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[Doug S]

Does it "remember" the last setting, or do you have to set it each time?

My thought is, because the adapter is not telling it that 40A is available, it must remember that setting...  otherwise you would have to set it each time you plugged in at home until you get an EVSE.

Brandon told me that the default isn't changeable yet, but that was several days ago. He may have updated the app. My understanding at the time was that it starts up unpowered, with the default setting, so you have the opportunity to change the setting from the default if necessary before powering on. You certainly wouldn't want to blow the breaker right at startup. Basically, it sound like it's all manually controlled right now.

As I understand the pilot/response protocol, the EVSE puts out the +-12V PWM square wave when it senses a diode/resistor load on the pilot pin, and then it reads the resistive load on the positive portion of the square wave to determine whether the vehicle is ready to charge, correct? So it sounds like all that's REALLY needed to get things started is a diode and 880-ohm resistor to ground, then the charger can draw what it wishes from the charging station...no active circuitry needed, just two passive comps. Do you guys know if I'm interpreting that correctly?

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

The control system is capable of remembering quite a bit across sessions in principle, but the risk of assuming a certain power level moving from one signal-less connection to another is overloading a newly-introduced charging circuit.

This is exactly why I was asking...  all that can be avoided if the adapter put out a signal, even if it wasnt a J1772 signal... Theres other methods too, like a RFID, but that adds complexity of its own.

I dont have an EVSE in my garage, but I do have a 14-50 socket... so my thought was "will I have to remember to tell it it can use more power everytime I plug in?"...  of course that leads to the second thought of "If I give it power when it was last set to the 14-50, will it try to draw 40A?!"

I hear you, and fast home charging is an important story.

I suppose it's fun to contemplate wiring up a J signal simulator with a dial that just read out in kW or something, and feed it into the J plug just for this cable. Try it as a fun hobby project? I don't know who would agree to sell such a thing, though.

My current house's electrical system is ancient and has no 220 that I can find, though, so for me this is a wish unless I figure out a nicer place to move...

[Doug S]

Well, I was hoping to post one of those "look how fast I'm charging!" pics tonight, but not so much.

I fired it up, managed to connect to it via bluetooth, did the calibration thing, and....nothing. A minute or two later, a pretty loud pop was heard, and the voltage readout dropped to zero. Now it won't do anything...won't charge with the stock charger, won't key on (though the dashboard and lights are fine). I'm thinking the pop I heard was main contactor blowing out.

If the 100-amp fuse blew, that wouldn't prevent me from riding, would it? I get no contactor click even after keying it several times.

No joy in Mudville tonight.

[mrwilsn]

Well, I was hoping to post one of those "look how fast I'm charging!" pics tonight, but not so much.

I fired it up, managed to connect to it via bluetooth, did the calibration thing, and....nothing. A minute or two later, a pretty loud pop was heard, and the voltage readout dropped to zero. Now it won't do anything...won't charge with the stock charger, won't key on (though the dashboard and lights are fine). I'm thinking the pop I heard was main contactor blowing out.

If the 100-amp fuse blew, that wouldn't prevent me from riding, would it? I get no contactor click even after keying it several times.

No joy in Mudville tonight.

Oh no! Were you connected to J1772 or NEMA 14-50??

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[mrwilsn]

My current house's electrical system is ancient and has no 220 that I can find, though, so for me this is a wish unless I figure out a nicer place to move...

In a house/residential one phase is supplied with the two legs of the transformer giving 120V each separated by a 180 degree phase, resulting in a combined voltage of 240v when two hot wires are used.  An electrician can add 240v to your house...even if its old.  The only question is whether they would have to add another drop or if your existing service has enough juice to add a 50 amp outlet.  If your house is old then you probably have 100 amp service and would need the extra drop.

If you own your home then it seems like it would be more than worth your investment in the property given that you can get 30% federal tax credit on the install costs and that you would get a lot of use out of it with your Super Charger.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

My current house's electrical system is ancient and has no 220 that I can find, though, so for me this is a wish unless I figure out a nicer place to move...

In a house/residential one phase is supplied with the two legs of the transformer giving 120V each separated by a 180 degree phase, resulting in a combined voltage of 240v when two hot wires are used.  An electrician can add 240v to your house...even if its old.  The only question is whether they would have to add another drop or if your existing service has enough juice to add a 50 amp outlet.  If your house is old then you probably have 100 amp service and would need the extra drop.

If you own your home then it seems like it would be more than worth your investment in the property given that you can get 30% federal tax credit on the install costs and that you would get a lot of use out of it with your Super Charger.

(Aside from this generally being good advice) I rent a house built in 1925, and I know from experience that if the total household load exceeds ~3.5kW for (some amount of time more than an hour), a 30A plug fuse (all the fuses are plug fuses, and there are two retrofitted breakers that replace the secondary fuse panel) blows that takes out everything at once. That is upstream from the other circuit the garage is on, where if I had a charger short, it would lock the bike in the garage because there's no other entrance.

I kind of don't think there are two phases.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Well, I was hoping to post one of those "look how fast I'm charging!" pics tonight, but not so much.

I fired it up, managed to connect to it via bluetooth, did the calibration thing, and....nothing. A minute or two later, a pretty loud pop was heard, and the voltage readout dropped to zero. Now it won't do anything...won't charge with the stock charger, won't key on (though the dashboard and lights are fine). I'm thinking the pop I heard was main contactor blowing out.

If the 100-amp fuse blew, that wouldn't prevent me from riding, would it? I get no contactor click even after keying it several times.

No joy in Mudville tonight.

What were you plugged into? You have a 2014 SR - the accessory port is fused at 60A (EDIT: 100A apparently via the grapevine. The manual has always been unclear for no reason I can tell.)

Also, did you make sure the contactor was shut before plugging in?

It may have been the BMS, not the contactor. If you take off the plastic cover over the front of the battery, you should be able to see damage (or smell it).

[Doug S]

What were you plugged into? You have a 2014 SR - the accessory port is fused at 60A.

I was plugged into a 14-50 plug. Brandon told me I was fused at 100A, that 95A hadn't blown any fuses he was aware of. In any event, I'd told the app that I wanted 2000W of power. Always start small and smell for failures.

Also, did you make sure the contactor was shut before plugging in?

The only ways I know of pulling the contactor in are keying the bike on, or plugging in a proper charger. Neither of those happened prior to failure, other than the Diginow charger. Why would it matter anyhow?

It may have been the BMS, not the contactor. If you take off the plastic cover over the front of the battery, you should be able to see damage (or smell it).

Oh yay. An even more expensive failure. Is this supposed to cheer me up?

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

What were you plugged into? You have a 2014 SR - the accessory port is fused at 60A.

I was plugged into a 14-50 plug. Brandon told me I was fused at 100A, that 95A hadn't blown any fuses he was aware of. In any event, I'd told the app that I wanted 2000W of power. Always start small and smell for failures.

"Start small", of course, is a good idea. I'd encourage (and I think I did in the documentation) a strong instinct to unplug if anything happens during testing or usage that is not expected.

Also, did you make sure the contactor was shut before plugging in?

The only ways I know of pulling the contactor in are keying the bike on, or plugging in a proper charger. Neither of those happened prior to failure, other than the Diginow charger. Why would it matter anyhow?

I literally wrote that as step one for testing and calibration. The accessory charging port cannot access the battery without the contactor being closed. You were applying a charge to ... the controller and the precharge circuit, I am guessing. You need to get someone to look at it who knows the bike's systems really well.

I will certainly re-evaluate how the install document is structured. The user guide spends a lot of time explaining how this whole setup works and why the contactor needs to be shut to use the Supercharger.

It may have been the BMS, not the contactor. If you take off the plastic cover over the front of the battery, you should be able to see damage (or smell it).

Oh yay. An even more expensive failure. Is this supposed to cheer me up?

Well, it shouldn't be terribly expensive, in either case, but this needs to not happen for any other customer. Remember, I do not represent the vendor; I did pro bono work to make this thing more accessible and do some testing to shake out issues.

[Electric Cowboy]

@Doug

I'd like to come check your installation. This way we can rule out any simple mistakes and you can tell me what your charging process was step by step. I will also diagnose the bike no matter what happened and if its simple, I'll fix it. If its just the charge fuse it's a bit of a bitch, but I have one here.

Anyway, when your on hangouts next ping me with what day works for you.

[Electric Terry]

Good idea Brandon.  Doug, let him check your installation to make sure it was done right.  Although I feel there was perhaps an error in the installation with regards to the precharge mating of the DC side of the charger, where if done incorrectly will do exactly what you are describing and blow the charge fuse from the capacitors in the Sevcon and SuperCharger being at different voltages and trying to equalize instantly.  The charge fuse is a 100 amp fast blow type.  I will see if the instructions can make this more clear especially for those who don't understand electronics as well as people on this forum.

[Electric Cowboy]

@Terry Doug is an EE with 30+ years experience and the docs are SUPER clear not to plug anything in or out after instalation unless the bike and charger have been off for 10 min. Like super clear last iteration I saw.

So I doubt Doug would have done that with his experience level, but everyone does make mistakes on occasion, so I won't rule it out until Doug messages me again.

An in person overview and diagnostic will be the only way to tell what happened.

BTW, my phone got ran over by 2 cars today... which is what took me so long to respond.

[Doug S]

I finished the install Monday evening, and rode the bike to work and home Tuesday. Performance was perfectly normal except for the multiple keying required to get it to precharge, as expected. It was buttoned up for 24 hours. I had just ridden the bike home not ten minutes before, and keyed it on to check the battery voltage on the Zero app, in order to calibrate the Diginow app literally seconds before, so it was fully precharged.

My mistake was in keying the bike off before starting the Diginow. I read through the installation manual and user guide, but I was still under the impression the Diginow charger would manage the main contactor. I just plain missed the fact that the bike must be keyed on (or the onboard charger started) to close the contactor. Brandon tells me the SC tests to see if the contactor is closed before applying charging current, but it takes a minute or so for the pre-charge to bleed off to the point where the SC can realize the contactor isn't closed. I keyed the bike off and turned on the SC too quickly, fooling the SC into thinking the contactor was closed. It applied charging current with the contactor open, so instead of going into the battery, the charging current went wherever it could...probably the BMS or MBB.

Currently, the bike won't charge with either charger, nor will it go, which tells me it isn't the fuse. When I key the bike on, the dashboard comes alive and performs its normal bootup sequence, but there is no contactor click, no matter how many times I cycle the key. There is also no click when I plug in the onboard charger, though the dashboard does come alive as when charging normally. I was thinking that meant the contactor had blown, but on further thought, I can't see how that would happen. It seems more likely that the BMS or the MBB is shot.

Brandon said he'd come down and help me out, hopefully this Saturday, and I very much appreciate that. He's going to check my installation and help me troubleshoot the bike. Hopefully he can help me get back on the road, and charging. That kind of commitment you don't see from too many manufacturers. I also intend to pick his brain to understand the whole process better, and see if we can't brainstorm some ideas to make it even less likely that anybody else can do what I did.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

While I'm glad this unfortunate situation is being handled graciously by everyone involved, personally I'm choosing to support this product much more conservatively.

I spent a lot of time crafting that documentation's language to be clear and concise, but this kind of unchecked assumption is too early to allow with equipment like this. Further customers should communicate directly with DigiNow as far as I am concerned so that there is no misunderstanding. I'm glad by contrast that Ben appreciated the need to interpret the documentation very strictly, and seems to have achieved good results that way.

I'm mainly concerned by the risk of equipment failures due to incomplete communication for future customers who will not have direct knowledgeable dealer access. If you're on the shipment list, I think you should thoroughly consider reading the documentation thoroughly and repeat until the entirety sinks in.

I've personally watched someone brown out half of an aircraft carrier due to unintentional deviation from procedure and casually forgetting to double check assumptions, among many other less expensive lessons. I'm not perfect or better than anyone; in fact it's out of a knowledge of my natural limitations that I approach technical work and the manners around it mindfully. I'd encourage customers without a fully briefed dealer to consider the equipment recommendations very strictly.

[DPsSRnSD]

I'm mainly concerned by the risk of equipment failures due to incomplete communication for future customers who will not have direct knowledgeable dealer access. If you're on the shipment list, I think you should thoroughly consider reading the documentation thoroughly and repeat until the entirety sinks in.

I hope Doug is back on the road very soon. His sacrifice is certainly appreciated by this Zero rider. It's unfortunate that a sequencing issue could lead to this failure. I know the Charge Tank also requires the key to be on, so maybe the potential for this failure can't be avoided. But maybe delays could be added while checking the status of the bike before charging begins.

In the future I'm sure Doug and anyone who's reading this will always listen for the contactor before starting the Supercharger. But we all probably have family members and friends who's impulse to be helpful causes them to ignore being told to never touch your bike.

Good luck to all.