How I fixed my RAV4 EV On-Board Charger

I am posting this story as a link to a PDF for my simplicity.
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AtSKKmN-5msBg_oYXNH9E1vYZ_8bDA

If you have trouble accessing it then contact me and I can email it to you. Here is the summary from the first paragraph and a teaser picture of the repair process (if I can get the image tag to work).

The bottom line is this: If your RAV4 EV tries to charge a few times but won’t then it is probably a problem with the on-board charger. 90% of the time, just replacing the fuses fixes this problem like this (https://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=29795#p29795) and this (https://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2463&sid=29a9bda734c0e413058ea12395f8a713). Unfortunately, I was in that 10% where a “simple” fuse replacement did not fix my on-board charger. Not only did I need to buy a used Gen 1 Tesla Model S onboard replacement charger, but it took nearly six months to get my car back up and running because, 1) I knew almost nothing about electric cars, 2) I am fortunate enough to have two cars so repairing my RAV4 EV, while important to me, was not urgent, 3) several other issues surfaced along the way, 4) I needed help from some amazing people on this forum, especially alflash and Davio, 4) it took swapping some of the guts between my original charger and the replacement charger. For those interested, here is my story and the details of how it unfolded.

jfletter said:

I am posting this story as a link to a PDF for my simplicity.
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AtSKKmN-5msBg_oYXNH9E1vYZ_8bDA

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your write-up, and glad to hear everything is now working. Vlad (Alflash) is indeed a great asset to this community, and I wish him and all Ukrainians health and safety in these difficult times.

Regarding your questions about the replacement Model S charger: as I mentioned in your original post, the same Tesla part # is used for the both RAV4 and the Model S, however the internal firmware is different, and thus not quite plug-and-play. You were able to get the second charger working because you swapped over the control board that contained the RAV4 firmware. Used gen 1 Model S chargers are indeed viable candidates to replace a RAV4 OBC, but they must be updated with the correct RAV4 firmware, a task that can be performed through the Tesla powertrain software.

Hokiematt provided me as an answer to a couple of alerts on my wife's 2013 Rav4EV a link to your success story. I've read the entire document, very nicely done!

The vehicle does charge after two to four engage/disengage cycles with the handle at the charging port. I would have expected if there is a problem with the fuses that it would be a consistent failure to charge. Of course, that makes it more likely to be a charger failure, doesn't it?

Your repair document stated that it was twelve hours to get to the charger. I've read more linked/related posts and see that the time was reduced to five hours after practice. My health isn't what it once was and many of the aspects of the hands-on repair would be impossible for me. The southeast coast of the USA doesn't have too many EV qualified repair techs, which likely means a shipping cost round trip to the left coast. I had considered to contact alflash, but if I can't perform the mechanical tasks, I'd be wasting his time and risking my health.

I was interested in your reference to the value of your vehicle balanced with the cost of a repair. Our travels today to the local VW dealer to see about an ID.4 made our vehicle all the more valuable, perhaps not in dollars, but in having a vehicle rather than being on an eight month waiting list or production slot!

fred_dot_u said:

Hokiematt provided me as an answer to a couple of alerts on my wife's 2013 Rav4EV a link to your success story. I've read the entire document, very nicely done!

The vehicle does charge after two to four engage/disengage cycles with the handle at the charging port. I would have expected if there is a problem with the fuses that it would be a consistent failure to charge. Of course, that makes it more likely to be a charger failure, doesn't it?

Your repair document stated that it was twelve hours to get to the charger. I've read more linked/related posts and see that the time was reduced to five hours after practice. My health isn't what it once was and many of the aspects of the hands-on repair would be impossible for me. The southeast coast of the USA doesn't have too many EV qualified repair techs, which likely means a shipping cost round trip to the left coast. I had considered to contact alflash, but if I can't perform the mechanical tasks, I'd be wasting his time and risking my health.

I was interested in your reference to the value of your vehicle balanced with the cost of a repair. Our travels today to the local VW dealer to see about an ID.4 made our vehicle all the more valuable, perhaps not in dollars, but in having a vehicle rather than being on an eight month waiting list or production slot!

Click to expand...

Fred,

I'd try contacting https://057tech.com/ in North Carolina. I don't know if they can help you, but if they can't, they might know who could.

P.S. Also try https://recell-ev.com/ in Texas. I know that they are more into the RAV, and may be more helpful even if they aren't as close.

I've engaged via private message to alflash hoping that all is going as well as possible for him.

If the diagnosis process is successful, I'll attempt to locate a local mechanic willing to proceed with his recommendations regarding repair.

There's a generation 1 Tesla charger online for a pretty decent price. Do you think it's practical to spring for the device to have before it gets snapped up by someone else? I understand an ID board would have to be swapped to make it work, but the price seems too good to overlook.

fred_dot_u said:

I've engaged via private message to alflash hoping that all is going as well as possible for him.

If the diagnosis process is successful, I'll attempt to locate a local mechanic willing to proceed with his recommendations regarding repair.

There's a generation 1 Tesla charger online for a pretty decent price. Do you think it's practical to spring for the device to have before it gets snapped up by someone else? I understand an ID board would have to be swapped to make it work, but the price seems too good to overlook.

Click to expand...

Hello Fred!
We can do remote diagnostics for Tesla system of your RAV4EV.
Please complete and submit this request https://alflash.com.ua/service/rav4ev-precheck-customize-list-2/

Please, take a look
https://youtu.be/uesgCYBINgg

HTH,

Request completed. The video was wonderful, very clear and easy to understand. I'm amazed that it was created just today and what I consider to be just in time!
Thank you for your efforts!

hokiematt said:

jfletter said:

I am posting this story as a link to a PDF for my simplicity.
https://1drv.ms/b/s!AtSKKmN-5msBg_oYXNH9E1vYZ_8bDA

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing your write-up, and glad to hear everything is now working. Vlad (Alflash) is indeed a great asset to this community, and I wish him and all Ukrainians health and safety in these difficult times.

Regarding your questions about the replacement Model S charger: as I mentioned in your original post, the same Tesla part # is used for the both RAV4 and the Model S, however the internal firmware is different, and thus not quite plug-and-play. You were able to get the second charger working because you swapped over the control board that contained the RAV4 firmware. Used gen 1 Model S chargers are indeed viable candidates to replace a RAV4 OBC, but they must be updated with the correct RAV4 firmware, a task that can be performed through the Tesla powertrain software.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the information hokiematt. One issue I thought was odd with the replacement charger, when alflash connected to the car with the Tesla software, the charge provided no information. No errors, no warning, no communication at all. With the incorrect firmware, would it at least report something? If you can't communicate with the charger then how would you update/"correct" the firmware? Or is it a different process?

fred_dot_u said:

The vehicle does charge after two to four engage/disengage cycles with the handle at the charging port. I would have expected if there is a problem with the fuses that it would be a consistent failure to charge. Of course, that makes it more likely to be a charger failure, doesn't it?

Click to expand...

fred_dot_u, confirm this with others, but many have had the same problem that you seem to have, charger cycles for several seconds and then fails to charge. In most cases it is just the fuses and not a faulty charger. Yes, the cost of a replacement charger is reasonable, $250-$350 is where we were, but it is $250 you may not need to spend. Of course taking out the charger, replacing the fuses, and putting back in, only to find out that it still does not work is incredibly frustrating.

While it took me 12 hours the first time, the second time I had it down to 4-6 hours, and the last and forth time to about 2 or so hours. Practice makes perfect. In any case, that is the reason to developed the test bed so I could pull the charger out and check to see if my repairs were working before going through the effort to put it back in.

I hope this help. I should get a list of all the parts needed for my test bed and share it with everyone. I ordered several wrong parts before got everything together properly. I still have some parts on backorder but they were connector parts that I could fabricate with epoxy putty.

I hope these thoughts help.

jfletter said:

Thank you for the information hokiematt. One issue I thought was odd with the replacement charger, when alflash connected to the car with the Tesla software, the charge provided no information. No errors, no warning, no communication at all. With the incorrect firmware, would it at least report something? If you can't communicate with the charger then how would you update/"correct" the firmware? Or is it a different process?

Click to expand...

It's possible the replacement charger (presumably used from a wrecked Model S) itself may have been defective, and thus unable to communicate with the powertrain software. Or the charger unit may have been setup as the slave module in a two-charger configuration that was an option on the Model S, in which case the messages it would be broadcasting wouldn't be decodable in the software, but yet still might be a candidate for a re-flash.

Ultimately in these situations, one needs to examine the messages being sent over the CAN connection to determine the state of the charger, something that is beyond the means of the typical owner or mechanic. I'm looking into acquiring a few units to re-flash, bench test test, then make available to folks if there is sufficient interest.

I'm very much interested in building some form of test bed, as the Vlad-assisted diagnostics have completed with a failed charger conclusion, rather than a fuse related problem.

As you've noted, pulling the charger and putting it back in to experience a continued failure would be frustrating but mitigated by a test bed.

If I can order the correct slate of components well in advance of the attack on the removal/replacement, greater confidence would result.

jfletter said:

fred_dot_u said:

The vehicle does charge after two to four engage/disengage cycles with the handle at the charging port. I would have expected if there is a problem with the fuses that it would be a consistent failure to charge. Of course, that makes it more likely to be a charger failure, doesn't it?

Click to expand...

fred_dot_u, confirm this with others, but many have had the same problem that you seem to have, charger cycles for several seconds and then fails to charge. In most cases it is just the fuses and not a faulty charger. Yes, the cost of a replacement charger is reasonable, $250-$350 is where we were, but it is $250 you may not need to spend. Of course taking out the charger, replacing the fuses, and putting back in, only to find out that it still does not work is incredibly frustrating.

While it took me 12 hours the first time, the second time I had it down to 4-6 hours, and the last and forth time to about 2 or so hours. Practice makes perfect. In any case, that is the reason to developed the test bed so I could pull the charger out and check to see if my repairs were working before going through the effort to put it back in.

I hope this help. I should get a list of all the parts needed for my test bed and share it with everyone. I ordered several wrong parts before got everything together properly. I still have some parts on backorder but they were connector parts that I could fabricate with epoxy putty.

I hope these thoughts help.

Click to expand...

jfletter said:

fred_dot_u said:

The vehicle does charge after two to four engage/disengage cycles with the handle at the charging port. I would have expected if there is a problem with the fuses that it would be a consistent failure to charge. Of course, that makes it more likely to be a charger failure, doesn't it?

Click to expand...

fred_dot_u, confirm this with others, but many have had the same problem that you seem to have, charger cycles for several seconds and then fails to charge. In most cases it is just the fuses and not a faulty charger. Yes, the cost of a replacement charger is reasonable, $250-$350 is where we were, but it is $250 you may not need to spend. Of course taking out the charger, replacing the fuses, and putting back in, only to find out that it still does not work is incredibly frustrating.
...
I hope these thoughts help.

Click to expand...

Update
As note.
I want to draw your attention to the fact that at the beginning (for example, at the first attempt and at 2nd and at 3nd), on fred_dot_u vehicle charging DOES NOT START.
However, charging does not start instantly and in the absence of a malfunction.
The process ALWAYS begins with a system health check. If some kind of malfunction is detected, then several more attempts are made to check and, if they also detect / confirm a malfunction, then the system is turned off.
After each of these attempts is unsuccessful, then after each time a fault code is recorded.
After the last failed attempt, the charger gets the Faulty status, and the contactors is disabled.
Depending on the cause / symptom of the malfunction, different codes may be recorded in the system. And the fuse fault code has a different cause than the "overcurrent" series codes...
And at the same time. If the Tesla software is inconsistent, the system determines the corresponding fault codes*.
And, if the problem is with charger hardware ID, then the RAV4EV charger can be reprogrammed*.
*

fred_dot_u said:

I'm very much interested in building some form of test bed, as the Vlad-assisted diagnostics have completed with a failed charger conclusion, rather than a fuse related problem.

As you've noted, pulling the charger and putting it back in to experience a continued failure would be frustrating but mitigated by a test bed.

If I can order the correct slate of components well in advance of the attack on the removal/replacement, greater confidence would result.

Click to expand...

fred, I will get you and everyone here a shopping list of the wiring parts that I ordered to create my test bed. In the meantime, I can mail you my test bed and you can either mail it back or reimburse me for the cost of the parts. In total it will run around $50+, excluding data wire and the 8/10 gauge wire high voltage wire. That will run another $15+. I ordered all of the parts from Mouser.

Also note that I did not actually use the coolant hosing that I show in the pictures. While it would have functioned, I did not need it because we just ran the charge test for a few seconds to show that charging was functioning correctly and then unplugged. I few days later, I fully reinstalled the charger; so, unless you plan to run your charging test on the test bed minutes or more then you will not need to extend the coolant hoses and raise up the coolant reservoir (bottle).

Thanks for the test bed offer. I'd like to take you up on that and will send contact information via direct message of this forum.

I have some ten gauge wire kicking around somewhere, how many feet will I need? Any unusual connectors for the data wire?

Here is a parts list to build the high voltage and data cable for a test bed.

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AtSKKmN-5msBg_o7uNXyRN4SCKtDjA?e=2UCEXC

A few things to note.
1) I am still waiting a two items, both female housings for high voltage wire. They will take month to arrive. For testing, I just pushed the connectors onto the pins which was a very look, insecure fit but it work for the short time it took to test charging.
2) The items listed may not be backorders but you may find substitutions. For instance there are different part numbers for the male and female connector pins (gold & tin plated for example) so check on those.
3) In a pinch, the connector pins for MX150 (a smaller housing for the data cable) will work in place of the pins for the MX150L.
4) Because the MX150L housings were backorders for me, I used epoxy putty and my dead onboard charger housing as a mold to my own housing/pin holder. I ended up destroying the dean charger housing when I extracted the mold but, ultimately, that was OK because I had the replacement charger.

i'm so glad you guys are taking the time to document all this info here. i know the forum's a little quiet these days, but more and more of us will need this kind of help as our Ravs get older.

An update on the wife's vehicle troubles.

The Check EV System message appears to have been related to low coolant levels in the reservoir for the battery and charging circuit. Once the error was cleared and the reservoirs topped off with G48, the error did not return and is unrelated (apparently) to the charging problems.

An important lesson was learned during the troubleshooting process. My thanks to Vlad for his patience and technical skills. It's pretty amazing that one can perform the diagnostics from Ukraine to USA with today's technology.

The lesson learned was that the 12v battery MUST be disconnected for about ten minutes before checking isolation on the charge port pins. If not disconnected, there's 4.41 vdc (wife's car, spec'd to 4.5 vdc) on the pins being tested for resistance. It kinda skews the numbers when checking resistance.

We were lucky that it was something so simple for that test, which passed after figuring out the 12v battery aspect.

Unfortunately, all tests now point to a failed charger. eBay's messaging system informed me that the replacement charger (~US$175) should be arriving today. Seller is unable to confirm operational status of the charger, however, which adds another possible glitch.

I hope to be meeting with a local mechanic to see what's involved to get him to perform the necessary work, with confidence of the results. Any mechanic worth his salt will say something can be done, but I think these cars are just a bit more sensitive to ham-fisted wrenching.

As an example, Vlad sent me a segment of the Toyota manual and the earlier steps appear to involve reclaiming the air conditioning refrigerant. Is that really necessary? If so, I can see why a dealer would have such high service prices. Another aspect of the segment of the manual is that details of each section link to other manual pages not included in my document, which gives me pause.

I'm hoping the local mechanic is current with Toyota's tech pages and can get everything he needs.

Updates as warranted.

It is not necessary to evacuate the refrigerant lines when removing/installing the OBC; there is sufficient play in the hoses to wiggle things around.

I was hoping that was the case. Thanks for the clarification.

Also, any shop doing AC servicing will have the equipment to reclaim the refrigerant, if it did turn out to be necessary. Environmental regs require it.