Siemens Versacharge fault light wont reset

[AthLeaf]

I've got a Siemens Versacharge (purchased from HD online) that is hardwired to a dedicated 40a line running underground to my carport. All work performed by licensed electrician. It has never had any problems, until today. I came home and plugged the unit into my car, same as I do every day. Usually there is a CLUNK sound from inside the box, the halo turns solid green, the car beeps three times, and the 3 blue lights flash sequentially until 11pm when the charge timer kicks on, etc. We all know how it works.

Today, I went through the same routine. I don't remember anything unusual happening, however when I looked back over my shoulder while walking away I noticed that the halo was red. Closer inspection shows the Fault light lit-up. I tried resetting the unit per the instructions in the manual. No change. When I reset the GFCI circuit ALL the lights on the Versacharge flash once, and then the unit goes straight to fault mode.

Any ideas? I read about something similar on the Volt forum and the person said that they left the car plugged in and the fault eventually reset itself. Thats what I'm doing currently, but it makes me a bit nervous to leave my car connected to a box with an active fault.

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[nsayer]

Don't worry about the fault condition damaging your car. There's almost no chance of anything bad happening in the current state.

That said, I doubt that simply leaving the EVSE connected will make any difference. I strongly suspect that the electronics inside have gone bad and need to be repaired by Siemens.

If you really wanted to go all-out to track down the problem, you could use an EV simulator to exercise the EVSE to see what's going on.

If you look at the end of the plug, there are 5 hollow pins - 3 large and two small. The three large ones are at 1 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 11 o'clock. The two small are at 5 and 7 o'clock.

The big pin at 6 o'clock is ground. The two other big pins are the high voltage supply from the EVSE. DO NOT - UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES - insert ANYTHING into those pins! Normally, those pins are de-powered, but you should NOT assume that the EVSE might - rightly or wrongly - attempt to power them at any moment!

The pin at 5 o'clock is the pilot pin. You will want to connect your EV simulator between that pin and ground. That connection should be safe to make, as the pilot pin only ever has up to +/- 12 volts on it relative to ground.

Normally, you can expect the pilot - with nothing connected - to be at +12 volts DC relative to ground. If it is at -12 volts or at 0, that is an error.

To simulate the presence of an EV, you connect a 2.7k resistor in series with an ordinary signal diode - say, a 1N4148. Connect the cathode of the diode to the ground, and the anode to the resistor, and then the resistor to the pilot pin. At that point, the EVSE should say that a vehicle is present, but not requesting charge. If you look at the pilot pin on an oscilloscope, you'll see a square wave with a positive peak of 9 volts, and a negative peak of -12 volts. The duty cycle of the square wave will be an indication of the ampacity of the EVSE.

If you add a 1.3k resistor in parallel to the 2.7k one, then the EVSE should turn on the power (again, be EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS - the two large power pins will have 240 volts between them, and each 120 volts relative to ground!). The positive peak of the square wave should drop down to 6 volts, but the duty cycle will remain unchanged.

I sell an EVSE tester in my tindie store that can be used to simplify these steps. It also has a display which will show the frequency, duty cycle and ampacity of the pilot when it's oscillating.

 

[AthLeaf]

Thanks for the detailed response. Fortunately, I wont have to deal with such detailed troubleshooting as Siemens has stepped up on the issue. I called their support number (1-800-241-4453) and opened a ticket. I received a call back by the end of the day and the technician decided that, because I had a 1st generation model (black box), it would be easiest to simply replace it with a 2nd generation (grey box). He had me snap pics of the serial # and my HD receipt, and will be sending me a replacement unit in response. I expect to get it by the end of the week.

So far, I am very pleased with how things are going. Except, I suppose, for the fact that the unit died after 6 months...

 

[eddiebo924]

Wow. Pretty much EXACT same story for me. I've had my unit installed in my garage since 9/3/14 and it's worked flawlessly. Today (12/28/14) my LEAF charged no problem but after it was done my charge was in the exact same state you've mentioned. Fault indicator is on and red halo. Tried the pause / un-pause with no luck. Mine was purchased off of Amazon and is also the older black model.

I've e-mailed Siemens from their site so we'll see how they do.

Thanks for posting!

 

[eddiebo924]

Spoke to Siemens today. Great folks. . .

Not exactly sure why it happened but, to do a factory re-set, leave the unit unplugged for at least one hour and plug it back in. Mine came right up.

Over and over again, the Tech said to call back if it happens again and they'd go through more troubleshooting. He also said it became an on-going problem they simply replace it.

Again, good folks and Dave answered the phone on the second ring. YES, a real live person!

Awesome!