FCSP "Charge Station Faulted"

[TaxmanHog]

I had just received FordPass 5.20.0 and was going through basic SAT testing to make sure no critical issues were introduced while they purport to fix bugs , you know how that can go..............

Looked on the FCSP Charge Station section, status report in the graphic is concerning showing "Charge Station Faulted"!

I've power cycled the FCSP , then a couple minutes later I got a in app notification about the faulted status of the FCSP. While I'm composing this post, the status has now updated to "Ready to Charge"

Background, yesterday we had a couple of power outages and unstable voltage after a transformer popped a fuse nearby, then later in the day another part of town had a power line short out after a traffic accident clipped a pole, these power aberration might be the root cause, though I had not looked at the FCSP since last Sunday when I did my weekly charging.

Hopefully this is an isolated fluke we can learn from, 'Power Cycling' to the rescue.

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[Randall Stephens]

Had the same issue with mine a few weeks back. Seems to have fixed itself. Your memory is better than mine, do you remember how much power the FCSP is pulling when just connected to the truck?

 

[TaxmanHog]

Since I'm likely going to be on the Road Glide all weekend (assuming weather cooperates) and the Mrs. needs to drive her car more often to keep her 12v battery topped up*, I did my weekly charging session today instead of Sunday, wanted to confirm all is good and the glitch is just that.

Session completed perfectly fine no issues:

This is a snapshot of the FP active session, note @Randall Stephens it's pushing 16.4 KW DC to the pack, when I snapped this. The next photo is the end of session shot.

Final charging record, truncated the 19.3 kWh to 19 kWh

Charging station reported session active, as normally does while charging:

End of session gross energy consumed, per FCSP = 21.05 kWh & Emporia = 21.12 kWh
45 miles of driving this week, several remote climate starts to warm or cool as the fickle New England weather fluctuated. 2.13 MPK is not bad for spring.

@Randall Stephens gross energy input from grid to FCSP was a consistent 18 KW throughout this session, it's set for a full 80 amps (19.2 KW) but I have never seen it go much higher but you see in this shot that I had it peak at 18.85 KW in May, IIRC most folks see similar values.

*Fun fact my wifes 2017 Mercedes E300 has a 28 day counter, if she does not drive the vehicle at least once during the period the carsTCU goes into a dormant state to preserve energy @Ford Motor Company please takes notes, mind you this is an ICE automobile.

I learned about this after she had her annual service, always serviced at the selling dealer and when they called me to say the 12v was weak [H7] and needed to be replaced for an additional fee of $740+ sales tax!!!!

I declined the offer and told them I can source a better battery with a 4 year warranty from Advanced Auto Parts for $270 plus sales tax and do the swap myself.

Mind you, MB covers the OEM battery for 4 years, which actually lasted 6 years, then we had a new one installed at the horrible fee $700+, and that replacement was only covered for 2 years, this units lasted 2 years and 11 days!!!!!!

 

[TaxmanHog]

Had the same issue with mine a few weeks back. Seems to have fixed itself. Your memory is better than mine, do you remember how much power the FCSP is pulling when just connected to the truck?

Charging at 80 amp setting, it's passing about 18 KW

FCSP idle the FCSP controller is pulling only around 0.019 kWh for a day according to Emporia, I don't have a shot of the energy flow while plugged in but NOT charging, I'll capture a shot over the weekend.

 

[TaxmanHog]

@Randall Stephens this is a 24 hour period with the FCSP plugged into the Lightning, no charging was actually needed as the truck was not run on Sunday, chart indicates minimal draw totalling 45 watt-hours of energy. Ironically this period was at the start of the new "Peak Demand" measuring period for June, highest rate was 0.008 kWh

 

[Randall Stephens]

@Randall Stephens this is a 24 hour period with the FCSP plugged into the Lightning, no charging was actually needed as the truck was not run on Sunday, chart indicates minimal draw totalling 45 watt-hours of energy. Ironically this period was at the start of the new "Peak Demand" measuring period for June, highest rate was 0.008 kWh

Thanks for the info. It’s pulling less than my router. If they let you dim the LED could probably halve the consumption.

 

[Puffoluffagus]

I've actually been having a similar issue. We had a power outage briefly after a recent storm and I started getting charge station faulted message(5 times in one day) after the power came back on. When I came home, everything was fine and I charged normally.

Today I received another message that my charge station faulted. I guess ill see what it's doing when I get home or if it randomly corrects itself again.

 

[Puffoluffagus]

Just as an update, got home, check the Ford pass app, refreshed, still said charge station faulted.
Light on the charger was blue, plugged it in, charging fine, status then updated on the app to charging.

So yeah dunno. Guess ill keep an eye on it.

 

[chl]

Electrical storms, black-outs, brown-outs, voltage surges from storm lightning strikes, human errors, etc. can cause havoc with sensitive electronics.

Good that the FCSP survived your event(s).

After I had lightning strike my backyard one week that took out all our PC LAN cards, and then a week or so later, lightning hit one of our roof fans and did it again, as well as fusing (literally) a breaker and destroying a receptacle and the surge protector power strip plugged into it as well as bricking a printer server, I had the electric utility install whole house surge protection (which included at least two more ground rods at the service entrance) and sell me surge protection insurance as well.

Even so, I got in the habit of unplugging my computer from power and LAN when an electrical storm approaches just in case. I also cut off the AC and pop the GFCI breaker on the hot tub - no fun changing the fuse in the disconnects (but I keep spare fuses around in case).

My GE WattStation bought in 2011 for my 2012 Nissan Leaf, has an off/on button so when not charging my Leaf, it is off. That would have been a nice thing to have on the FCSP, but one could always pop the breaker. Even though it is a small amount of energy when idling, it adds up along with all the other vampire energy drains in a typical house.

In a related story, back in 2012, GE WattStations being used for charging Nissan Leafs seemed to be causing damage to some Leafs, it turned out it occurred if they were charging the Leaf during a black out, low voltage situation (or other electrical event).

Eventually they cleared the GE WattStation of blame and Nissan issued a software patch for the Leaf that fixed the issue with the Leaf:

“...a Nissan regional manager claims that the charging systems of 11 Leafs have been damaged after plugging into a WattStation. Whether or not there's a crisis or a coincidence is still up in the air at this stage. Nissan isn't issuing any warnings or recalls, and GE will only say that it's "actively working" with the automaker to find the root cause....'this issue represents a handful of incidents out of millions of charging events involving the Nissan LEAF....[later]... Nissan and GE have completed their investigation into the instances of Nissan Leafs experiencing on-board charging (OBC) issues when using certain EV chargers (sic.) Nissan has traced the root cause of the issue to the Leaf’s OBC software that can allow damage to occur to its OBC components while using certain chargers and in certain instances, such as when a brief under voltage or blackout condition occurs,” a GE spokesman told us..." [Excerpts from the news reports at the time]

Recently we have had a couple severe storms and a power outage as well that lasted over 24 hours, but nothing affected my FCSP causing it to report a fault to FordPass, or for FordPass to "think" it had a fault for some reason.

I wonder if the FCSP front light had any red light pulsing or otherwise indicative of a fault of some kind (as in the status light table) or if it was just in FordPass that the fault was indicated?

If the storm caused a voltage change to the earth ground such as when lightning struck the ground, and that was transmitted to the ground wire through the system, that might show up as a ground fault.

It would be nicer if FordPass could report what kind of FCSP fault it was somehow.

 

[chl]

*Fun fact my wifes 2017 Mercedes E300 has a 28 day counter, if she does not drive the vehicle at least once during the period the carsTCU goes into a dormant state to preserve energy @Ford Motor Company please takes notes, mind you this is an ICE automobile.

I learned about this after she had her annual service, always serviced at the selling dealer and when they called me to say the 12v was weak [H7] and needed to be replaced for an additional fee of $740+ sales tax!!!!

I declined the offer and told them I can source a better battery with a 4 year warranty from Advanced Auto Parts for $270 plus sales tax and do the swap myself.

Mind you, MB covers the OEM battery for 4 years, which actually lasted 6 years, then we had a new one installed at the horrible fee $700+, and that replacement was only covered for 2 years, this units lasted 2 years and 11 days!!!!!!

When I was a senior in HS, my mom bought me a used Mercedes 190 (gas - very under powered for a 4 door sedan by the way - had to down shift even on very gradual hills on the highway a lot), her way of getting me off my BSA motorcycle I suspect. It was always overheating as well.

I learned quickly that everything is uber-expensive for a Mercedes, OMG.

A very comfortable ride but too rich for my budget.

Thermal dynamics took care of that when I cracked the block one night trying to make it home to add water.

I did get a lot of use out of it - drove it to Woodstock with my brother and three friends in 1969, pulled over hassled on the way home by an upstate Barney Fife for driving while long-haired, who opened one of my used film canisters ruining it looking for drugs. Luckily he did not open my camera so some of my pictures survived

Santana playing Soul Sacrifice 1969, Woodstock

Also drove to California and back from Virginia in 1970 via back roads mostly, to the Black Hills and Mt Rushmore, Yellow Stone (where the grizzlies mauled some poor camper to death the week before I got there and some tourist walked off the path into a hot spring, the last thing they ever did, and where I rescued two young women who had driven their VW bug into a ditch while trying to eat yogurt and drive the winding roads in the park), Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, and the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas (blew a tire just as I approached but a service station was handy - the spare was sparse), and California 1 past Big Sur...would have continued up the coast but I ran out of money and had to head back, picking up hitch-hikers IF and ONLY IF they could contribute $ to buy gas, coasting back into Alexandria on fumes.

Mecedes 190 pulled over to sleep, somewhere in the middle of America 1970.

 

[Scorpio3d]

I was in Mexico last week. My truck was at the airport, and I received the following messages through Ford pass:

I did not charge yesterday, but I charged today and everything seemed to be working as usual???

 

[Maquis]

Communication glitch between the FCSP and servers.

 

[TaxmanHog]

It may clear-up on its own, if not, when you get home do a power cycle.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Today, I'm charging and the FCSP is sending energy to the Lightning at peak rate based on my observations of my Emporia energy monitor, the Fordpass active session details pane is not presenting at this time, nor is the "Charge Station" information pane populating.

My guess is that we have a server problem outside our control.

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