30 October 2009

Dirty power problem?

OK, there is a new theory about the occasional problem getting the Mini E to start charging at 240 volts.  The symptom I have seen is that the car starts charging but then stops after a few seconds.  Once it starts and charges for more than 10 seconds then it was always good to get to 100% charge without intervention.  But a week ago I often had to restart charging several times to get it to keep going.  The 120 volt slow charger always worked.

Recently I have heard two reports of exactly this behavior when trying to charge from a generator.  (I need to go back and ask if this was at 120 or 240 volts.)  So maybe the AC Propulsion electronics are fussy about noise on the power line, or an imperfect sine wave from the power line, or maybe the two 120 volts legs that add up to 240 volts are not exactly the same magnitude?

Mini, is anyone looking into this?

I have not had trouble for a week now.  Then again, the static I was getting on the radio at home is gone too.  Maybe someone in the neighborhood was using some nasty power tools or a welder or something?

But this needs to be fixed before the production versions of electric cars come out next year.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jim - I hooked up the 120v on a 120V outlet the generator provided - no dice.

    Very curious

    ReplyDelete