Re: [EVDL] Got Juice? - ie., is the charger charging? (WAS: Re: Manzanita failure)
Yep, Tom has a little Geo Metro in Reno with a Curtis AC system and lithiums.
How about you take a NC relay and wire the coil to energize when the AC is
on to the charger. If the AC goes off, the contacts close the horn relay
and HONK HONK? That oughta alert ya.
Or you could do what the cops do in this police state and connect a taser
to fire if the charger stops. A passerby that gets zapped will start
screaming and alert everyone. Cops would love it.
I plugged the Russco charger in the other day and the GFI tripped
immediately. Fuck. After cussing the Russco and wondering if I should
use another charger without a ground, I decided to follow the stupid
Russco charger manual. I took my DVM and measured from some battery post
to chassis and found the lowest voltage (1 volt or so). Found some acid
crud on that particular battery, cleaned with a paper towel and a little
brush soaked with water and baking soda, dried with another paper towel.
Powered up and worked fine. So, GFI was doing its job.
> I really haven't seen much discussion on the List (or elsewhere) as to
> how to monitor the charging status remotely. In this case, it sounds
> like tomw dropped 1.5 hrs of charging time. He came back to his EV
> after an extended time away, expecting it to have a good charge, and he
> came back to silence, no charge, and a problem.
>
> That brings back memories. In July 1996 on a Sat., my first item of the
> day was to attend the EBEAA meeting over at the Alameda Naval Air
> Station, some 26 miles distant over in East Bay from my home. We could
> always obtain charging over at the East Bay meetings, but with just 120V
> K&W BC-20 charging, you needed to get on the juice and stay on it for
> quite some time. I hooked up to the AC distribution box with 120V
> outlets sourcing from a 240V outlet. Went in to the 10AM EBEAA meeting,
> expecting my car to have enough juice to comfortably roll back up the
> freeway towards home. I had a 12-noon windsurfing engagement at the
> Berkeley Marina with a beautiful Thai co-worker who had invited me for
> some splash time. I planned on leaving the EBEAA meeting somewhat early
> to get to the Marina on time ;^>.
>
> The meeting essentials done with, I walked out to the car. It should've
> still been charging away, but silence. Yuck! That sinking feeling of
> little or no juice in the batteries, and having to drive some
> significant miles on freeways and high interchanges on the bottom half
> of my pack. Ain't no way I was going to make it home without some
> watchin'-moss-grow-on-a-tree 120V charge time.
>
> I made it to the Marina on time after getting lost in Alameda housing,
> now down to the bottom quarter of the pack. Starting to feel a little
> soft under the pedal. It turned out that my co-splashee didn't show up
> till about a half hour after noon, and no surfboards were available for
> about another half hour because of a class. So I put my time to use to
> track down an outlet for charging. I obtained permission after some
> hunting around to charge off a little 120V outlet with Coke machine in
> tandem. The charger got turned down significantly. I had no way to
> monitor charging progress for the several hours I was away splashing
> (yes, my first time windsurfing).
>
> I had over 20 miles to get home at this point, including a major grade
> westbound (read headwind) over the San Rafael - Richmond Br. I figured
> I was going to be using a fellow EV'ers charging outlet up the road for
> a few hours. Fortunately, that worked in well for some further time at
> the nearby Mexican restaurant with my co-worker.
>
> I made it home, but all the anxiety/time with the cords, circuit
> breakers, and hunting around for outlets could've been reduced or
> eliminated if I had had a means of monitoring the charging outlet while
> in the EV meeting. While we didn't have iPhones or Droids back then, a
> monitoring app or a keychain micro app sure would've been nice. Circuit
> breaker trips screwed me up other times. It's one of the reasons the EV
> stays close to home these days, along with nearly zip charging
> infrastructure and acquiring a gas car. What little I hear about remote
> monitoring maybe means that I'll be writing that app (which I'm
> certainly looking forward to doing)...
>
Yep, Tom has a little Geo Metro in Reno with a Curtis AC system and lithiums.
How about you take a NC relay and wire the coil to energize when the AC is
on to the charger. If the AC goes off, the contacts close the horn relay
and HONK HONK? That oughta alert ya.
Or you could do what the cops do in this police state and connect a taser
to fire if the charger stops. A passerby that gets zapped will start
screaming and alert everyone. Cops would love it.
I plugged the Russco charger in the other day and the GFI tripped
immediately. Fuck. After cussing the Russco and wondering if I should
use another charger without a ground, I decided to follow the stupid
Russco charger manual. I took my DVM and measured from some battery post
to chassis and found the lowest voltage (1 volt or so). Found some acid
crud on that particular battery, cleaned with a paper towel and a little
brush soaked with water and baking soda, dried with another paper towel.
Powered up and worked fine. So, GFI was doing its job.
> I really haven't seen much discussion on the List (or elsewhere) as to
> how to monitor the charging status remotely. In this case, it sounds
> like tomw dropped 1.5 hrs of charging time. He came back to his EV
> after an extended time away, expecting it to have a good charge, and he
> came back to silence, no charge, and a problem.
>
> That brings back memories. In July 1996 on a Sat., my first item of the
> day was to attend the EBEAA meeting over at the Alameda Naval Air
> Station, some 26 miles distant over in East Bay from my home. We could
> always obtain charging over at the East Bay meetings, but with just 120V
> K&W BC-20 charging, you needed to get on the juice and stay on it for
> quite some time. I hooked up to the AC distribution box with 120V
> outlets sourcing from a 240V outlet. Went in to the 10AM EBEAA meeting,
> expecting my car to have enough juice to comfortably roll back up the
> freeway towards home. I had a 12-noon windsurfing engagement at the
> Berkeley Marina with a beautiful Thai co-worker who had invited me for
> some splash time. I planned on leaving the EBEAA meeting somewhat early
> to get to the Marina on time ;^>.
>
> The meeting essentials done with, I walked out to the car. It should've
> still been charging away, but silence. Yuck! That sinking feeling of
> little or no juice in the batteries, and having to drive some
> significant miles on freeways and high interchanges on the bottom half
> of my pack. Ain't no way I was going to make it home without some
> watchin'-moss-grow-on-a-tree 120V charge time.
>
> I made it to the Marina on time after getting lost in Alameda housing,
> now down to the bottom quarter of the pack. Starting to feel a little
> soft under the pedal. It turned out that my co-splashee didn't show up
> till about a half hour after noon, and no surfboards were available for
> about another half hour because of a class. So I put my time to use to
> track down an outlet for charging. I obtained permission after some
> hunting around to charge off a little 120V outlet with Coke machine in
> tandem. The charger got turned down significantly. I had no way to
> monitor charging progress for the several hours I was away splashing
> (yes, my first time windsurfing).
>
> I had over 20 miles to get home at this point, including a major grade
> westbound (read headwind) over the San Rafael - Richmond Br. I figured
> I was going to be using a fellow EV'ers charging outlet up the road for
> a few hours. Fortunately, that worked in well for some further time at
> the nearby Mexican restaurant with my co-worker.
>
> I made it home, but all the anxiety/time with the cords, circuit
> breakers, and hunting around for outlets could've been reduced or
> eliminated if I had had a means of monitoring the charging outlet while
> in the EV meeting. While we didn't have iPhones or Droids back then, a
> monitoring app or a keychain micro app sure would've been nice. Circuit
> breaker trips screwed me up other times. It's one of the reasons the EV
> stays close to home these days, along with nearly zip charging
> infrastructure and acquiring a gas car. What little I hear about remote
> monitoring maybe means that I'll be writing that app (which I'm
> certainly looking forward to doing)...
>
> tomw wrote:
>> I charged at an RV park for the first time yesterday. I charged for
>> about 10
>> minutes just to test it out. I charged there again today, planning to
>> fully
>> charge to extend my range. I plugged into a NEMA14-50, turned on the
>> Manzanita PFC30 switch, and adjusted the charge current up to 28ADC
>> (~120V
>> pack, so about 14A from the 50A AC outlet). The TBS gauge read 41.1Ah
>> used,
>> everything looked good, so I went for a walk and got a cup of coffee,
>> expecting it to require about 1 1/2 hour to charge. When I returned
>> about 1
>> hour later the charger was off and the TBS read 41.0Ah used, so it must
>> have
>> kicked off almost immediately after I walked away. I turned the charger
>> current knob down to zero, and flipped the charger switch back on.
>> There
>> was a loud clack and it immediately flipped back off. I have been using
>> this charger on a 240V outlet at home for almost 1 year, and had charged
>> about an hour earlier at home before leaving. When I returned home I
>> tried
>> it again with the same result, and it kicked off the 50A GFCI breaker on
>> the
>> wall. I pulled an interconnect wire on a cell level board and the
>> minibms
>> alarmed, so it is still working fine. The EKM meter on the AC input to
>> the
>> charger is still working fine also. Any ideas what happened?
>
>
>
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