"Charger will not work properly if used with extension cord"

[gbrail]

I have temporarily relocated to a home where I have no 220 volt outlet, so I'm stuck charging my B-class at 110 volts.

Unfortunately, about 75% of the time (but not 100%) the charging process ends before it's complete. I get the "Malfunction: visit workshop" message on the dash. If I unplug the car and plug it in again, it charges again for a while, and again about 75% of the time it again fails before being complete. All the green lights on the external charger are on in all cases and the charger is plugged in to a dedicated outlet that's not being used for anything else.

Now here's the rub -- I'm using an extension cord. So when I told my dealer about this problem, they checked it out and basically said, "everything is fine." They also said, "110v charger will not work properly if used with extension cord."

This sounds like BS to me. I have a 50', 14 AWG cord, which is rated at 15 amps. The circuit breaker isn't tripping and the cord isn't getting warm, and the lights on the charger just stay green. Does Mercedes have some sort of secret German extension-cord-detecting technology that no other car company can use?

Also, this happens whether I set the charger to run at full power (all four lights on) or partial power (only two lights on).

I used to own a Volt which I charged at 110 volts, using an extension cord, for three years with no problem.

I have also tried without an extension cord, and the success rate seemed to be better but it wasn't 100%. But it's a lot of work to get my car wedged back in by the garage to do that (and I have no choice but to leave the charger "hanging" by the plug which isn't better either).

Surely I'm not the only one with this problem...

So:

* Have other people seen the "Malfunction; visit workshop" error?
* Have other people seen that this happens more when an extension cord is used?
* Have other people successfully charged using an extension cord?
* What should I tell my dealer, since I admitted that I used the forbidden extension cord?
* If they refuse to fix the problem, what else can I do?

Other than that the car is pretty good but I'm gonna regret this purchase soon if the charging is so finicky.

 

[gbrail]

After more research, I'm seriously thinking of investing in a "JLong" from "Quick Charge Power." Perhaps it's safer to add the "extension" bit on the end between the charging adapter and the car, rather than between the charging adapter and the electrical outlet. It certainly seems that there might be more protections that way.

Anyone else have experience with that?

 

[GlennD]

I have used a 50 ft extension cable with #12 wire testing the Lear unit.. I do not trust lighter gauge cables although a short 14 gauge cable should work fine.

That said, I replaced the low quality Lear expensive EVSE with an OpenEVSE unit. With a dedicated 20A circuit you can set it to charge L1 at 16A. The next time the Lear unit will appear is when I turn in the car at lease end.

 

[TonyWilliams]

After more research, I'm seriously thinking of investing in a "JLong" from "Quick Charge Power." Perhaps it's safer to add the "extension" bit on the end between the charging adapter and the car, rather than between the charging adapter and the electrical outlet. It certainly seems that there might be more protections that way.

Anyone else have experience with that?

We manufacture the JLong. The intent is to safely use all the safety protocols of J1772 throughout the extension.

That means proximity disconnect, GFCI, pilot signal, etc. They are all built for 40 amp service, so perfect for the B-Class ED, which is 40 amp capable.

I'm sure it's no surprise that I have a JLong in every car (I have three personal EVs) and several around my house. I'm never moving cars around to get charges, nor am I blocked at public charge stations.

 

[Lukeetal]

I am an electrician and was just looking at a similar issue a tesla owner was having.

It's voltage drop. The 120v charger uses 13amps. The smaller the wire, the farther you are from the source, the greater the number the connections between the power pole and the car, the greater the voltage drop the quicker the problem will occur.

The 120v charger uses a lot of power in terms of a standard outlet. More than a hair dryer, blender or space heater. It should ideally be plugged directly into a dedicated 20 amp circuit. It will work on a 15 amp circuit but add a few other outlets on the same circuit and an extension cord and the problem you describe is easily predicted.

The Tesla I was troubleshooting actually shows the input voltage, the power started at 115v which is a little low but ok, 30 seconds into charge the 13 amp load caused the voltage to drop to 101v. A few minutes later the charger dropped out to protect everything involved.

Plugging a 12awg cord into a 20 amp outlet will help. 20 amp outlets are usually found in bathrooms, kitchens and dining rooms but not always. It depends on when the house was wired.

As for using the 30 amp dryer outlet. The plug is most likely the wrong style for most 240v chargers. A 30 amp charger is required to be fused at 40amps because in electrical everything should be sized for 125% of the connected load (thing plugged in). So technically the dryer line with 30 amps at 240v is undersized for a "30 amp charger".

Around here our power company jacks up the voltage so our "240" is usually 245 volts. As voltage increases current decreases if power (watts) is constant. Long story short I temporarily connected my 30 amp charger to a 30 amp panel in my garage without issue for a few days until I had time to increase the wiring to 40 amps. I would strongly recommend not doing that though.

Best bet is use a 20amp circuit and a 12 awg extension cord as short as possible until a proper long term solution can be installed by a licensed electrician.

 

[wtzouris]

I use a 40-foot JLONG with a Jesla Charger all the time -- so I have a combined 59 feet from my receptacle. It's brilliant. What a great product.

www.quickchargepower.com

I charge at the full rate the car is capable of -- 30-35 miles of range added per hour of charging, instead of 20 miles with 30 Amp chargers. I've had the QuickChargepower products for 8 months and they are flawless.

 

[gbrail]

Thanks for the helpful replies -- I'm going to try out a JLong!

 

[LALarry]

Using an extension cord for your charger is discouraged by all EV manufacturers. I would avoid it at all costs.

 

[GlennD]

Using an extension cord for your charger is discouraged by all EV manufacturers. I would avoid it at all costs.

There is nothing wrong about using a heavy duty extension cord like one with #12 wires. The problem is that heavy duty extension cords are much more expensive than a #18 wire cord. That one is junk but it costs-less than half of a heavy duty cord. They look the same so they must be the same, right? Whats car fire here and there.

 

[tom]

I bought a JLong from Quick Charge Power this week. Received it in 48 hours and it's working great!

Total length of my set up is now 35 feet (15F charger + 20F JLong)

 

[gbrail]

I now have my Jesla/JLong combo, and things are a little better. (And both are fine products -- had the Jesla for a year and it works great.)

We're right now in a rented house temporarily and I can't bring in an electrician to fix things. So I have the charger connected to an outdoor outlet that according to the panel is dedicated. It certainly has enough capacity -- the breaker never trips.

However, the car stops charging and puts out the "malfunction: visit workshop" message every time there is a small power surge.

For instance, I can plug in the car, go inside and run the microwave for 10 seconds, then see that charging has stopped.

I feel that perhaps the car is a little too sensitive...

Anything I can do about that other than move back to my old house with better electric service and proper wiring?

 

[Lukeetal]

I now have my Jesla/JLong combo, and things are a little better. (And both are fine products -- had the Jesla for a year and it works great.)

We're right now in a rented house temporarily and I can't bring in an electrician to fix things. So I have the charger connected to an outdoor outlet that according to the panel is dedicated. It certainly has enough capacity -- the breaker never trips.

However, the car stops charging and puts out the "malfunction: visit workshop" message every time there is a small power surge.

For instance, I can plug in the car, go inside and run the microwave for 10 seconds, then see that charging has stopped.

I feel that perhaps the car is a little too sensitive...

Anything I can do about that other than move back to my old house with better electric service and proper wiring?

Most likely power issues...
Electricians tend to get lazy, the panel label may only say outside outlet but the circuit could be shared with other stuff. Like the microwave. It is also possible that the outside outlet is dedicated but there are larger issues.

If you message me I will give you my email and ask you to send some pictures of the wiring.