[leave]

Crikey, what excitement I've had a Beaconsfield services this weekend!

On Friday night I was just rolling out after a quick charge and had some idiot* flashing and hooting at me as I head to the exit. What?? Lights on, check. Accelerating away, check. Nope must be an anti-EV idiot*. Now he's attempting to overtake into the exit? He must be in a real hurry... Only when he draws level do I spot the long headlights and realise it's a Leaf. He winds his window down and in a somewhat panicy voice asks if there's a charger about? Just as I explain it was behind us on the side of the building, the real idiot in his boy racer mobile nearly runs into the back of my Leaf and starts with the hooting... Time to split.

On the return journey today I get to the charger and for the first time in around 20 rapid charges, I'm blocked out. And by a Tesla...

Great, he'll be here for hours... And I'm stuffed as I can't reach the next rapid from here. Just as I'm about to give up and go find some food, I spot a guy wearing a Tesla shirt heading back to the charger. After a nice chat, it turns out he's been blatting around the Top Gear race track all day at a charity event and is now on his way home, around 30mins more charge should cover it. Sweet! After taking the required photos of the cars, we all head off to eat!

I came back 20mins later to find the Tesla gone, good. But the charger now with a scary "An Anomaly has occured" message, bad. And no way to clear it, very bad. However, a quick call to Ecotricity and a reboot later, all was well and the power started to flow. Just an another Leaf turned up... Quick chat with him and back to finish lunch, then back to Leaf and we were off, with quick phone call to the other Leaf driver that the charger was free.

*With hindsight I'll let him off.

 

[Paul]

Where are these photos then?

 

[harrisop]

Sounds like those tesla cable mods are beginning to be used and confusing the chargers.

 

[Arch]

On the return journey today I get to the charger and for the first time in around 20 rapid charges, I'm blocked out. And by a Tesla...

Great, he'll be here for hours... And I'm stuffed as I can't reach the next rapid from here. Just as I'm about to give up and go find some food, I spot a guy wearing a Tesla shirt heading back to the charger. After a nice chat, it turns out he's been blatting around the Top Gear race track all day at a charity event and is now on his way home, around 30mins more charge should cover it. Sweet! After taking the required photos of the cars, we all head off to eat!

I came back 20mins later to find the Tesla gone, good. But the charger now with a scary "An Anomaly has occured" message, bad. And no way to clear it, very bad. However, a quick call to Ecotricity and a reboot later, all was well and the power started to flow. Just an another Leaf turned up... Quick chat with him and back to finish lunch, then back to Leaf and we were off, with quick phone call to the other Leaf driver that the charger was free.

*With hindsight I'll let him off.

.. err, that would be me !!

You were the first EV driver I've met at a charger although 99% of my charging is done at home and I rarely use public chargers, but it was good to chat with you about the Leaf. I did call Ecotricity and they stated that the 2nd charge point in the left of the photo had not been commissioned (seems a bit odd) and that one working charger can only handle one session at a time. At least we both only needed a 20-30 minute top up to finish our journeys.

I too have arrived at a charger only to be confronted with the 'Anomaly has occurred screen' before I've even started. I am curious if this because of some fault with how the previous user has terminated the session, such as not using the buttons on the charger and instead simply disconnecting their cable/plug. Bit of a big bug if so...

I've documented this 'anomaly' with photos here:-
https://speakev.com/threads/cobham-m25-to-get-ac-dc-chademo.1537/page-2#post-26742

 

[jontracey]

I do wonder sometimes when software devlopers put messages like that on the screen. What help does "an anomaly" actually give anyone. An engineer needs to know exactly what the issue is, a user needs to know, its not working so why waste time to code up reports that are useless to anyone

 

[Arch]

I do wonder sometimes when software devlopers put messages like that on the screen. What help does "an anomaly" actually give anyone. An engineer needs to know exactly what the issue is, a user needs to know, its not working so why waste time to code up reports that are useless to anyone

Agreed !!

As a developer I too find it frustrating. Such fail-screens are often due to sloppy coding where the code bails out for some reason and lands on a generic fail screen. But to not put an error code up is really annoying !!


Its about as useful as the PC classic "Keyboard not detected, but press F1 to continue" ...

 

[flipper]

Crikey, what excitement I've had a Beaconsfield services this weekend!

On Friday night I was just rolling out after a quick charge and had some idiot* flashing and hooting at me as I head to the exit. What?? Lights on, check. Accelerating away, check. Nope must be an anti-EV idiot*. Now he's attempting to overtake into the exit? He must be in a real hurry... Only when he draws level do I spot the long headlights and realise it's a Leaf. He winds his window down and in a somewhat panicy voice asks if there's a charger about? Just as I explain it was behind us on the side of the building, the real idiot in his boy racer mobile nearly runs into the back of my Leaf and starts with the hooting... Time to split.

On the return journey today I get to the charger and for the first time in around 20 rapid charges, I'm blocked out. And by a Tesla...

Great, he'll be here for hours... And I'm stuffed as I can't reach the next rapid from here. Just as I'm about to give up and go find some food, I spot a guy wearing a Tesla shirt heading back to the charger. After a nice chat, it turns out he's been blatting around the Top Gear race track all day at a charity event and is now on his way home, around 30mins more charge should cover it. Sweet! After taking the required photos of the cars, we all head off to eat!

I came back 20mins later to find the Tesla gone, good. But the charger now with a scary "An Anomaly has occured" message, bad. And no way to clear it, very bad. However, a quick call to Ecotricity and a reboot later, all was well and the power started to flow. Just an another Leaf turned up... Quick chat with him and back to finish lunch, then back to Leaf and we were off, with quick phone call to the other Leaf driver that the charger was free.

*With hindsight I'll let him off.

Having used Beaconsfield on Friday also (I *wasn't* the idiot you refer to!) I admit that this is the first time I've had any sort of trouble locating the chargers as they are basically out-of-sight until you start touring the car park, so I could see why someone with VLBW would be worried.

Interestingly, while I was trying to get the charger to recognise my card, a chap started talking to me saying he was somehow connected to the service station, and thought I was only the second person to use the chargers. Looks like that usage pattern has increased significantly this weekend!

(As an aside, it's actually a really nice service station, with a very wide selection of food available, and a really convenient location being so close to the M25).

 

[leave]

Where are these photos then?

Good point!

Sadly didn't have time to get a shot of the first (low battery) Leaf...

Must say I've never seen a Tesla apart from photos before and looks even better in real life...

 

[harrisop]

Looks like you have the potential problem on camera. The tesla is using a none standard, user hacked adapter.

 

[Arch]

Looks like you have the potential problem on camera. The tesla is using a none standard, user hacked adapter.

err, do you have a discrimination problem ? Its not the first time you've had a go about Roadsters using Type 2 chargers...

The 'hack' you refer to involves using a normal Type 2 cable with no electrical mods, and a piece of plastic removed to allow the socket to fit in the plug better.

The 'anomaly' screen is something we're all seeing on arrival at a charger.

 

[fenlander]

I do wonder sometimes when software devlopers put messages like that on the screen. What help does "an anomaly" actually give anyone. An engineer needs to know exactly what the issue is, a user needs to know, its not working so why waste time to code up reports that are useless to anyone

Sometimes things go so badly wrong that as far as software is concerned you are off in some other alternative universe.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/mickens/thenightwatch.pdf is a pretty good analysis of the plight of a systems software engineer.

 

[fenlander]

err, do you have a discrimination problem ? Its not the first time you've had a go about Roadsters using Type 2 chargers...

This isn't about discrimination, it's about a user hacked adapter that is pulling 60A from a single phase. If I was an engineer looking into this "abnormality" I'd like that kind of information.

 

[harrisop]

None at all regarding the car. I do have a problem with people trying to hack something together at the inconvenience of others by breaking the chargers though.

 

[Arch]

This isn't about discrimination, it's about a user hacked adapter that is pulling 60A from a single phase. If I was an engineer looking into this "abnormality" I'd like that kind of information.

The IEC 62196 electrical design standard covers 43kw 3 phase chargers at 60a per phase, and specially requires chargers to be able to support single phase charging at 60amps without load balance issues. Clearly the chargers are working to this standard...

However, as far as I know there is no other EV that does use single phase 14kw except Tesla's which have been capable of it since 2009. Because there's only half a dozen Roadsters out there using chargers there is no real market for a Type 2 socket with shorter plastic plug body.

The 'anomaly' problem is being experienced by all of us as we arrive, not just Leafs arriving after a Tesla has left !!!

 

[harrisop]

"as far as I know there is no other EV which makes use of single phase use at 14kw except Tesla's" "There's about 4 or 5 Roadsters in the UK that actually use this facility"

Sounds Abnormal to me...

 

[Arch]

"as far as I know there is no other EV which makes use of single phase use at 14kw except Tesla's" "There's about 4 or 5 Roadsters in the UK that actually use this facility"

Sounds Abnormal to me...

Sounds like you're just trying to pick a fight about 14mm of plastic.

I suggest you go and read the IEC 62196 electrical design standard covering the functionality of 43kw 3 phase chargers at 60a per phase, and specially requires chargers to be able to support single phase charging at 60a without load balance issues.

And again, the 'anomaly' problem is being experienced by all of us as we arrive, not just Leafs arriving after a Tesla has left and there's 2 or 3,000 leafs out there using these chargers.

 

[harrisop]

Not trying to "pick a fight" just a bit precious about these units, given freely, with free power, being abused by the few.

I've never seen it and I charge at least once per day on a rapid charger.

Maybe the plugs were designed not to fit for a reason.

"As we arrive" doesn't really mean anything. Somebody would have left previously (apart from the very first person on a new charger)

 

[Kevin Sharpe]

As @Arch states the standards support single phase charging from a three phase Charging Station and the erratic behaviour of the rapids has nothing to do with EV's which are experiencing the 'anomaly' problem when they arrive.

I'd suggest the short range BEV people on here relax because Tesla's using the rapids will provide an early warning system for charger failure using OVMS and other automated technologies.

Tesla at the weekend were prepping 150 Model S for delivery this week... that's an awful lot of long range test systems

 

[harrisop]

I'm confused, why would a tesla give the other EVs any more warning?

 

[fenlander]

The IEC 62196 electrical design standard covers 43kw 3 phase chargers at 60a per phase, and specially requires chargers to be able to support single phase charging at 60amps without load balance issues. Clearly the chargers are working to this standard...

I'm sure they are also working to the standard for the physical connector. The point at which you have to start slicing 14mm off the end is probably where you cross the line.

I'm certainly not laying any blame here, but I imagine an engineer looking into the issue would be helped by knowing how they are being used, so I hope people mention to Ecotricity what they are trying to do when they encounter the errors.