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22 Posts
After over 5 years of faithfully satisfying the modest needs of my Outlander PHEV my recently started tripping within about 5 seconds of any charge commencing.
The car takes a charge from the 'Granny' charger and I've tested it in on the dealers wall points and there is no issue so the finger points to the charge point.
After hours of reading here and elsewhere I confidently ordered a replacement GARO RCBO.
When it arrived I isolated the chargepoint and took the cover off only to find no evidence of burning or any arcing despite a lot of loose terminal screws including some that appeared never to have tightened at all, who knows. Despite this I replaced the RCBO anyway and tried the unit. The issue remained.
The biggest surprise of all however was finding that the installer had apparently drilled through the back of the chargepoint casing and then started drilling the wall behind, presumably intending to bring the power from the mains through there. Apparently beaten by the reconstituted Derbyshire stonework he took a different route and brought the cable in through the bottom.
What he did not do was to seal up the first hole he'd drilled in the back of the casing and the evidence of dead insects, including spiders and their webs testifies to the ability of the hole to admit solids and therefore moisture.
I subsequently used a continuity checker on all of the wires in the charge lead and they proved to be solid. I checked the operation of the micro switch in the gun and its operation by the trigger looked fine although I couldn't see an easy way to check whether the microswitch actually works. The fact that the charge actually commences each time tends to tell me that the switch is behaving normally.
Now the possibilities include failures of the controller, the contactor and / or the residual dc current module but I think you would agree that to start replacing those in a casing with a big hole in it would be a waste of time and money (could be plugged I guess) but as the short 5 metre tethered cable has always been a bit of a pain I started looking at replacement chargepoints and in the process of that looked at the mains supply cable in case I wanted to extend it to place the new unit in a different position.
I eventually discovered that the cable used on the original installation is SY cable and noted that everywhere I looked to buy some it came with the rider that whilst it could be used outdoors it should only be done if protected.
The cable on my installation, which was carried out under the OLEV scheme is not protected and even though it is only a short run outside the building I'm concerned that this might be inherently unsafe.
So my questions are;
1. Would you consider the original installation leaving the chargepoint with a large hole in the back to comply with the terms of an OLEV funded installation? It's certainly not IP65 compliant.
2. What is the likelihood that installing the box and leaving it in that condition has contributed to the current failed condition of the box?
3. Is that cable suitable for such use in an unprotected state?
The car takes a charge from the 'Granny' charger and I've tested it in on the dealers wall points and there is no issue so the finger points to the charge point.
After hours of reading here and elsewhere I confidently ordered a replacement GARO RCBO.
When it arrived I isolated the chargepoint and took the cover off only to find no evidence of burning or any arcing despite a lot of loose terminal screws including some that appeared never to have tightened at all, who knows. Despite this I replaced the RCBO anyway and tried the unit. The issue remained.
The biggest surprise of all however was finding that the installer had apparently drilled through the back of the chargepoint casing and then started drilling the wall behind, presumably intending to bring the power from the mains through there. Apparently beaten by the reconstituted Derbyshire stonework he took a different route and brought the cable in through the bottom.
What he did not do was to seal up the first hole he'd drilled in the back of the casing and the evidence of dead insects, including spiders and their webs testifies to the ability of the hole to admit solids and therefore moisture.
I subsequently used a continuity checker on all of the wires in the charge lead and they proved to be solid. I checked the operation of the micro switch in the gun and its operation by the trigger looked fine although I couldn't see an easy way to check whether the microswitch actually works. The fact that the charge actually commences each time tends to tell me that the switch is behaving normally.
Now the possibilities include failures of the controller, the contactor and / or the residual dc current module but I think you would agree that to start replacing those in a casing with a big hole in it would be a waste of time and money (could be plugged I guess) but as the short 5 metre tethered cable has always been a bit of a pain I started looking at replacement chargepoints and in the process of that looked at the mains supply cable in case I wanted to extend it to place the new unit in a different position.
I eventually discovered that the cable used on the original installation is SY cable and noted that everywhere I looked to buy some it came with the rider that whilst it could be used outdoors it should only be done if protected.
The cable on my installation, which was carried out under the OLEV scheme is not protected and even though it is only a short run outside the building I'm concerned that this might be inherently unsafe.
So my questions are;
1. Would you consider the original installation leaving the chargepoint with a large hole in the back to comply with the terms of an OLEV funded installation? It's certainly not IP65 compliant.
2. What is the likelihood that installing the box and leaving it in that condition has contributed to the current failed condition of the box?
3. Is that cable suitable for such use in an unprotected state?