it. But it's easy enough to control the power draw of the Roadster through the touchscreen.

I did that today. I wanted to test my UMC before I went on my first road trip. A neighbor offered his 240V outlet at work to test it on.

Unfortunately after I backed up to the outlet, I discovered it was a 6-20! I've never even seen one of those before! I don't have the right adapter. But I walked over to a nearby hardware store, bought a few parts, and jerry-rigged a 6-20 to 14-30 adapter. I dialed the Roadster back a little and everything started working. Test successful. Not rocket science.
 
Edit: I just realized this could be much simpler...

If you have a UMC, how about using it to build a J1772 adapter?

1. Cut the cable between the UMC gadget and the Roadster connector.
2. Connect a J1772 receptacle to the Roadster connector.
3. Put a J1772 plug on the UMC.

Basically half of it turns into a J1772 to Roadster adapter, just like the Tesla version. The half with the UMC module turns into a portable J1772 charge station that can plug into NEMA 14-50, 14-30, etc.
 
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If you have a UMC, how about using it to build a J1772 adapter?...

Sounds like a good plan if Tesla stays out of stock of their adapter cables. Now you need to find a good source of higher current J1772 sockets... (Pre-molded with a cable would be nice.) The Tesla plug end is one of the pricier pieces of the equipment, so having to buy only one (with the UMC) would save some $.