Leviton Leviton EVR40 Charger having a bad day?

[drmanny3]

I have had a Leviton EVR40 charger for about 3 years now. I used it on the Rav4, our Kia SoulEV and now the Chevy Bolt. This morning I heard a strange noise that I thought was coming from the roof. It was early and I just could not figure it out. I had to go so as I entered the garage I could hear the noise more clearly. It was the Leviton charger that was making a loud clicking noise. It was not charging the car correctly. I unplugged the unit from the car and unplugged the charger from the 240 volt wall outlet. I plugged everything back in and the charger seemed to work ok. It sounded like a circuit opening and closing. I am worried that this may be the start of a failure. Not sure about my warranty. I was thinking of pulling it apart and trying to order the part. Anyone else experience this sort of problem? I do have my JESLA to fall back on. If I recall there is a device inside that closes the circuit to allow current to flow. I am just having a brain delay in remembering the name of the part.
Manny

 

[drmanny3]

I just got off the phone with Leviton. Bad news is my 3 year warranty was up in March of 2017. While not in warranty they will trouble shoot with you to try and solve the problem. When I mentioned what had happened, the technician suggested that it could have been a bad signal from the car. By unplugging the charger from the wall and car I reset everything. The fact that it is working now suggests that it was a burp so to speak and not necessarily an indication of an upcoming failure. He did mention that it could have been the contact opening and closing that made the noise. They do not have parts but I would imagine I should be able to order an appropriate contact if necessary. I will be observant to see if this happens again. While it does not appear to have caused any damage, I did notice that the J1772 was slightly warm near the female connector. It was not hot however so perhaps that is the norm during charging. So not sure if I should just try and order a new contact and change it out to be safe? What do you all think?
Manny

 

[miimura]

I had a complete failure of mine. I called Leviton and they repaired it at no charge, even outside of the warranty. I recounted the experience here:

Leviton Charger appears to have stopped working

 

[drmanny3]

The tech that I spoke to said that they no long repair units. If yours is bad they will replace it as long as it is in warranty. If out of warranty they will help you trouble shoot it but no long have access to parts. Go figure, probably changed their policy in 2017?
Manny

 

[GlennD]

I put an OpenEVSE board into a burned up aeroenviremrnt EVSE. The board is pretty universal. It most likely would work in the Leviton.

 

[miimura]

The tech that I spoke to said that they no long repair units. If yours is bad they will replace it as long as it is in warranty. If out of warranty they will help you trouble shoot it but no long have access to parts. Go figure, probably changed their policy in 2017?
Manny

That's really a shame. They gave me great support and repair just 5 months ago. The problem is almost certainly with an internal fuse or the PCB. Like GlennD said, putting in a new board should be pretty straight forward, even if it's not from Leviton. The expensive bits (case, contactor, and cables) are likely still good.

 

[fooljoe]

One thing to check might be your breaker (and make sure nothing else is loose or damaged upstream of the EVSE). I recently heard of a guy who replaced his Bosch EVSE because he thought it had failed, but the new EVSE didn't work either. It turned out that the breaker failed in such a way that it intermittently passed 120V instead of 240V to the unit.

I once tried plugging in my openEVSE with a 240V contactor into 120V, and since 120V wasn't enough to close the contactor's coil it made a weird "stuck in between" sort of clicking noise. That noise plus the intermittent nature of your failure makes think it might be time to replace that breaker - it's probably only $10 so what the heck (although you'll probably want to call an electrician out if you're not comfortable working in your panel.)

Oh and if it does turn out that the Leviton's failed an outside shot would be to check if perhaps you bought it with a credit card that has a "double the warranty" benefit. I know Discover at least does that...

 

[TonyWilliams]

I had an air conditioner fail that way... a new $3 circuit breaker fixed it.