Blink / Rav4 Blows Out a Contactor Pin (with gory pics)

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
cwerdna said:
I don't recall what people have stated on Priuschat) and most of them probably just use the low amperage 120V Toyota provided EVSE (brick) since it's less than 3 hours at 120 volts to fully charge.
Click to expand...
I see a lot of PiPs on campus at work. They usually insist on charging from a row of 6.6 kW Eaton stations, but are typically good about moving their vehicles. Take today for example, there were three Leafs and an ActiveE charging from 120V outlets. Meanwhile, several PiPs and Volts were gracing the Eaton row :roll:
1


I'm glad to hear that Toyota is flying out an engineer to look at the Rav. This could very well be on them and Tesla. Tony is a power user, literally. But what would the average consumer do? These things should be robust, and require no brain power to use. Plugin, charge, drive, repeat.
 
Anecdotal info FWIW:
I did one charge on a RAV4 from my garage Blink. Extended range mode from about 1/3 of a "tank".
The handle got noticeably warm and yes the RAV4 charge inlet is much higher than my LEAF which puts more cable weight
on the connector and attachment. It wasn't so warm that I was concerned and I've since inspected my Blink pins and all looks normal. But, thanks for the heads-up (and gory pics) Tony, it's something for us to keep an eye on when we have Teslas, RAV4s and LEAFs in our garages.
 
melted pins is sign of a major failure in design. Quality of the components might be suspect, but good design can override that. seems to me a fuse, circuit breaker or something on either the car, the EVSE or both should have done something before the option to charge the car is destroyed.

IMM, the car should be able to accept a fairly liberal tolerance of plugs and fits. they might all be J-1772 but different manufacturers, different materials, tolerances, etc. the car should be able to handle all that.

this reminds me of a GM a co-worker had. 3 times, it died on him in the middle of rush hour traffic on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. this was in 96-97 before the other span was put up. One cant even begin to understand the disruption of traffic in an area where its very difficult to get emergency vehicles on the bridge.

but basically what was happening is a $2000 computer was being damaged by various causes (no real determination was ever found) He eventually lemon-lawed the van after about 18 months. I happen to run into him one day about 5 years ago and he stated that there was a recall a few years after that that required installation of a $15 fusible link which ran to the same computer.

no way to know if both were related but he was pretty convinced
 
Interesting that the picture looks like the female contacts remained stuck on the car's male pins when the handle was pulled out.
 
surfingslovak said:
I'm glad to hear that Toyota is flying out an engineer to look at the Rav. This could very well be on them and Tesla. Tony is a power user, literally. But what would the average consumer do? These things should be robust, and require no brain power to use. Plugin, charge, drive, repeat.
Click to expand...

Toyota has none in stock, and it's from Tesla. So, they are trying to get one from Fremont.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Toyota has none in stock, and it's from Tesla. So, they are trying to get one from Fremont.
Click to expand...
Aha, the plot thickens. It's possible that it's a Delphi inlet then, and not Yazaki. Especially, if it came from Tesla. Hope you can get it replaced soon.
 
surfingslovak said:
TonyWilliams said:
Toyota has none in stock, and it's from Tesla. So, they are trying to get one from Fremont.
Click to expand...
Aha, the plot thickens. It's possible that it's a Delphi inlet then, and not Yazaki. Especially, if it came from Tesla. Hope you can get it replaced soon.
Click to expand...

Delphi... GM spin off company? Oooohhh, I'm getting warm fuzzies now.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Delphi... GM spin off company? Oooohhh, I'm getting warm fuzzies now.
Click to expand...
Sorry! Speaking of which, does this look vaguely familiar (ignore the wiring for the moment):

delphiinlet
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
that triangle pattern makes it look like the top half of the SAE plug
Click to expand...
Yes, I believe that's how a cord set with an inlet would look like. Think "J1772 extension cord".
 
cwerdna said:
JeremyW said:
I know the Honda Fit EV has a thermistor of some sort on the j1772 inlet. Some have reported problems with heating on the Facebook page.
Click to expand...
Hmmmm and the Fit EV has a 6.6 kW charger. I wonder if we'll start hearing more of these as other vehicles w/6.6+ kW chargers are deployed. It seems like it's just about everyone else other than the Volt, 2011-2012 Leaf, PiP and i-Miev.
Click to expand...

I was talking with a Fit EV driver last night and he mentioned that the Blinks at his work weren't working well with the Fit EV. They were tripping the thermal safety and the connectors were getting up to 75 deg. C. Honda engineers came out to evaluate and found that the same thing was happening with their test Fit.

There is one bank of about 7 Blinks that are heavily used. Of these, about 5 are not working with the Fit. They reach the thermal cutoff in about 20 minutes.

There is another bank of 2 Blinks. And both of those don't heat up at all. The only difference is that these stations are rarely used.

So connectors with heavy usage seem to be wearing in such a way to make this overheating more likely.
 
richard said:
There is one bank of about 7 Blinks that are heavily used. Of these, about 5 are not working with the Fit. They reach the thermal cutoff in about 20 minutes.

There is another bank of 2 Blinks. And both of those don't heat up at all. The only difference is that these stations are rarely used.

So connectors with heavy usage seem to be wearing in such a way to make this overheating more likely.
Click to expand...

This Blink was replaced in April-ish 2012. My LEAF was "out of town" most of June, and I was out of town most of July.

The Rav4 got plugged in once or twice a day since Nov 4. I don't think this Blink falls into the "high usage" category.
 
Really would be nice to be able to select current draw from the car for situations like this - IIRC the RAV4-EV and the Fit-EV don't have the capability, correct?
 
Tony I want to thank-you for making this post.

I think the SAE J1772 connector is going to become a bigger issue (especially as these connectors wear out). Also there is another useful form post “J1772 not fitting in socket”

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=10390" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As a quick fix it would be nice to have a three foot SAE J1772 extension temperature monitoring cable for the Leaf and other cars that don’t have temperature sensors. In the extension cable each connector should have a NTC thermistor or other temperature sensor, some electronics to measure and disconnect the pilot signal and set a mechanical indicator if either connector gets too hot. I would buy one.

My guess is, we are only seeing the beginning of 30 amp. charger issue (not so much with the 16 amp. like what's in all the 2011 and 2012 Leafs). I think (ultimately) SAE J1772 standard will have to be revised. My own experiences support this issues with the J1772 connector. Several times (only at night) I had to remove my connector and reinsert. My wife, Louise, has had an even more difficult time to get the connector in all the way. (By the way I have four EVSEs, one Blink, one AeroVironment, and two Nissan Panasonics). What I have noticed is, if you don’t get the connector lined up absolutely strait it will stop before it is in all the way. There should be a light because at night as it is difficult (especially in the beginning) to properly line up the connector (that you cannot see) so that it can be inserted completely. What I have seen when my connector was improperly inserted is the car won't start charging (thank goodness as burning up is a worse option). So, I take the connector out and reinsert it and everything is OK. I read in Tony’s posting that Tony had his 12 year daughter plug in it. Probably not the best idea.

Note 1, when I take my Leaf in for service, the service rep. said they inspect the charging connectors. I never though much about this, but now I think Nissan is aware there is an issue here. Also, the Tesla Roster used an earlier version of the standard because Tesla said the current version did not have enough current carrying capability (Mmmm).

Note 2, at work I use the 20 amp. Quick220 and connect the EVSE Upgrade 16 Amp Panasonic charger. I noticed that the 120 VAC 20 Amp. plugs were getting hotter and hotter as the months went by. I used a milliohm meter and found the plugs had 50 milliohm of resistance (too much, dissipating 13 watts each). I went to the hardware store and pick up two Leviton plugs and replaced them. Measured again and the new plugs had 4 to 5 milliohms (much better, about one watt dissipation).
 
JimLovewell said:
As a quick fix it would be nice to have a three foot SAE J1772 extension temperature monitoring cable for the Leaf and other cars that don’t have temperature sensors. In the extension cable each connector should have a NTC thermistor or other temperature sensor, some electronics to measure and disconnect the pilot signal and set a mechanical indicator if either connector gets too hot. I would buy one.
Click to expand...

Thankfully, this is something many of us can build. I've been thinking of just those kinds of safety issues. One, of course, would light off CO2 cannisters in the garage at XX temperature. Also, adding smoke detectors just above the cars in the garage wired to the other detectors.

That reminds me, DON'T PUT GREASE ON THE CONNECTORS !!! While it is attracting and retaining dirt and other junk, it is a fuel source for an OPEN FLAME.

My garage is a LONG way from my bedroom, so my house would hit the ground (and possibly kill somebody) if a car got out of control.
 
JimLovewell said:
As a quick fix it would be nice to have a three foot SAE J1772 extension temperature monitoring cable for the Leaf and other cars that don’t have temperature sensors. In the extension cable each connector should have a NTC thermistor or other temperature sensor, some electronics to measure and disconnect the pilot signal and set a mechanical indicator if either connector gets too hot. I would buy one.
Click to expand...
Even better - have the connector able to override the pilot signal to a pre-determined level along with the ability to ramp down the pilot signal based on temperature. Could probably build a 30-amp capable version for less than $500 bucks, but the engineering will be the tough part. :) But I'd bet that Chris or Phil would design this in their sleep. :)

JimLovewell said:
(By the way I have four EVSEs, one Blink, one AeroVironment, and two Nissan Panasonics). What I have noticed is, if you don’t get the connector lined up absolutely strait it will stop before it is in all the way. There should be a light because at night as it is difficult (especially in the beginning) to properly line up the connector (that you cannot see) so that it can be inserted completely.
Click to expand...
Do you have the same problem with all EVSEs? I had a no-charge problem only once ages ago - I found that I didn't fully insert the plug. Now I just make sure I fully insert the plug until it bottoms out and all is well - never had a repeat of the issue.

JimLovewell said:
Note 2, at work I use the 20 amp. Quick220 and connect the EVSE Upgrade 16 Amp Panasonic charger. I noticed that the 120 VAC 20 Amp. plugs were getting hotter and hotter as the months went by. I used a milliohm meter and found the plugs had 50 milliohm of resistance (too much, dissipating 13 watts each). I went to the hardware store and pick up two Leviton plugs and replaced them. Measured again and the new plugs had 4 to 5 milliohms (much better, about one watt dissipation).
Click to expand...
I think this is the main reason why the 2013 Volt defaults to 8A when charging on L1 - and you have to override it each time if you want to charge at 12A on L1...
 
Here's the best shot I could get this morning. It was raining, so my apologies for the poor quality. This is presumably rated for 32A:

j17726kw
1
 

Similar threads

LEAFer
Fall out -- Some Blinks being current-limited
Replies
15
Views
8K
TomT
TomT
Ingineer
Revision 2 upgrade for Nissan EVSE - Allows full level 2!
30 31 32
Replies
635
Views
104K
Volusiano
V

Latest posts

Back
Top