Can't charge level 2

[Comrade173]

Hi all

curious issue. have a new 2017 i3 with rex. Had an electrician install a 240v outlet and am using the turbocord charger that is plugged into the 240v outlet with the adapter. Light is blue. When i plug in, the car starts to charge right away and stay in level 1 all night even though i have departure time and low cost charging set from 12am to 5am.

Level 1 is set to low charging and level 2 is set to Max. wouldn't it just charge at level 2 in full from 12am to 5am? Any ideas on what i can do different? Want to make sure i'm charging during those 5 hours which should be sufficient as most nights i'm plugging in at 40-60 miles range so it woulnd't need the full 5 hours. alternatively if it does, wouldn't it use level 1 on low and then kick into full level 2 right at 12am?

appreciate any thoughts on what else i can try

 

[alohart]

Had an electrician install a 240v outlet and am using the turbocord charger that is plugged into the 240v outlet with the adapter. Light is blue. When i plug in, the car starts to charge right away and stay in level 1 all night even though i have departure time and low cost charging set from 12am to 5am.

How do you know that it is charging at Level 1 (120 V) when it's plugged into a 240 V outlet (Level 2)? What is the capacity of your 240 V charging circuit (i.e., what is the rating of its circuit breaker in amps)? If it is truly charging at 120 V, one of the two 120 V circuits in your charging circuit isn't connected or your TurboCord isn't working correctly. Your TurboCord should automatically sense its input voltage to decide whether to charge at Level 1 or Level 2.

Level 1 is set to low charging and level 2 is set to Max. wouldn't it just charge at level 2 in full from 12am to 5am? Any ideas on what i can do different? Want to make sure i'm charging during those 5 hours which should be sufficient as most nights i'm plugging in at 40-60 miles range so it woulnd't need the full 5 hours. alternatively if it does, wouldn't it use level 1 on low and then kick into full level 2 right at 12am?

I don't have any experience with the low-cost charging option, but others have written that the low-cost charging option's first priority is that the battery pack will be fully charged by the departure time. This implies that if the low-cost charging period, 12 - 5 AM, is too short to fully charge your battery pack, charging would start before 12 AM to ensure a fully charged battery pack by your departure time.

Charging can't automatically change from Level 1 to Level 2 or vice-versa. Whether Level 1 or 2 is being used depends only on the voltage of the charging circuit.

The reliability of the low-cost charging option depends on the system software version installed on an i3. Low-cost charging has been buggy. The best way to ensure that charging occurs only during the low-cost period is to use an EVSE that can delay the start of charging and can be set to charge for a certain period of time. Our JuiceBox is one of the few EVSE's that offers both of these options.

 

[Comrade173]

thank you for the reply Art.

I can see on the screen it says level 1 charging information. It also is charging at a very slow rate. Last night i plugged it in around 8pm and it started charging immediately at a trickle. It would definately charge faster on maximum but the same issue of charging outside the 12am to 5pm time would occur.

turbocord doesn't have an option like the charger you mentioned and that is the one that came with the car so i didn't want to spend money on another one.

i'm more concerned why i'm not getting level 2 at all. I will need to check what the electrician installed. Is there a way to confirm what the power coming out from the outlet is? I assume there is a tool for that. conversely, I could try a public station and see if it charges at level 2?

Eli

 

[jadnashuanh]

I'm not familiar with the Turbocord device.

But, also consider, depending on the country and market, the differences between level 1 and level 2 have slightly different meanings.

A 240vac circuit cannot by itself switch over to a 120vac circuit! In the USA, there are only two acv leads going in, on level 1 here, one of them is connected to neutral, and the other the hot. When using level 2, both of those leads are hot. I've only use level 1 once on my car to verify that the supplied unit worked.

The i3 can also pull current from the EVSE when you plug it in if the battery is quite low...they want it at least partially charged, since extended time at very cold temperatures can damage the batteries when they have a low charge (especially the 12vdc AGM battery, but the LiOn ones don't like super cold when discharged, either). Then, once that situation is resolved, if you have low-cost charging window defined, it should essentially turn the EVSE off, and not charge.

The i3 (and any acv EVSE) do a coordination dance by the EVSE reporting how much current it has available, and then the car deciding how much it wants to take at any instant. The car will take up to, but never exceed, the amount of power the EVSE reports it has available. That signaling is done by sending a PWM signal to the car. If that signal is incorrect, the car has no way to know, and will adjust its charging based on it. The other signals between the EVSE and the EV are interlock related that tell the EVSE it's safe to energize the acv output or not.

So, there are really two reasons why the i3 might not charge at the full amount available:
- it doesn't want full charge at this time
- what you think is full charge is not related to what the EVSE is really reporting to the car. This could be because of a bad switch in the EVSE plug, a flaky wire, contact, or circuit board in the EVSE or the car.

 

[alohart]

I can see on the screen it says level 1 charging information.

What screen shows Level 1 charging information? I donʻt believe a TurboCord has a screen, and I haven't seen any AC Level 1/AC Level 2/DC Level 1/DC Level 2 information on either of the i3's screens while charging. Maybe I missed it.

iDrive includes screens that allow one to set the maximum AC Level 1 and AC Level 2 charging rates, but that screen doesn't indicate what type of charging is currently occurring.

It also is charging at a very slow rate. Last night i plugged it in around 8pm and it started charging immediately at a trickle. It would definately charge faster on maximum but the same issue of charging outside the 12am to 5pm time would occur.

If your TurboCord is plugged into your 240 V outlet, it should be charging with the AC Level 2 protocol. There's no reason to limit the maximum AC Level 2 charging rate in iDrive, so it should be set to "Maximum". If you plug your TurboCord into a 120 V outlet whose circuit is shared with other loads, you might need to set the AC Level 1 charging rate to less than "Maximum" to avoid tripping the circuit's circuit breaker or to avoid overheating an old outlet.

The TurboCord charges at a maximum current of 16 A which at 240 V is 3.84 kW of power. However, your charging circuit's voltage could be less than 240 V which would reduce your charging power and lengthen your charging time. Your i3 has a usable battery pack capacity of 27.2 kWh. Assuming that charging efficiency is ~90%, the charging rate is constant (it's not because it slows down as the battery pack nears full), and your charging voltage is 240 V, charging from empty to full would take 27.2 kWh/3.84 kW/0.9 = ~8 hours. But because of the charge rate tapering as the battery pack nears full, total charging time could be ~9 hours. Your low-cost charging window is 5 hours, so as long as your starting charge level is >5/9 = 55% (increase to 60% due to charge rate tapering), charging could be completed within your low-cost charging window which would mean that charging should not start before 12 AM. However, the bugginess of the i3's low-cost charging implementation might mean that charging would commence immediately rather than waiting until 12 AM.

turbocord doesn't have an option like the charger you mentioned and that is the one that came with the car so i didn't want to spend money on another one.

Understandable, but you might have to accept charging outside of your low-cost charging window. You could minimize charging outside your low-cost charging window by starting charging manually at 12 AM or when you are about to go to bed.

i'm more concerned why i'm not getting level 2 at all. I will need to check what the electrician installed. Is there a way to confirm what the power coming out from the outlet is? I assume there is a tool for that. conversely, I could try a public station and see if it charges at level 2?

Why are you certain that you are charging at AC Level 1?

A simple, inexpensive voltmeter would tell you. The correct voltage between either of the 2 power terminals and the ground terminal should be ~120 V and between the 2 power terminals, ~240 V.

 

[Comrade173]

Thanks Art - very helpful information.

there is a screen when i turn the car off that shows last charging and it always says level 1

the point of it taking 8 hours is fair and likely why it starts early. I don't mind setting it to start charging later when i got to bed but how do i turn off charging if it's plugged in from the BMW app? prefer not to go out and plug it in at 11pm or whenever i go to sleep

maybe no options exist with this charger and that is ok also, just want to make sure i'm dong it correctly and getting the most bang for the buck i can.

 

[jadnashuanh]

The car 'wants' to fully recharge itself when plugged in. If you set a departure time and have a low-cost window selected, it often will start to charge outside of that window. Unless you can shut the power off to the EVSE, because it is on, the car will start charging when it wants, as close to fulfilling your wants as it can, but with the goal to fully recharge it.

FWIW, on a cold day, if you've set a departure time, I've seen my EVSE supplying over 20A, so yours topping out at 16A may force you to leave with a less than full battery pack. The combination of running the battery heater and trying to warm the cabin can exceed the output of your EVSE.

You could buy a smart power switch for your EVSE, and let the home automation software you'd need turn it on/off. There are some smart timers that work on 240vac that could handle that current. You'd want to verify that your EVSE will still enable the i3 to charge if connected and the power was switched at a later time...many will work that way, some won't (and would have the same problem if there were a power outage...i.e., they may not restart without removing the plug from the car, then reinserting it while power was on).

 

[Comrade173]

ok will try a few things to see how it goes and look into a switch for the 240v that i can control on wifi and see how that works. thanks for the suggestions!

 

[pmtracy]

Did you ever figure this out? I just purchased my i3 and I'm seeing the same thing. I'm using a level 2 charger but the trip end report each morning shows that the most recent charge was done at level 1. The phone app hasn't been any help. It shows that it starts charging at the time set for off-peak hours but there's no info about the charging level.

 

[alohart]

there is a screen when i turn the car off that shows last charging and it always says level 1

I recently noticed that this screen on our 2014 BEV also indicates that the most recent charge was at Level 1. When we first purchased our i3 in 2014, I tested its OUC for a couple of minutes which it the only time that I have ever charged at Level 1. So the "most recent charge" information on this screen is definitely incorrect on our i3 and probably on many other i3's as well.