Fault with NEMA 14-50 and Nissan charger

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scotte

Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2022
Messages
17
I had a NEMA 14-50 outlet installed at home panel is not 208v capable) by a licensed electrician.

Prior to its install, I've charged my 2022 SV Plus just fine on 110v and the included Nissan charger, but the charger faults within 5 seconds of being plugged into this 14-50 outlet.

I happened to find an available outdoor 14-50 outlet via Plugshare and tested the charger on it. Charger worked fine.

I've also tested a few public level 2 chargers and they also work fine, so 14-50 outlet at my home is the problem.

I was with the electrician while he did the install - ground, neutral, and the two hot wiring all look good (to me) on the panel side.

With the six gauge wire being used, which is obviously difficult to maneuver - he had an expected challenge trying to bend and stuff it into place, I'm not going to touch the outlet, and the double 40 amp breaker is too stiff in the panel for me to feel comfortable trying to remove and reseat, though I could try again.

He is due back on Friday to review it again. But, in the meantime, what are people's thoughts/insights on what I might be able to do to see if I can fix the problem on my own?

I did run a multimeter on the outlet and get 120-ish (123, etc) volts on either side, so the volts are there.

Thanks.
 
Check the Ground wiring. Do you read the mains line voltage from either side to the Ground?

The EVSE does a Ground Check and a Ground Fault Leak Check before it will engage the charging session, sounds like your Outlet may be missing a good Ground connection.
 
nlspace said:
Check the Ground wiring. Do you read the mains line voltage from either side to the Ground?

The EVSE does a Ground Check and a Ground Fault Leak Check before it will engage the charging session, sounds like your Outlet may be missing a good Ground connection.
Correct, 120v from either hot to ground or either hot to neutral. You should also have 0 volts from ground to the neutral, oh and roughly 240v between the two hots. I'd also suspect something with the ground connections.
 
Check the voltage between Line 1 and Line 2. The dual voltage Nissan EVSE will not work on 208-volt circuits. It works fine on 240-volt circuits (or 120-volt circuits with included adapter). The Nissan EVSE will start to charge and then stop after a few seconds with fault light on at my workshop (208-volt circuit which typically runs about 212 volts), but works fine on the 240-volt circuit at my house. I have a Clipper Creek EVSE at my workshop to charge the car at 208 volts.
 
First OP, learn the lingo:

You are talking about the EVSE, not the charger.
Are you using the same EVSE on the home 14-50 as you have successfully used on L1 ?
Second,
The electrician should have installed a 50 Amp breaker if the panel had the load capacity

Third,
To check the wire connections at the receptacle, do the following:
1. Hot1 to Neutral -- 120V
2. Hot1 to Ground -- 120 V
3. Ground to Neutral -- 0 V

4. Hot2 to Neutral -- 120 V
5. Hot2 to Ground -- 120 V
6 Hot1 to Hot2 -- 240 V

Fourth, the difference between L1 and L2 is that the latter uses two 120v pins. So it is possible (albeit I think unlikely) that your EVSE is defective. To rule that out, use a friend's mobile L2 240v EVSE on your receptacle.
 
Electrician opted for a 40 amp breaker because the EVSE notes max amp draw is about 32 amps.
 
scotte said:
Electrician opted for a 40 amp breaker because the EVSE notes max amp draw is about 32 amps.

Based on the info you gave us, it sounds like there's a problem with the Nissan EVSE. Ask the electrician if he is able to bring another EVSE to test your outlet? Did he use a GFCI breaker?
 
scotte said:
Electrician opted for a 40 amp breaker because the EVSE notes max amp draw is about 32 amps.
That was just a lame excuse by the electrician. What happens when you buy a different EV and use a different EVSE ?
If you walk up to a 14-50 receptacle, what do you expect the max Amps of the circuit to be ?

The *reasonable* way to install is to match the receptacle to the wiring to the breaker.
A 14-50 receptacle is rated for 50 Amps, so the wire and breaker should be too.
 
SageBrush said:
scotte said:
Electrician opted for a 40 amp breaker because the EVSE notes max amp draw is about 32 amps.
That was just a lame excuse by the electrician. What happens when you buy a different EV and use a different EVSE ?
If you walk up to a 14-50 receptacle, what do you expect the max Amps of the circuit to be ?

The *reasonable* way to install is to match the receptacle to the wiring to the breaker.
A 14-50 receptacle is rated for 50 Amps, so the wire and breaker should be too.

Not a sparkie, I see.

The install directions for a past EVSE I owned specified a 40 Amp breaker as well as a 6-50 NEMA (50 Amp) outlet, and wire sized for 50 Amps. I would expect the electrician to follow instructions, and he did. Seems like the reasonable thing to do.


Hardwired HVAC circuits often have larger breakers than the wiring can support . This is to avoid false trips on startup, as motor loads can be much higher than sustained load. See article 440.22(A)


Having the breaker match the wire and match the outlet is an answer. Reading the code and the device install instructions might provide a better answer.
 
Logical but that was allowed by the 2011 electric code in Los Angeles. A 6-50 receptacle, #8 wire and a 40A breaker.

Agree that #6 wire would be preferable.

SageBrush said:
That was just a lame excuse by the electrician. What happens when you buy a different EV and use a different EVSE ?
If you walk up to a 14-50 receptacle, what do you expect the max Amps of the circuit to be ?

The *reasonable* way to install is to match the receptacle to the wiring to the breaker.
A 14-50 receptacle is rated for 50 Amps, so the wire and breaker should be too.
 
Part of the issue is that there is no 40A NEMA receptacle so a 50A receptacle must be used for 40A service.

That's interesting about section 440.22. A quick read-through makes it seem that it applies mostly to industrial settings but I didn't see anything that explicitly disqualified home HVAC systems. I doubt they have motors large enough to cause an issue in most cases or perhaps they incorporate some sort of 'soft start' mechanism to avoid this situation.
 
Another reason to NOT tell the electrician the outlet will be used for an EV but rather say it's for a motorhome.
After I typed the above I thought one possible fly in the ointment to that statement is if then you plug in your EVSE like the OP did and it didn't work......the electrician could say, you didn't say it was for an EV but rather a motorhome which probably wouldn't have the GFCI testing like EV does. Still, the outlet should be wired correctly, which would mean the EVSE should work but would the electrician want to cover the repair work under warranty if you kinda fudged what was going to be plugged into it?
 
The only thing that makes sense to me is that the service is 208V as GerryAZ mentioned. I can't believe a pro electrician would screw up something like this.
 
91040 said:
Agree that #6 wire would be preferable.

40 Amp draw for 3+ hours requires a 50 Amp conductor. AWG #8 THHN is rated up to 55 Amps
See https://forums.mikeholt.com/threads/ampacity-based-table-310-16.2548694/

Derating due to ambient temp might change the conductor size needed.
 
208V is still 120V 'hot to neutral' for each side. The difference between 240V (split phase) and 208V (3-phase Y) is that for 240V the phases are 180 degrees apart and for 208V the phases are 120 degrees apart.

That also is why when the NEC says something about 'less than 150V to neutral' it covers any 240V or 208V installations as both 'hot' wires are 120V to neutral.

If this doesn't make sense remember that all these numbers are RMS values and not what the actual peak of the voltage on the wires measures vs time.
 
goldbrick said:
208V is still 120V 'hot to neutral' for each side. The difference between 240V (split phase) and 208V (3-phase Y) is that for 240V the phases are 180 degrees apart and for 208V the phases are 120 degrees apart.

That also is why when the NEC says something about 'less than 150V to neutral' it covers any 240V or 208V installations as both 'hot' wires are 120V to neutral.

If this doesn't make sense remember that all these numbers are RMS values and not what the actual peak of the voltage on the wires measures vs time.

Correct and this is why I posted in post 4 and Sagebrush reiterated in post 6 to measure between the 2 hots and it should be 240v but the OP never bothered to respond back to.
 
SageBrush said:
scotte said:
Electrician opted for a 40 amp breaker because the EVSE notes max amp draw is about 32 amps.
That was just a lame excuse by the electrician. What happens when you buy a different EV and use a different EVSE ?
If you walk up to a 14-50 receptacle, what do you expect the max Amps of the circuit to be ?

The *reasonable* way to install is to match the receptacle to the wiring to the breaker.
A 14-50 receptacle is rated for 50 Amps, so the wire and breaker should be too.

As stated earlier, a 14-50R is the legal receptacle for both 40 and 50 amp appliances. Most home electric stoves use a 14-50R and a 40 amp breaker. If you use NM-B (Romex) then minimum 6/3 is needed for 50 amp. If you use THHN/THWN 8 AWG can handle up to 55 amps. #8 is easier to work with

I initially wired my shed 14-50R with 8AWG THWN and a 40 amp breaker to supply my Nissan OEM EVSE. When my friend with his Tesla was coming over I replaced the breaker with a 50 amp double pole because his EVSE needed 40 amp continuous.
 
Flyct said:
As stated earlier, a 14-50R is the legal receptacle for both 40 and 50 amp appliances.
Correct, which is why I said the **reasonable** breaker here is 50 Amp
 
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