charging Cable

[denise]

Hello. I have a 22 plate MG ZS which I love!
Last week the radio stopped working completely tried a reboot but still nothing. So booked it into my local MG suppliers for Friday.
On Thursday was going to charge the car but car wouldn’t charge at all (I’ve a home pod point; had it since I bought the car).
It would plug in, flash green, then cut back to blue.
Tried a couple of times & nothing so drove it to a local Gridserve to charge, again nothing. Spoke to a very helpful chap on their help line who said it’s showing a problem in the car.
So Friday drop car off & late Friday told they needed to keep it. No problem.
Today told that because I don’t use a MG cable to charge the car that’s the issue. Also need a new 12V battery (which I was expecting).
Having had a charger fitted and never had a MG cable, I wondered what everyone else is using? And has anyone else had this issue??
I don’t want to replace the home charger if it’s really unnecessary as it’s another expense
Thanks guys

 

[Kenp1]

What a complete load of nonsense, my charger has a tethered cable, so using that logic it probably shouldn't work because it's a Hypervolt cable. Did the dealer try charging it with your cable and their own cable to rule out a cable fault?

I assume the Gridserve you tried was a DC rapid charger, if that's the case then it has to be the car if it won't charge on AC or DC. If it is a slower charger and you used your own cable then it is possible the cable has developed a fault, the only way rule that out is to try a different cable.

 

[hmadsen]

That's a complete lie.

The cable is literally just 2 connectors, a lenght of wire and a resistor.

There is nothing in the cable that can affect the charging....Other than if there is a bad connection but that would lead to something getting warm and that would be visible.

If this were true, you would be unable to charge at any of the destination chargers that has a cable attached.

Also...The box on the wall is NOT a "home charger".

When doing AC destination charging the charger used is in the car, this is why there is a difference, you can get 1 phase and 3 phase chargers.

The box on the wall is just a box with a bit of electronics and 1 or 3 relays.

The electronics "talks" to the car and they agree on what they are capable of delivering / accepting and if they agree, the car says "Okay, i am ready to receive electricity" and the box closes the relays, connecting the grid directly to your car.

Electronics in the box is only used to tell the car what it's capabilities are and what the cables capabilities are, the lowest denominator between the 2 is what the box offers the onboard charger.

The charger then obeys what it is told.

In reality this is a very simple and crude communication, the charger sends out a 1kHz signal that is then pulse width modulated, the duty cycle indicates how much current the charger is allowed to source from the grid.

The car answers by setting a resistaince between the communication pin and ground, and the charger interprets this as "Start, Stop, pause, etc."

In contrast the CCS protocol is vastly more complicated, which is the reason these home chargers don't use it.

When V2H enabled cars becomes available, the wall box will also need to do the "complicated" protocol, this is also important for V2G, because this protocol enables the car to tell what it is capable of and more importantly, what its SoT is, so the grid controller knows how much electricity it has at its disposal and when a certain car might disconnect due to low SoT.

It's all very fascinating for anyone interested in these things

 

[decrep]

It's all very fascinating for anyone interested in these things

I had an interesting case last week, my MG4 wouldn't work on a 3phase destination wall box. It started but dropped out soon after.
So was that because the wall box had no idea how to process a "please just treat this car as single phase", signal, thought it had a faulty unbalanced load and cutout?

 

[Coulomb]

So was that because the wall box had no idea how to process a "please just treat this car as single phase", signal, thought it had a faulty unbalanced load and cutout?

I don't think so. I assume that the EVSE doesn't care about balance.

Though I suppose it has to be aware of the power delivered by each phase, as it has to debit the account accurately (accurate charge for the charge, so to speak).

 

[denise]

What a complete load of nonsense, my charger has a tethered cable, so using that logic it probably shouldn't work because it's a Hypervolt cable. Did the dealer try charging it with your cable and their own cable to rule out a cable fault?

I assume the Gridserve you tried was a DC rapid charger, if that's the case then it has to be the car if it won't charge on AC or DC. If it is a slower charger and you used your own cable then it is possible the cable has developed a fault, the only way rule that out is to try a different cable.

Exactly what I thought.
If the gridserve had worked I would have thought it was my home charger -also tethered. But as the very helpful chap on the phone at gridserve said it was a fault on the car & not their charger leaves no doubt a fault on the car.
I’m collecting today so let’s hope changing the 12V battery has worked the magic on the electrics

That's a complete lie.

The cable is literally just 2 connectors, a lenght of wire and a resistor.

There is nothing in the cable that can affect the charging....Other than if there is a bad connection but that would lead to something getting warm and that would be visible.

If this were true, you would be unable to charge at any of the destination chargers that has a cable attached.

Also...The box on the wall is NOT a "home charger".

When doing AC destination charging the charger used is in the car, this is why there is a difference, you can get 1 phase and 3 phase chargers.

The box on the wall is just a box with a bit of electronics and 1 or 3 relays.

The electronics "talks" to the car and they agree on what they are capable of delivering / accepting and if they agree, the car says "Okay, i am ready to receive electricity" and the box closes the relays, connecting the grid directly to your car.

Electronics in the box is only used to tell the car what it's capabilities are and what the cables capabilities are, the lowest denominator between the 2 is what the box offers the onboard charger.

The charger then obeys what it is told.

In reality this is a very simple and crude communication, the charger sends out a 1kHz signal that is then pulse width modulated, the duty cycle indicates how much current the charger is allowed to source from the grid.

The car answers by setting a resistaince between the communication pin and ground, and the charger interprets this as "Start, Stop, pause, etc."

In contrast the CCS protocol is vastly more complicated, which is the reason these home chargers don't use it.

When V2H enabled cars becomes available, the wall box will also need to do the "complicated" protocol, this is also important for V2G, because this protocol enables the car to tell what it is capable of and more importantly, what its SoT is, so the grid controller knows how much electricity it has at its disposal and when a certain car might disconnect due to low SoT.

It's all very fascinating for anyone interested in these things

Thank you. I just meant I had a home charger on the wall that has the cables attached. Not that I plug in from a separate one and into a socket.
But as I’d tried a rapid charge on gridserve and still wouldn’t charge it had to be the car.
I’d never heard of only using a MG charge cable and once on the road where would I find one haha!
But your answer is very factual thank you

 

[decrep]

I’d never heard of only using a MG charge cable and once on the road where would I find one haha!

With any luck it's in your boot, that's where mine is. (but it's not an MG cable, just a generic type 2 charge cable)

 

[decrep]

I don't think so. I assume that the EVSE doesn't care about balance.

Though I suppose it has to be aware of the power delivered by each phase, as it has to debit the account accurately (accurate charge for the charge, so to speak

I'm fairly sure it was the EVSE doing the cutting out, the car charges fine on other EVSEs

 

[Roldorf]

Sounds like a pin problem in the charge port on the car.

 

[hmadsen]

I had an interesting case last week, my MG4 wouldn't work on a 3phase destination wall box. It started but dropped out soon after.
So was that because the wall box had no idea how to process a "please just treat this car as single phase", signal, thought it had a faulty unbalanced load and cutout?

No, the car onboard charger actually does not signal to the box if it wants one or 3 phases, it turns out.

It gets a "signal" from the box about what the max current it is allowed to draw, asks the charger to please connect the power and then it senses on the inputs what it is getting....1 phase or 3 phases.

It's all relatively "primitive" really.

 

[decrep]

So, still a puzzle as to what caused it to keep dropping out?

Something somewhere was sensing an anomaly.

CHATGPT, says it was a 3phase imbalance, common with older EVSEs and cheaper ones not configured for single phase. Maybe it's just making that up?

The box has always worked fine in the past, I assume with 3phase chargers.
The only single phase failure was with my car, that works fine everywhere else,