Issue with AC charging/New CCU fitted (Phase One SE LR)

[FiferMG4]

Edit: Originally, I thought I had an issue with my Zappi not being able to charge the car, but after testing other AC charging points (cutting out after fifteen minutes or less) and contacting the dealer, I eventually found out it was an issue with the car, namely the charge control unit, which needed replacing. After a new CCU was fitted, the car now charges normally at home on the Zappi (AC charging), though a separate software update was needed to limit the car to 80% when doing such a charge on my SE Long Range. Without that software update, the car was ignoring the 80% limit and charging up to 100%.


For those members who charge their MG4s with a Zappi, has this ever happened to you? The first time it happened was on Sunday. I’d set the car to charge to 80% from something like 45% and let it do its thing. Around the time I expected it to have finished I checked the Zappi app and found it had finished earlier than expected. It had actually stopped charging at 74%. I thought that was odd and then started the Zappi again to finish the charge to 80%, but again it stopped at 76%. Okay, this is not normal. A third attempt got the car charging and balancing to 80%.

I plugged it in this evening to charge the car from 67% to 80% and the Zappi stopped at 78%. The second attempt got it charging and balancing to 80%. I’ve updated the Zappi firmware, just in case that’s the issue, but I’m perplexed as to what could be the cause of this. Any ideas guys? Could it be the car, or is there something I’m not doing correctly? Any help is appreciated. I haven’t had any problems in the last seven months of charging until last Sunday.

 

[Jomarkh]

How long are you setting the Zappi to charge for or are you using fast mode?

 

[Coulomb]

I plugged it in this evening to charge the car from 67% to 80% and the Zappi stopped at 78%.

Are you able to watch it stop charging? I think it's possible that the SoC depends on battery voltage (for those models with an NMC battery), and the voltage of the battery may change slightly after charging, due to the battery "relaxing", or temperature change, or all sorts of things. So it might stop at 80% but the car displays 78% hours later when you check it.

 

[FiferMG4]

How long are you setting the Zappi to charge for or are you using fast mode?

I’ve been using it in fast mode (no schedule) as there hasn’t been enough solar recently.

Are you able to watch it stop charging? I think it's possible that the SoC depends on battery voltage (for those models with an NMC battery), and the voltage of the battery may change slightly after charging, due to the battery "relaxing", or temperature change, or all sorts of things. So it might stop at 80% but the car displays 78% hours later when you check it.

Interesting, that’s something I hadn’t considered. Here’s a screenshot of the charging history on Sunday. Note the spike above 7kW another member has reported with their Zappi. I’ve seen that spike a few times.

 

[FiferMG4]

I started charging the car this morning from 48% up to 80%, so I was expecting it to take about three hours. After two hours, I checked the Zappi app and it said the charge was complete. Hopping into the car it said 70%, so there’s a fault somewhere. I’ve started it up again and set the percentage to 100, so hopefully it’ll go past 80%. Bit of a pain when you can’t rely on the charge stopping at the percentage you set. I updated the Zappi’s firmware and it’s not reporting any faults. On the charge log, it reported charge delayed twice before completing the charge.

Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon when charging with any brand of home charger? I’d be interested to hear if it’s not just the Zappi.

Edited to say it has stopped again after adding only 2.13kWh. I think I shall try a chargeplace Scotland charge point to see whether the issue is with the Zappi or the car.

 

[SimonS]

How are you setting the 80% restriction? I can’t see anything in the Zappi manual that allows you to add a percentage. The only feature mentioned is the ability to use Smart Boost to add a certain number of kWh by a certain time. which provider/tarrif are you on?

 

[FiferMG4]

How are you setting the 80% restriction? I can’t see anything in the Zappi manual that allows you to add a percentage. The only feature mentioned is the ability to use Smart Boost to add a certain number of kWh by a certain time. which provider/tarrif are you on?

I’m just setting that restriction on the car‘s infotainment screen. It has worked perfectly fine since I got the car in March, up until a couple of weeks ago when I started noticing it ending a charge prematurely.

I’m with British Gas, but I don’t think this is connected to the problem as you’ll see in my next post.

 

[FiferMG4]

I drove the car to a nearby chargeplace Scotland slow charger to test if it was an issue with the Zappi or car. The car was at 70% when I plugged it in. The slow charger was charging at 6kW, which is a little less than the Zappi, but I was prepared to wait until reaching 100%. However, 1% later the charge stopped, just like it has been doing with the Zappi.

These photos show the slow charger when starting and after it had stopped, 1% later.

As you can see, the car is saying, “No abnormal cause.” I beg to differ.

Then I thought, I’ll see how the car handles a fast charger. I took it to a local Osprey fast charger (CCS 50kW) starting from about 70%. I was getting around 35kW for most of the charge until it reached 95% SOC and then reduced to about 3.9kW which I find is usual for the fast charger. There were no interruptions or delays using the fast charger and it went from around 70% up to 97%.

I got home with about 95% charge and plugged in the Zappi so it would do a balancing charge to 100%, but the charge was stopped within minutes.

The charge was not complete. I’m guessing there’s a problem on the car with AC charging, but it’s just a guess. What do you think, guys? Is it time to take it to the dealership? The slow charging is just not reliable anymore unfortunately.

Edited to include the incomplete charging session with the chargeplace Scotland charger:

 

[DevonMG4]

Nice and analytical, I was going to suggest trying a 13A charger (do we refer to them as the mother of one of your parents any more?). Might be worth adding it to the process to give the Main Stealer some less wriggle room to blame your charger?

I think I'd then be reluctantly contacting the MD service dept.

Just an aside, in 12 months and 19,000 miles on our MG4, the Zappi has only failed to charge the car once - I'd forgotten to plug it in. I have found them a bulletproof combination unless you're using PV/ECO+ on a day with scattered clouds when the car keeps starting and stopping the charge and eventually gets fed up and stops period. But that's not your problem here clearly.

Good luck, this could become annoying quite quickly.

 

[FiferMG4]

Nice and analytical, I was going to suggest trying a 13A charger (do we refer to them as the mother of one of your parents any more?). Might be worth adding it to the process to give the Main Stealer some less wriggle room to blame your charger?

I think I'd then be reluctantly contacting the MD service dept.

Just an aside, in 12 months and 19,000 miles on our MG4, the Zappi has only failed to charge the car once - I'd forgotten to plug it in. I have found them a bulletproof combination unless you're using PV/ECO+ on a day with scattered clouds when the car keeps starting and stopping the charge and eventually gets fed up and stops period. But that's not your problem here clearly.

Good luck, this could become annoying quite quickly.

That’s a good idea Devon. I’d forgotten about that charger. I’ll give that a go and see what happens.

 

[SimonS]

Agree, try the granny charger then contact your dealer. It sounds like your car is happy with DC charging but has an issue with AC.

Last thought - check the L1 and N pins are clean in the car socket.

 

[FiferMG4]

Thanks Simon. I’ve checked those pins and they look pretty clean. I took a photo of them:

Well, the granny charger lasted around 15 minutes (should have been over an hour) and then stopped. I maybe got about 1~2% charge. I could hear the car delaying the charge twice and then it completely stopped. That’s what has been happening with the Zappi in the event log. The charge is delayed twice, then it stops altogether.

Thank you for your help and suggestions, guys. I’m going to give the dealer a ring tomorrow and arrange to have it inspected. I’ll let you know how it goes. At least it’s still drivable.

 

[SimonS]

I see you have one of the batch with a 3 phase socket. If you have an 11 or 22kW charger near you it might be worth trying that too. Just to rule it out if nothing else.

 

[FiferMG4]

I see you have one of the batch with a 3 phase socket. If you have an 11 or 22kW charger near you it might be worth trying that too. Just to rule it out if nothing else.

That’s interesting, thanks Simon. I didn’t know the car had that option to charge with 3 phase. Too bad the house is single phase. I think there might be one near me, but to be honest I’m still going to get it checked. It’s a tad inconvenient the way it’s (not) working at the moment. I can’t just plug it in and forget about it. I have to monitor it and then find out it has ceased charging.

 

[fnegroni]

I see you have one of the batch with a 3 phase socket. If you have an 11 or 22kW charger near you it might be worth trying that too. Just to rule it out if nothing else.

What does a one phase socket look like then?

 

[SimonS]

What does a one phase socket look like then?

No pins in L2 or L3.

 

[tsedge]

This sounds like a fault that some others have reported where the car stops charging properly on AC - there are some other threads about it.

I have a Zappi and a Trophy with 11kW AC but I haven't seen this problem myself.

 

[APH]

Hi All,

Thought id jump in on this thread, i am a new EV car owner, had my MG4 Trophy LR about 3-weeks now, i have a Zappi charger, but been struggling to set it up correctly.

I have solar panels, but will mainly want to charge overnight at the cheap Octopus Go tariff at 9p KWH. I set up the Zappi as follows;

Charging Mode - ECO+ Mode
Boost settings - Scheduled between 00:30hr - 04:30hr

Yesterday late afternoon (starting to get dark) i plugged the car into the Zappi charger with the intention for it to commence charging at 00:30hrs (my boost settings). At the point of plugging it in the Zappi App on my phone and on the Zappi charger said “waiting for surplus” (The car was already charged to 68% but i needed 100% due to long journey today).

At 00:35hrs (early hours this morning) i checked the charge status via the Zappi App (hoping the car to be charging at 7kwh), and found the car not to be charging but saying “boosting”. At this point i noticed boost setting was set to “stop all”, no idea why this was set like that. I changed the setting to “schedule” and it eventually starting charging, but only at a rate of 1.4kwh. This was not what i was hoping!!! I had to change the charging mode to “fast” to get the charge up to 7kwh.

Any advice/help on setting up the Zappi would be great please, as I want to charge overnight (00:30hrs - 04:30hrs) at 7kwh.

Thank you.

 

[DevonMG4]

Hi All,

Thought id jump in on this thread, i am a new EV car owner, had my MG4 Trophy LR about 3-weeks now, i have a Zappi charger, but been struggling to set it up correctly.

I have solar panels, but will mainly want to charge overnight at the cheap Octopus Go tariff at 9p KWH. I set up the Zappi as follows;

Charging Mode - ECO+ Mode
Boost settings - Scheduled between 00:30hr - 04:30hr

Yesterday late afternoon (starting to get dark) i plugged the car into the Zappi charger with the intention for it to commence charging at 00:30hrs (my boost settings). At the point of plugging it in the Zappi App on my phone and on the Zappi charger said “waiting for surplus” (The car was already charged to 68% but i needed 100% due to long journey today).

At 00:35hrs (early hours this morning) i checked the charge status via the Zappi App (hoping the car to be charging at 7kwh), and found the car not to be charging but saying “boosting”. At this point i noticed boost setting was set to “stop all”, no idea why this was set like that. I changed the setting to “schedule” and it eventually starting charging, but only at a rate of 1.4kwh. This was not what i was hoping!!! I had to change the charging mode to “fast” to get the charge up to 7kwh.

Any advice/help on setting up the Zappi would be great please, as I want to charge overnight (00:30hrs - 04:30hrs) at 7kwh.

Thank you.

You're essentially doing and expecting the right thing. I've been caught out once by the stop all on the Zappi app and concluded I'd just fat fingered the app. Set it back to Eco+ and it should be OK.

Why not add a temporary 15 minute slot on the schedule at a point in the day when you can watch and gain confidence? Then clear it.

Go into the charging screen in the car and I think it may default to charge at 10A set it to 32 or max and you should never have to touch it again.

Just for reference, I rcv on average 26.3 kw from the Zappi in a four hour charge. That's on a SE SR, you may see slightly different.

Apart from the fault the OP outlines on his car, I've found Zappi/MG4 charging to be 100% reliable.

Good luck.

By the way ECO+ is spot-on for the solar panels but unless you've a bigger than average size array, it's a lost cause at this time of year

 

[DevonMG4]

Oh and it's worth looking on the display of the Zappi to make sure it's showing Eco+ - ie that Comms between the myenergi cloud and your unit are OK