Rav4 Eaton not compatible

[ljmljmljm]

I wonder if anyone has any advice for me:

At work we have level 2 charging stations but my Rav4 does not connect with them. They are made by Eaton. Every other EV (even another Rav4, 2014) connects with them (I have a level 2 Blink at home that works perfectly).

I charge at work with the 110V so I make it home but not by much (long commute).

At first it charged some days and then others no. Then it charged only on Mondays. Now it won't charge at all. It tries to connect--my car's charger clicks on, then the station clicks on, it blinks for about 20 seconds, then it stops trying and turns off. I try multiple times. At first if I tried 4 times, by then it would connect. But now no matter how many times I try, no luck.

I have gotten the software updated by the dealer, but that did not help. I have a call in to Toyota about it, but they just say well, we guarantee that Leviton will work, but Eaton, we don't know about--could the stations really be that different? The say they will work on this issue. I don't have high hopes for them getting this fixed.

Any advice? Maybe try another dealer? I am in Los Angeles and bought the 2012 from Cerritos. I have had it for a couple of months--it was the dealer's loaner car. Thank you for any ideas!

 

[miimura]

I would not expect any support from Toyota if the car is OK on Blink and Leviton stations. Try calling Eaton.

http://www.eaton.com/Eaton/ProductsServices/Electrical/Support/CustomerSupportEatonCare/index.htm

Is your employer the owner of the Eaton station? Maybe your facilities department can help.

 

[smkettner]

I would first ask the other RAV4-EV owner to watch your plug in sequence to verify anything obvious.
Instead of a call to Toyota I would take it in to be checked for that specific issue.

 

[davewill]

Can you try some other EVSEs, to get an idea if it's specific to certain equipment? Which Blink do you have the old one that looks like the commercial stations, or the newer Blink HQ? I remember that some LEAFs had symptoms like this that turned out to be a blown diode in the on-board charger. The J1772 spec calls for diode in the car. The diode is used so that the EVSE can tell the difference between a car pulling down the pilot signal or the handle being dropped into dirty water. Since EVSEs all have GFCI built into them, some manufacturers don't feel the need to implement the diode check.

For the LEAFs I'm talking about, this meant that their cars would charge on the supplied 120v EVSE and on the dealer's AV units, but not on a lot of commercial stations.

As far as dealers go, I'd take it over to Carson. They sell more Rav4 EVs than anyone else, and they really care about it.

 

[ljmljmljm]

thank you so much for all these great ideas--I really appreciate it! I will check all of them out and report back.

ljm

 

[fooljoe]

Then it charged only on Mondays.

I hate to ask the obvious, but nobody else has said it yet, and this line in particular stands out. Do you have any departure timers set? Of course you'll want to make sure your car is in charge immediately mode before using the work charging station. I have noticed a couple times touching the 'charge immediately' button when powering off didn't work on the first try, so you could try putting it in the "permanent" style of charge immediately mode if that's what you were doing.

Of course if you already have the car in charge immediately mode then clearly either your car or the Eaton is acting screwy. My suggestion would then be to just try as many different types of charging stations as you can. If your car has problems with others, then clearly you need help from Toyota; if it's still just the Eaton, then work with your company to get it fixed / replaced.

One other outside shot would be to look at the pins on your inlet (especially the two small ones that provide proximity and pilot signaling) to make sure there are no signs of corrosion or other types of damage.

 

[ljmljmljm]

Thanks for that idea--can you tell me how to check to see if it is in charge immediately mode? I am pretty sure I tried that in the beginning when I had troubles--but maybe not.

And re the pins, I checked that and I can't see an obvious problem. But I will take it to the Carson dealer as was suggested and let them check it. Is it possible to remove the plug-in apparatus from the Blink EVSE ? It is really hard to take out now and I think one of the metal sheaths for a big pin is bent inward--that is not the problem with the Eatons since the Blink came after the Eatons problem.

Thanks again for taking the time to help.

ljm

 

[smkettner]

Thanks for that idea--can you tell me how to check to see if it is in charge immediately mode? I am pretty sure I tried that in the beginning when I had troubles--but maybe not.

When you turn off the car there is a menu with a "Charge Immediately" option. When pressed it will illuminate.
Then plug in and start the Eaton.

 

[fooljoe]

Or to have the car in permanent charge immediately mode from the main menu you choose EV->Charging and Pre-climate setup and touch the button in the upper right of the screen to toggle between timer mode and charge immediately mode. Refer to page 21 in the manual.

So when you plug in to the Eaton, what do the two amber lights above the charge port on your car do?

 

[ljmljmljm]

I checked, and the car was already in charge immediately mode. I saved it at that setting again just to make sure.

To answer your question, the two amber lights about the charge port in the car begin to alternate flashing back and forth, then the charger in my car clicks on, and then the EVSE Eaton clicks on, and the charging icon on the Eaton flashes on and off until the lights above the charge port on my car--the amber ones--both flash at the same time to indicate a problem, and then they go blank and then the Eaton red problem icon under the flashing blue icon comes on. Then it turns off. My car stays blank until I try it again. At first, if I tried multiple times, it would eventually connect. And sometimes, it began charging immediately without ever flashing on the EVSE--the charging light came on and stayed on. Then this past week, it went through the first sequence, once, since I now know multiple tries don't work, and then I plug into the 110 and it works fine.

I can get home, so it is not a huge problem, but sometimes, I have to go a longer route to pick up kids etc, and it is tight; and if I don't work a full day, it will be not very smart to attempt. I would like to know that if I am desperate another station will work. But as another person said, I need to try on others besides Leviton, Eaton, and Blink to see what the commonality of the problem is.

Thank you!

 

[smkettner]

Seems like Eaton is detecting an error. I would think Eaton would be able to discover what that error is.

 

[fooljoe]

Given the sequence of events you described, it does seem like something's broken. And given the fact that the on-board charger is in general a much more complex piece of hardware than an EVSE I'd think that'd be the leading candidate. Davewill's suggestion that it could be a blown diode sounds promising. You'll definitely want to try another dealership that'll take the problem seriously and continue to try other EVSEs in the meantime. Someone who's built an openEVSE and/or has some electrical testing equipment might be willing to help test out your charger as well, like perhaps GlennD (hope he doesn't mind me volunteering him. )

 

[uleite]

I work with ljmljmljm and am also having compatibility issues with my Rav4 EV and the Eaton chargers. I noticed the Tesla Model S's at work had similar faulting out of the Eaton but they were able to resolve the issue by adjusting their amperage down from 30 to 28 amps on their touch screen. The Eaton Pow-R EVSE is rated for 30 amps in & out.

Is there a "simple" way to adjust charging amperage with the Rav 4 EV charger? Does this seem like an issue that Tesla & Eaton could resolve with a simple firmware / software update?

Also, if the charger was designed to handle 40 amps and doesn't have issues with 25 amp Clipper Creek / Blink EVSEs, what makes 30 amps a problem?
The other odd thing is that sometimes the Eaton works fine and other times it faults out. I can't tell what is different. Could it be fluctuations in current when multiple cars are charging at any of the adjacent 6 Eaton EVSEs?

Our facility manager is pointing us to Toyota and the Toyota case managers are pointing us to Eaton (and/or a service shop).

After several e-mails, my facility manager and a Taft Electric contractor requested me to schedule a meeting to monitor amperage while charging. Perhaps we'll have some progress there.

Please let us know if you have any further suggestions. I also have video footage of the failure which I just posted on the Facebook forum.

 

[fooljoe]

Is there a "simple" way to adjust charging amperage with the Rav 4 EV charger?

Seems like there should be, but I'm afraid there's not. If someone with access to a Model S can log what's shown on the CAN bus when using its amperage adjuster I suppose we might be able to figure out how to command the on-board charger. Then it'd just be a matter of installing a device in the car that can send the same CAN bus commands to the charger that the Tesla's touchscreen "command center" sends.