Granny lead not charging? Advice please

[emmadragon]

Hi, so we've plugged in the granny lead to charge (we don't have a wall charger yet), and we're a bit puzzled. It's our first ever time charging, so please bear with us. I accept that it's likely to be very slow; we've set the draw at 8A. But Sleipnir is showing as drawing power (about 1.6kW), but the percentage of charge isn't increasing. He's been plugged in now for about 30 minutes, and hasn't budged from 43%. All the appropriate lights are on (showing green and therefore drawing), and we've got in the car to check it's charging, but nothing seems to be happening.
Are we just being impatient? Will it take longer than 30 minutes to increase charge by even 1%? I've refreshed the app, too, so it's the most recent read.

 

[Jomarkh]

Hi, at 8A it will take hours to charge it may show 1or 2% after an hour.
What SOC are you at now?
If you are monitoring the charge then set it at 10A which should show about 2.2kW.

 

[emmadragon]

still showing 43% (state of charge, yes?)

 

[pecker]

What speed is the main screen in the car showing ?

 

[tsedge]

This is normal for a restricted granny charger, they are very slow and the idea is to leave them on for a long time.

If you can have a 7kW wallbox charger it will be much quicker.

 

[emmadragon]

We're waiting for Octopus to pull their finger out and change our smart meter before we can have our electricals all sorted out - we're going to go the whole hog, charger, battery, solar panels. But we can't do any of that until our meter is updated.
I think the charging is ok, it's just gone up to 44%, so we just needed to be patient. Public charging is probably going to be in our short-term future, but that's ok.
Our local petrol station was completely rebuilt last year, and put in 14 150kW chargers, so we'll just go and work that out. We were going to anyway at some point.
Thank you everyone, panic over.

 

[Rolfe]

I use a granny charger all the time, and while 1.6 Kw doesn't sound all that out of the ordinary (Caliban usually draws 1.8 to 1.9 Kw mind you) I'd have expected the % charge to have gone up a point or so in half an hour.

I appreciate the percentages will be somewhat different between the 51 KWh battery and the 64 KWh, but I usually reckon on the granny charger talking about three hours to add 10% charge. It often works out a bit faster than this. Maybe the combination of the somewhat slower charging rate and the bigger battery means you just haven't seen the number increasing in half an hour?

If you have a DC rapid charger anywhere handy it could be an idea to hurry things up with a wee while on that if you need the car charged quickly.

 

[emmadragon]

Slightly past 6 hours in, we're up to 59%, so I'm not too concerned now. Initial panic, i guess!

Although it did stop charging at 6 hours, and the granny charger thought we were fully charged, so we're a bit puzzled by that. But we've got it going again now. The speed did get slightly better once the battery warmed up, but the max we've had has been 1.9 kW. That's manageable.

My daily mileage is usually around 20 miles, so we're anticipating putting it on slow charge at least twice a week, just to replace those miles, and we'll use the local garage if we need to charge quickly.

 

[Tight Git]

Have you got a percentage limit set in the app (60%)?

Also ensure that you check that the plug on the granny is not getting hot/very warm as well as the socket it is plugged in to.

 

[emmadragon]

No, we set the percentage limit in the car to 80%.

And yes, we've been out at roughly 30 minutes intervals to check the plug socket and lead set-up. We wanted to do the first charge during the day so that we could do that.

On another note, the app now says Health Mode, it's at 60%, could someone please remind me what that is? Thank you so much.

 

[Rolfe]

Sounds like you're fine. I've been getting on fine with an identical set-up for ten months now. Sometimes I think, oh this is going to take ages, if I've been on a trip that has taken me from 100% to 30% in a day. But each time I've not being doing that two days in a row (obviously I'd have got a home charger by now if I was) and the car has been ready when I wanted it.

I came back at 11.30 one night last week on 33% and that took till about teatime the next day. The day after that I was off again at 9 am. Got back about 5.30, again on 33%. and that took until about 11 am the next day.

I thought, what would I have done if these trips had been on consecutive days? I might have been able to unplug at 9 am with enough to do me for the second journey, but it would have been a bit tight. I could have sat on the DC charger at the end of my road for a bit when I got back from the first trip, but it was 11.30 at night and this really wasn't an attractive proposition. The ideal way to have managed it would have been to have put the car on an AC charger in the city car park where I left it while I was at the theatre on the first trip. That would have filled the battery while I was enjoying myself, I'd have got home probably on 65%, and even if granny charging hadn't finished by nine the following morning I'd have had plenty to get to my second destination.

I think the trick is to figure out how long it's taking to add 10% to the battery with the granny charger, and estimate in advance how long it will be before your car is as charged as you want it to be for your next journey. If you don't like the result, work out the best way to use a public charger to make up the slack - either sitting on a DC charger for a bit, or just using an handy AC charger while you're at your destination.

Oh, and what others have said about watching for heat in the plug.

 

[siteguru]

Health Mode should normally be 80%. Check in the car, under the Battery tile ... drag the slider under the car symbol so that it reaches 80%.

 

[Rolfe]

No, we set the percentage limit in the car to 80%.

And yes, we've been out at roughly 30 minutes intervals to check the plug socket and lead set-up. We wanted to do the first charge during the day so that we could do that.

On another note, the app now says Health Mode, it's at 60%, could someone please remind me what that is? Thank you so much.

Battery health mode for an NMC is up to 80%. The slider has maybe moved itself, I gather it does that sometimes.

 

[Tight Git]

No, we set the percentage limit in the car to 80%.

And yes, we've been out at roughly 30 minutes intervals to check the plug socket and lead set-up. We wanted to do the first charge during the day so that we could do that.

On another note, the app now says Health Mode, it's at 60%, could someone please remind me what that is? Thank you so much.

That's the limit on the app that shut the charge off at 60%!!! Slide it to whatever you wish to charge to - the consensus seems to be 80%

 

[emmadragon]

That's the limit on the app that shut the charge off at 60%!!! Slide it to whatever you wish to charge to - the consensus seems to be 80%

Ah, that makes sense. There's a line showing on the Battery tile in the car that seems to show that Health mode is from around 40 to 80%, and then we've got the charge set to stop in the car when it gets to 80%. Not that it will before we use it tonight, but it seems like a reasonable habit to be in.

I really can't thank all of you enough, you're all so unendingly helpful.

 

[MG4London]

I use granny charger all the time have to leave it on overnight

 

[Tight Git]

Ah, that makes sense. There's a line showing on the Battery tile in the car that seems to show that Health mode is from around 40 to 80%, and then we've got the charge set to stop in the car when it gets to 80%. Not that it will before we use it tonight, but it seems like a reasonable habit to be in.

I really can't thank all of you enough, you're all so unendingly helpful.

It does seem to cause problems if schedules and/or limits are set in both the car and the app so is best if you choose one and stick to it.

We are all here to help - after all we were all novices once so keep asking any questions and hopefully you will get the answer.

 

[Martinonline]

Why do you need to set a limit on the charging current? Do you have old wiring? The car can be set to 'ac current' which will leave the car/charger to decide the current to come from the granny charger. I use that setting all the time with occasional checking of the warmness of the mains plug.

Note: the granny charger has protection systems to stop drawing too much current. You household supply will have similar systems. It usually takes 3hours for a 10% increase for my Trophy.

 

[emmadragon]

No, we don't have old wiring.
Many other forum members have talked about this at length in other threads, but fundamentally, although the socket is rated to 13A, if the draw is for a very long time, as a charge on a granny lead is, it will exceed the limits on the socket. Since I've no desire to set my garage on fire, and there is no desperate rush, the general advice seems to be to limit the draw to 6 or 8A. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to either confirm or refute my conclusion.

 

[Kithmo]

No, we don't have old wiring.
Many other forum members have talked about this at length in other threads, but fundamentally, although the socket is rated to 13A, if the draw is for a very long time, as a charge on a granny lead is, it will exceed the limits on the socket. Since I've no desire to set my garage on fire, and there is no desperate rush, the general advice seems to be to limit the draw to 6 or 8A. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to either confirm or refute my conclusion.

A 3-pin 240V AC household socket, in good condition, is rated 13A continuous, the granny only draws 9A so it should be well within the limits and shouldn't catch fire.