Nissan EVSE not functioning

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DaveUm

New member
Joined
Nov 20, 2021
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2
Nissan EVSE that came with my 2022 Leaf works fine in 120V outlet in parking garage. But when plug into newly installed (by licensed electrician) Level 2 outlet, after about 10 seconds the Fault light comes on and the the middle light (Power) light blinks. Ready light is still green. The outlet is 208V, which electrician said is standard in apartment buildings in Wisconsin. Trying to figure out if this is a bad EVSE, bad wiring, incompatibility with Nissan EVSE (which says 240V not 208v) or something else. (First time poster. I've seen a few comments on this but no resolution). Thanks.
 
The Nissan dual voltage EVSE doesn't work with 208 volts, unfortunately. It works fine on 110-120 volts. There are quite a few inexpensive aftermarket EVSEs that will work happily on 208 volts. Others will chime in with recommendations on them.
 
Thanks, I will await recommendations on that from others.

LeftieBiker said:
The Nissan dual voltage EVSE doesn't work with 208 volts, unfortunately. It works fine on 110-120 volts. There are quite a few inexpensive aftermarket EVSEs that will work happily on 208 volts. Others will chime in with recommendations on them.
 
DaveUm said:
which electrician said is standard in apartment buildings in Wisconsin.

I don't know about Wisconsin specifically, but 208V is usually standard for a business and not residential when it comes to running high power motors for industry. But as has been already said, the 208V won't work because it's not a single phase like 240V.
 
As mentioned, 208V will not work for the EVSE provided by Nissan. Based on the Nissan Leaf manuals, that EVSE requires the following voltage ranges in order to work properly.
L1: 110-120V
L2: 220-240V

I don't have that voltage issue, so the Nissan EVSE has been working fine for me. Although, earlier this year I bought and installed an Aerovironment (AV) EVSE from Webasto overstock; that unit works on 208V-240V; it is my main EVSE and the portable Nissan one is now a backup.

Depending on your budget, you may want to look at wall-mounted or portable EVSE units that will work with 208V. Some common brands include Webasto, ClipperCreek, Grizzl-E, JuiceBox, OpenEV. Others can chime in with more brands.
 
knightmb said:
208V won't work because it's not a single phase like 240V.

Interesting thought. I always assumed the problem was the lower voltage and the unit just shut itself down but maybe you're right and the issue is really the relative phase of the two inputs.
 
How many terminals and which NEMA connector is in the outlet? And which NEMA connector is on your EVSE?

208vac is the line-to-line voltage of a 120Vac 3-phase system (e.g. 460 or 240 to 120 stepdown wye transformer). There is 120vac between any line and the center tap neutral which normally connects back to earth ground at the breaker box.

The EVSE does two checks for the presence of earth ground and the function of the ground fault interrupt circuit.

i suspect there is a missing earth ground or incompatible connectors.
 
I have a properly-wired 14-50 receptacle at my workshop garage and have confirmed that the Nissan dual-voltage portable EVSE that came with my 2019 SL Plus will start to charge and then stop after a few seconds on nominal 208 volts which usually runs at about 212 volts (like the original post describes). The Nissan EVSE works fine when plugged into the 14-50 receptacle at nominal 240 volts at my house so there is nothing wrong with the EVSE. I have a Clipper Creek unit at my workshop garage that works fine on 208 volts single phase. To be clear, a 14-50 receptacle on a 208-volt system is a true single-phase source derived by using two phases of a 208Y/120-volt three-phase system.

In order to use the 208-volt 14-50 receptacle, you will need another EVSE. There are numerous units that will work such as Clipper Creek, AeroVironment (may still find some on close-out), and Grizzl-E.
 
Thanks for that GerryAZ. I guess I forgot my high school trigonometry lesson that the sum of any 2 sine waves of the same frequency is also a sine wave of that frequency. So the 2 legs of the 3-phase WYE simply yield a 60Hz sine wave with a 208 RMS voltage. For some reason I thought it would be distorted somehow but now that I think about it, that's not so and it must be a voltage level issue that the EVSE doesn't like. That is, unless there is something different about the neutral connection on a 3-phase WYE vs a 120/240 split phase. In that case I would expect some sort of ground fault error but I don't remember anyone mentioning that when the issue of an EVSE not working on 208 came up.
 
GerryAZ said:
In order to use the 208-volt 14-50 receptacle, you will need another EVSE. There are numerous units that will work such as Clipper Creek, AeroVironment (may still find some on close-out), and Grizzl-E.

I guess I've never read otherwise, but that means the OBC handles 110V, 120V, 208V, 240V just fine, it's just a matter of getting the power to the Leaf? That should make sense, I do remember something about how some L2 only charge at 5 kW and others would do 6 kW because of the voltage difference for 208V vs. 240V.
 
After some more thought, I think the issue may be the neutral line.

Most EVSE's don't use the neutral and can even be connected to 3-wire receptacles like a NEMA 6-50. The EVSE that comes with a Gen2 Leaf must use the neutral somehow since it can use the supplied converter plug to run on 120V which obviously needs the neutral line.

So....if the neutral was connected for 240V, the 2 hot phases would cancel and there would no neutral current (even though it was connected). On a 208V setup, the 2 phases are not balanced and the neutral current would be 1.73 times the current of either hot leg (if my math is right, not sure about that).

An EVSE that doesn't have a neutral connection wouldn't have this issue and the power would simply be reduced. The load is still unbalanced but that would only affect the windings in the source transformer, not the wiring to the receptacle (ie, there is no issue with excessive current in any wiring leg). In an apartment building, sub-division or industrial facility where 120V/208V wiring is often used, the thought must be that any imbalances in individual 208V circuits will balance out over the entire network. Also, the imbalance is only seen at the transformer which may have the means to handle this.
 
The neutral of a three-phase 208Y/120-volt system is solidly grounded the same as a single-phase 120/240-volt system. Most EVSE's test for a proper equipment grounding connection by passing a small current from line to ground so the output contactor will not close if the ground connection is not complete or the system neutral is not grounded. This is why a neutral ground reference is needed when charging with a portable generator. I believe the Nissan dual-voltage EVSE fails to charge on a 208-volt system because the voltage drops below its acceptable value for Level 2 charging when the current ramps up (it starts charging for a few seconds and then fails).

I have not tested the onboard charger in my 2019, but I tested the one in my 2011 and found that it would charge on Level 1 with voltage down near 100 at the input to the EVSE. I used a long light-duty extension cord to create a severe voltage drop under charging load to see what would happen and found that the car would charge down to the lowest level I was able to safely create. The light-duty cord would overheat if the car was allowed to charge for more than a few minutes.
 
What pins are connected through the 120V adapter provided with the Gen2 Leafs? I'm guessing it will use L1, N and G.

I agree that a 208V setup is very similar to a 240V split phase setup except that 2 hot legs aren't 180 degrees out of phase. With both 208V and 240V either L1 or L2 referenced to N gives 120V (RMS) and the only difference is when L1 is referenced to L2.

But with 240V, the v(t) of L1 is opposite of the v(t) of L2 so by Kirchhoff's law there is no neutral current. With 208V, the v(t) of L1 doesn't cancel the v(t) of L2 so there must be a neutral current that is bigger than either the L1 or L2 current, assuming the N was connected between L1 and L2 inside the power brick. I don't know if that's actually the case but since a simple adapter can change the 14-50 plug to a 120V plug it could be that the plug simply runs on L1-N for 120V and runs on L1-N-L2 when operating at 240V. This would result in zero neutral current on 240V since L1 = -L2 but with 208V the N current would be too large and the unit shuts down.
 
goldbrick said:
So....if the neutral was connected for 240V, the 2 hot phases would cancel and there would no neutral current (even though it was connected).
The On Board Charrger has only two AC input wires, and Jl772 only has two AC pins. So there is no way to connect two phases (hots) and a neutral.

208VAC doesn't have to be from a Y connected 3-phase system (with the centre point of the Y grounded). 208VAC can also result from the high leg delta connection (using L3 and N). I actually thought that this was the common way for a 3-phase transformer to be connected in the US. But perhaps it's only common in industrial settings.

As far as I know, the OBC doesn't care what voltage the two inputs have with respect to ground, as long as when a high impedance is connected to ground, a small current can be detected. In other words, the car will reject a floating supply, because then a GFCI won't work. I don't know if the car only checks one input or both for current to ground. [ Edit: one input is usually labelled L2/N, so I guess the car only tests for current from L1 to ground. ]

The image below (from the Wikipedia link) is practically a phasor diagram of the high leg delta, with each side of the triangle representing 240VAC. You can see that the distance from L3 to the centre tap is a little shorter than the sides of the triangle; a little trigonometry shows that it's sqrt(3)/2 (=0.866) shorter, and 0.866 x 240V = 207.8V.

233px-High_leg_delta_transformer.svg.png


[ Edit 2: On further thought, if the transformer is connected as above with the high leg delta arrangement, then you have 240V readily available (using any two phases), so there is no reason to use 208V for an EVSE. ]
 
Thanks for chiming in. I agree that the OBC doesn't care about the phasing (or input voltage) of its inputs to ground or neutral since its not connected to neutral. Also, the OBC works at 208V (or 120V or 240V) when using other EVSEs, just not the Nissan supplied EVSE. So I think it's safe to say the issue with the EVSE not the OBC.

In the US, the EVSE is plugged into a NEMA 14-50 receptacle which has L1, L2, N and GND. As far as I can tell, 120/208 indicates 120V L1-N and L2-N phases which are 120 degrees out of phase with each other to yield 208V RMS across L1-L2.

My thought is that issue may be due to the supplied adapter which converts the 14-50 plug to a 5-15 plug. If the adapter connects the L1, N and GND of the 14-50 plug to the L1, N, GND terminals of the 5-15 plug, it seems to me that there must be a 'center tap' in the EVSE to make this work. If the adapter connects L1, L2, GND of the 14-50 plug to the L1, N, GND of the 5-15 plug, this wouldn't be necessary. But in the latter case, the adapter would connect L2 (on the 14-50 side) to N (on the 5-15 side) of the adapter. Maybe that's forbidden by UL or something?
 
The OBC only has 2 line inputs plus ground, in the case of 208/240v it sees 208/240v between its L1 and L2 input, in the case of 120v it sees 120v between its L1 and L2 inputs, the OBC only has 2 inputs plus ground. The OBC seems to function from around 100v to 265v, unfortunately not up to 277v which is a common commercial voltage for lighting and high-powered motors, last I knew Tesla did accept 277v but I'm not sure about the more recent models. If you want an EVSE that accepts a wide range of voltages get an aftermarket EVSE, the cheaper the EVSE the more apt it is to accept different voltages, it's really unforgivable the OEM Nissan dual voltage doesn't accept 208v which is an extremely common voltage in apartments and commercial settings.
 
goldbrick said:
I agree that the OBC doesn't care about the phasing (or input voltage) of its inputs to ground or neutral since its not connected to neutral.
I should have been clearer: in the case of the high leg delta, one of the inputs to the EVSE and OBC is neutral. But that probably doesn't matter.

If the adapter connects the L1, N and GND of the 14-50 plug to the L1, N, GND terminals of the 5-15 plug, it seems to me that there must be a 'center tap' in the EVSE to make this work.
The only way I can think of that the Nissan supplied EVSE can work with 240 and 120V yet not 208V is if it uses a rare configuration where a transformer with two 120V primary coils is switched in series for 240V and in parallel for 120V operation. This transformer powers the electronics and the main relay of the EVSE. A smaller relay does the switching of the primary coils, based on the magnitude of the input voltage. So 208V might be too much for paralleled coils (hopefully some protection prevents overheating), or too low for the coils in series.

Actually, the primary coil might be center tapped, so the relay only needs to be single pole. But the principle is the same, just one coil versus two in the 120V configuration. This may be more like what you were thinking of.

Edit: I meant to add that the way that other EVSEs get around this is to use a high frequency switching power supply that can be designed to work with a wide variety of input voltages. These are smaller and often cheaper than a 60Hz iron transformer, so the latter are rare these days. But for some odd reason, Japanese designers seem to prefer the low frequency transformer approach.
 
jjeff said:
it's really unforgivable the OEM Nissan dual voltage doesn't accept 208v which is an extremely common voltage in apartments and commercial settings.

I think that's a result of the adapter supplied with the Gen2 Leaf EVSE's. The EVSE can be used with at 240V or 120V with the adapter. Unfortunately it can't be used at 208V. In effect, the EVSE trades off the ability to run on 208V for the ability to run on 120V with a simple adapter.

Do any of the EVSE's that work at 208V work at 120V using the Nissan adapter? I'm not sure I'd even want to try it but it would be interesting to know if they worked or not.

On the Rav4Prime (and Prius Prime too I believe), the EVSE supplied in the US has a 5-15 plug for use on 120V. Apparently, the 'brick' part of the EVSE is the same as the one supplied in parts of the world where the power supply used is 200V (single phase to neutral). Some folks have built or bought adapters to plug their EVSE's 5-15 plug into a 14-50 receptacle. In effect, this connects the neutral on the 5-15 receptacle to the L2 on the 14-50 plug. I can't believe this is UL or NEC compliant and frankly I think it's dangerous.
 
goldbrick said:
jjeff said:
it's really unforgivable the OEM Nissan dual voltage doesn't accept 208v which is an extremely common voltage in apartments and commercial settings.
Do any of the EVSE's that work at 208V work at 120V using the Nissan adapter? I'm not sure I'd even want to try it but it would be interesting to know if they worked or not.

On the Rav4Prime (and Prius Prime too I believe), the EVSE supplied in the US has a 5-15 plug for use on 120V. Apparently, the 'brick' part of the EVSE is the same as the one supplied in parts of the world where the power supply used is 200V (single phase to neutral). Some folks have built or bought adapters to plug their EVSE's 5-15 plug into a 14-50 receptacle. In effect, this connects the neutral on the 5-15 receptacle to the L2 on the 14-50 plug. I can't believe this is UL or NEC compliant and frankly I think it's dangerous.
I don't have a Nissan adapter to try it but in the case of the adapter plugs I made for any of my multi-voltage EVSEs including Gen1 OEM EVSEs converted to L2 by the now-defunct EVSEUpgrade, the 5-15 adapter simply puts the neutral on one side(say L1 of the EVSE) and the hot goes to the other side(say L2) along with ground to ground.
With all my multi-voltage EVSEs I start out with a 240v plug(I've chosen either a 14-50 for EVSEs greater than 30a or L6-30 for EVSEs under) so adapter plugs have either a 14-50 or L6-30 female plug the EVSE plugs in and a short pigtail cable along with the male plug I want to plug into. In the case of going from another 240v plug I simply wire L1 to L1, L2 to L2 and ground to ground. When converting from a 120v source it's L1(or hot 120v) to L1 and neutral to L2 along with ground to ground.
I chose 240v plugs for my multi-voltage EVSEs as I didn't want to have adapter plugs going from a 240v plug to a 120v female, I didn't want to risk my adapter plugs falling into the wrong hands and have someone use it on a device that wasn't 120v/240v compatible. In the case of my adapter plugs(going from a 120v plug to a 240v female) the worst that would probably happen if someone tried to use it on a 240v only device is it wouldn't work on 120v, better than the other way around of plugging in a 120v only device in a 240v socket.
Oh and on your last point, the reason the gen1 OEM EVSEs needed to be upgraded by EVSEupgrade to work on L2 is because it contained a 120v only transformer, other OEM L1 EVSEs like Chevy in the Volt for sure would work on L2 just fine with an adapter plug but again I personally wouldn't want a L2 to L1 adapter plug I'd instead probably cut off the 5-15 male plug on the EVSE and wire on an L2 plug of your choice and then make a 5-15 mile to appropriate L2 female adapter plug.
We've got a Rav4 Prime on order and indeed if it's multi-voltage I'll probably do just that. Note just because the EVSE might say something like 100v-120v doesn't necessarily mean it's L1 only, it just may be a more CYA or UL thing not mentioning 240v but I'd want to be darned sure it was multi-voltage before plugging it into 240v.
 
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