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31 Posts
Hello,
Thought maybe I'd get a second opinion from some of you high tech Bolt gurus. I have a JuiceBox 75 and the unit / Bolt was working fine for the first month (other than only taking 25 amps in every situation- battery half, battery low, etc.). Noticed since April the charges have been starting and stopping multiple times during the night (while monitoring through the JuiceBox system). JuiceBox tech have been scratching their heads and finally came back with the reply below.
What do you guys think? I'm going to take it to the dealer but I have a feeling, they are going to charge the car and say there is nothing wrong. I hope not, but I feel I'm going to be caught in the middle... Some of what they are saying is above my head and maybe you guys know what they are talking about. Anyone else have an issue like this?
Thank you
DAVE
I've been shopping this around the engineering team and have come up with a few possibilities. There's nothing on our end interrupting these sessions. The logs show clean unit responses, and the car is going from charging, to plugged in and not charging randomly.
Some odd things they noticed, though:
- though the Bolt has a 32A charger and unit is set to 30A limit, the car is only taking about 25 amps (24.7~24.8A).
- the power factor is low, around 0.66, which is strange since EV onboard chargers are power-factor-corrected, and usually have PF of 0.99 or so.
- the voltage drop on the line is around 10 volts when it puts load on the line. That's also pretty bad, indicating a possible wiring problem. Note that this is an input-side voltage sensor, meaning it's before the relay, meaning it can't be the JB's fault at this side of the sensor.
So, some options:
1) the car is interrupting charging because of some smart-charging policy of its control? But this is a bit unlikely. The charging is only interrupted for a few minutes.
2) the car is interrupting charging due to malfunctions - which does seem plausible given the behavior of the session: low amperage, poor power factor, and the long 1st session but shorter subsequent bursts, indicating it's cooling-down and retrying.
3) the car is interrupting charging due to low voltage, like the Tesla does when it de-rates. However, this seems a bit unlikely...
I've seen stories of Bolt manufacturing issues, electronics problems and really erratic behavior. Last week, a 2017 Leaf customer stopped by and tried one of our shop JuiceBoxes, and found that the onboard charger was totally glitching out (audible zapping sound under the hood, erratic charging rate). So, car-based issues are definitely not out of the question.
IMO, the car is suspect the most here, in a defect sense.
Thought maybe I'd get a second opinion from some of you high tech Bolt gurus. I have a JuiceBox 75 and the unit / Bolt was working fine for the first month (other than only taking 25 amps in every situation- battery half, battery low, etc.). Noticed since April the charges have been starting and stopping multiple times during the night (while monitoring through the JuiceBox system). JuiceBox tech have been scratching their heads and finally came back with the reply below.
What do you guys think? I'm going to take it to the dealer but I have a feeling, they are going to charge the car and say there is nothing wrong. I hope not, but I feel I'm going to be caught in the middle... Some of what they are saying is above my head and maybe you guys know what they are talking about. Anyone else have an issue like this?
Thank you
DAVE
I've been shopping this around the engineering team and have come up with a few possibilities. There's nothing on our end interrupting these sessions. The logs show clean unit responses, and the car is going from charging, to plugged in and not charging randomly.
Some odd things they noticed, though:
- though the Bolt has a 32A charger and unit is set to 30A limit, the car is only taking about 25 amps (24.7~24.8A).
- the power factor is low, around 0.66, which is strange since EV onboard chargers are power-factor-corrected, and usually have PF of 0.99 or so.
- the voltage drop on the line is around 10 volts when it puts load on the line. That's also pretty bad, indicating a possible wiring problem. Note that this is an input-side voltage sensor, meaning it's before the relay, meaning it can't be the JB's fault at this side of the sensor.
So, some options:
1) the car is interrupting charging because of some smart-charging policy of its control? But this is a bit unlikely. The charging is only interrupted for a few minutes.
2) the car is interrupting charging due to malfunctions - which does seem plausible given the behavior of the session: low amperage, poor power factor, and the long 1st session but shorter subsequent bursts, indicating it's cooling-down and retrying.
3) the car is interrupting charging due to low voltage, like the Tesla does when it de-rates. However, this seems a bit unlikely...
I've seen stories of Bolt manufacturing issues, electronics problems and really erratic behavior. Last week, a 2017 Leaf customer stopped by and tried one of our shop JuiceBoxes, and found that the onboard charger was totally glitching out (audible zapping sound under the hood, erratic charging rate). So, car-based issues are definitely not out of the question.
IMO, the car is suspect the most here, in a defect sense.