New M3 owner and wall connector issue..anyone seen this before

[isogoog]

Hello all,
I recently bought my first Tesla and am delighted with it. Model three RWD.
I also bought a gen 3 wall connector which I have had installed by an MD licenced electrician. As part of this I had a permit pulled and today it failed inspection.
I have an older house with aluminium wiring and a 50A breaker. The reason given for failing the inspection was that the wall connector was direct connected to the 50 amp circuit (properly) and configured in the firmware to only charge at the de-rated 40 A (properly) but still had a sticky label on the side of the wall charger which said, among other things
Input: 200-240 ~48A 50/60Hz 1 phase and ,
Output: 200-240 ~48A 50/60Hz 1 phase.

The inspector said he would clear it if the sticker was replaced by one which said 40A. I should just get one from Tesla, he said. Other third party suppliers enclose a set of such "de-rating' stickers in their boxes apparently. OK, I thought....no big deal....except I could find any of these stickers in the Tesla box in which the wall connector arrived and I cant find anyone to ask and without a part number of this new sticker even the service department can't help.

So it seems that there is no discussion about whether the installation was done right (it was), or that the equipment is not up to code (it is), but just a matter of announcing, presumably, to the next house owner that it is derated to 40A on purpose.

As a relative newbie Tesla owner I feel that there should probably be a solution for this. Maybe a remote service event by Tesla which could set something in the firmware to trigger the issue of a new sticker arriving by mail.

So the question is whether anyone has confronted this and found a solution/workaround.
Thanks in advance.
brian

 

[ewoodrick]

You may want to check with your local Delivery Center or Service Center and see if they have heard anything about it.
You can always open a Service Ticket in the app.

Also check with the installing electrician.

Could just be a bad day for the inspector.

 

[gt2690b]

Hello all,
I recently bought my first Tesla and am delighted with it. Model three RWD.
I also bought a gen 3 wall connector which I have had installed by an MD licenced electrician. As part of this I had a permit pulled and today it failed inspection.
I have an older house with aluminium wiring and a 50A breaker. The reason given for failing the inspection was that the wall connector was direct connected to the 50 amp circuit (properly) and configured in the firmware to only charge at the de-rated 40 A (properly) but still had a sticky label on the side of the wall charger which said, among other things
Input: 200-240 ~48A 50/60Hz 1 phase and ,
Output: 200-240 ~48A 50/60Hz 1 phase.

The inspector said he would clear it if the sticker was replaced by one which said 40A. I should just get one from Tesla, he said. Other third party suppliers enclose a set of such "de-rating' stickers in their boxes apparently. OK, I thought....no big deal....except I could find any of these stickers in the Tesla box in which the wall connector arrived and I cant find anyone to ask and without a part number of this new sticker even the service department can't help.

So it seems that there is no discussion about whether the installation was done right (it was), or that the equipment is not up to code (it is), but just a matter of announcing, presumably, to the next house owner that it is derated to 40A on purpose.

As a relative newbie Tesla owner I feel that there should probably be a solution for this. Maybe a remote service event by Tesla which could set something in the firmware to trigger the issue of a new sticker arriving by mail.

So the question is whether anyone has confronted this and found a solution/workaround.
Thanks in advance.
brian

just use a sharpie

 

[isogoog]

You may want to check with your local Delivery Center or Service Center and see if they have heard anything about it.
You can always open a Service Ticket in the app.

Also check with the installing electrician.

Could just be a bad day for the inspector.

I did call the service center and while they were very nice they did not know how to help me so they sent me over to Wall Connector Customer service where i chatted with a 'real' person and basically got nowhere. I think I may be one of the first Tesla owners to have experienced this because they do not seem to have a basic understanding of the 'danger' to their customers of having a label which says one thing and a breaker which says another!
These wall connectors seem to be shipped from the factory with 48A on the sticker and the installer, authorized or otherwise, cannot do anything during the installation to meet code if the breaker is smaller than 60A.

I think Tesla should probably warn prospective wall connectors buyers about this problem and send a 'de-rated sticker' along with the regular unit. It might cost 25c, because I have paid a lot to an electrician to install this unit and while it physically works just fine the uncleared permit on my house hangs over me until I uninstall it at further cost.

Here on the West coast there are a number of houses, parhaps millions, each of which is a prospective EV owner, which have aluminium wiring from the 70's and which have, therefore, a 50A breaker available on a 100A service. Whether or not it it is a Tesla wall connector every one of those households with an EV which is connected to a level 2 charger might be unknowingly violating code and therefore invalidating their home owner's insurance. I feel pretty sure that Tesla could fix this with a firmware update to suitably de-rate the wall connector, upon request of the home owner, and send them a new sticker/label. Or even have their own installers do it.

I think it might be a business opportunity for Tesla and a reduction in liability exposure too. A win all around.
brian

 

[Tronguy]

So, let's get this straight. As it happens, I have a Gen 2 Wall Connector; but for these purposes there's no difference between Gen 2 and Gen 3.

The WC's have either software configuration (Gen 3) or rotary switches (Gen 2) that tell the internal hardware what the ampacity of the circuit is. On Gen 2, one can set the ampacity of the circuit (i.e., what breaker one is using) to 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100A by messing with the 16-position rotary switch. Those ampacity's work out to be (in corresponding sequence) 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40, 48, 56, 64, 72, and 80A for the actual load current that can be potentially drawn by the car. (Those numbers higher than 48A are for older Model S's and such.)

Thing is: I've never heard of somebody putting a sticker on the Wall Connector to let the world know what amperage circuit it's attached to. The Gen 2 in my garage is hooked up to a 60A breaker which gets me 48A of load current - and the electrical inspector never said boo about the fact that the WC has a sticker on it that has 80A on it. (I just went out the garage and checked - yep, 240V, 80A circuit max draw.) Admittedly, it's a tiny 4 or 5 point font, but, still.

So, I think your electrical inspector is just having a Bad Day. And took it out on you. Is he/she doing this on a one-person crusade to everybody who installs a Wall Connector from Tesla, Juicebox, and all those other pieces of gear that do the same thing?

 

[ewoodrick]

I did call the service center and while they were very nice they did not know how to help me so they sent me over to Wall Connector Customer service where i chatted with a 'real' person and basically got nowhere. I think I may be one of the first Tesla owners to have experienced this because they do not seem to have a basic understanding of the 'danger' to their customers of having a label which says one thing and a breaker which says another!
These wall connectors seem to be shipped from the factory with 48A on the sticker and the installer, authorized or otherwise, cannot do anything during the installation to meet code if the breaker is smaller than 60A.

I think Tesla should probably warn prospective wall connectors buyers about this problem and send a 'de-rated sticker' along with the regular unit. It might cost 25c, because I have paid a lot to an electrician to install this unit and while it physically works just fine the uncleared permit on my house hangs over me until I uninstall it at further cost.

Here on the West coast there are a number of houses, parhaps millions, each of which is a prospective EV owner, which have aluminium wiring from the 70's and which have, therefore, a 50A breaker available on a 100A service. Whether or not it it is a Tesla wall connector every one of those households with an EV which is connected to a level 2 charger might be unknowingly violating code and therefore invalidating their home owner's insurance. I feel pretty sure that Tesla could fix this with a firmware update to suitably de-rate the wall connector, upon request of the home owner, and send them a new sticker/label. Or even have their own installers do it.

I think it might be a business opportunity for Tesla and a reduction in liability exposure too. A win all around.
brian

You mean East coast?

What I was looking to determine as you indicated, Tesla has no idea.
And that's because inspectors haven't done it before.

I'm pretty sure that the inspector is incorrect, the label in the device is a rating of the device. As such, all it says is that I can do as good as, if not better than the circuit it is used on. It's the responsibility of the breaker in the panel to trip if there is an overload. And there's the setting in the device that causes the limit.

That's why the question to your installing electrician, see what they have to say. Do they agree? It may require contesting the inspectors finding, which I assume is only something that you would do as a last resort.

 

[gt2690b]

Hello all,
I recently bought my first Tesla and am delighted with it. Model three RWD.
I also bought a gen 3 wall connector which I have had installed by an MD licenced electrician. As part of this I had a permit pulled and today it failed inspection.
I have an older house with aluminium wiring and a 50A breaker. The reason given for failing the inspection was that the wall connector was direct connected to the 50 amp circuit (properly) and configured in the firmware to only charge at the de-rated 40 A (properly) but still had a sticky label on the side of the wall charger which said, among other things
Input: 200-240 ~48A 50/60Hz 1 phase and ,
Output: 200-240 ~48A 50/60Hz 1 phase.

The inspector said he would clear it if the sticker was replaced by one which said 40A. I should just get one from Tesla, he said. Other third party suppliers enclose a set of such "de-rating' stickers in their boxes apparently. OK, I thought....no big deal....except I could find any of these stickers in the Tesla box in which the wall connector arrived and I cant find anyone to ask and without a part number of this new sticker even the service department can't help.

So it seems that there is no discussion about whether the installation was done right (it was), or that the equipment is not up to code (it is), but just a matter of announcing, presumably, to the next house owner that it is derated to 40A on purpose.

As a relative newbie Tesla owner I feel that there should probably be a solution for this. Maybe a remote service event by Tesla which could set something in the firmware to trigger the issue of a new sticker arriving by mail.

So the question is whether anyone has confronted this and found a solution/workaround.
Thanks in advance.
brian

Should have just gotten the mobile connector it only has one setting

 

[E90alex]

Never heard of that before. Inspector probably doesn’t know what he’s talking about

 

[jjrandorin]

Here on the West coast

Either your location under your name is incorrect, or somehow Maryland has been moved.

As for the thread discussion, I have heard this before here on TMC in a few different threads (not many) where some inspector does not want to accept the fact that the gen 3 wall connector can be installed in multiple configurations and configured via a web page.

By that inspectors logic, my Gen 2 wall connector, which can be set up to 100Amp (80amp charging) would have to have a label that its NOT set at 80 but set for a 60amp circuit / 48amp charging.

I think your inspector is incorrect, but its hard when they are the authority figure.

 

[karkrazy]

I thought Tesla doesn’t recommend using aluminum wiring or something like that?

(I don’t have a WC, but remember prior discussions about it, thus the question)

 

[Cosmacelf]

Hello all,
I recently bought my first Tesla and am delighted with it. Model three RWD.
I also bought a gen 3 wall connector which I have had installed by an MD licenced electrician. As part of this I had a permit pulled and today it failed inspection.
I have an older house with aluminium wiring and a 50A breaker. The reason given for failing the inspection was that the wall connector was direct connected to the 50 amp circuit (properly) and configured in the firmware to only charge at the de-rated 40 A (properly) but still had a sticky label on the side of the wall charger which said, among other things
Input: 200-240 ~48A 50/60Hz 1 phase and ,
Output: 200-240 ~48A 50/60Hz 1 phase.

The inspector said he would clear it if the sticker was replaced by one which said 40A. I should just get one from Tesla, he said. Other third party suppliers enclose a set of such "de-rating' stickers in their boxes apparently. OK, I thought....no big deal....except I could find any of these stickers in the Tesla box in which the wall connector arrived and I cant find anyone to ask and without a part number of this new sticker even the service department can't help.

So it seems that there is no discussion about whether the installation was done right (it was), or that the equipment is not up to code (it is), but just a matter of announcing, presumably, to the next house owner that it is derated to 40A on purpose.

As a relative newbie Tesla owner I feel that there should probably be a solution for this. Maybe a remote service event by Tesla which could set something in the firmware to trigger the issue of a new sticker arriving by mail.

So the question is whether anyone has confronted this and found a solution/workaround.
Thanks in advance.
brian

That right there is why I don't like inspectors and EV chargers. Got any photoshop skills? Or can you ignore the inspector and go on with your life?

Incidentally, page 6 of your manual says: "COPPER WIRE TERMINATIONS ONLY for landing in Wall Connector wirebox terminals. Conductors can be stranded or solid."

 

[isogoog]

View attachment 1039195

Either your location under your name is incorrect, or somehow Maryland has been moved.

As for the thread discussion, I have heard this before here on TMC in a few different threads (not many) where some inspector does not want to accept the fact that the gen 3 wall connector can be installed in multiple configurations and configured via a web page.

By that inspectors logic, my Gen 2 wall connector, which can be set up to 100Amp (80amp charging) would have to have a label that its NOT set at 80 but set for a 60amp circuit / 48amp charging.

I think your inspector is incorrect, but its hard when they are the authority figure.

Ha! my bad.

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Here on the West coast

Either your location under your name is incorrect, or somehow Maryland has been moved.

 

[isogoog]

I thought Tesla doesn’t recommend using aluminum wiring or something like that?

(I don’t have a WC, but remember prior discussions about it, thus the question)

Copper pigtails were added during installation between the disconnect and the WC as per their recommendation.