What level to charge at

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BMW4Me

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 13, 2014
Messages
84
Location
Washington, DC
When I first tried to charge in my apartment building, I plugged the supplied cable into an outlet. After a few minutes the charging stopped. I thought that either a) I had a faulty cable or b) the current wasn't strong enough to charge the car. Then I noticed that by default, the charge settings for level 1 (and 2) we're set to Low. I changed this to High, and I haven't had a problem since. Can anybody surmise as to why this happened? Also, what s the intermediate setting used for? And finally, does the car shoe the current while charging, or do I need a Ohm/Volt meter to measure this?
 
It's my understanding that the charge point announces how much power it can provide, then the car selects (by adjusting that input from the charge point) how much it wants at any one time. This can go up and down depending on the state of the charge, battery temp, and probably other conditions. I know it does taper off as the batteries approach full charge. So, in this way, on AC, anyway, you can use any charger, but the vehicle is the one that then determines how fast it wants to charge the batteries, up to the max it can, or the max the charge point can provide.

Being able to adjust the max the car asks for is there, from what I've been told, to allow the vehicle to charge when the actual circuit may be shared with something else. UK puts fuses in their plugs to limit max current, the US and many other places, use circuit breakers at the box, and the circuit breakers limit the max to protect the wiring (not the device, which may have its own internal protection). It wouldn't work out well if say there was a toaster on the same circuit, even though neither one was separately pulling more current than the wires could handle.
 


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