Charging time

Hi,
I’ve seen somewhere that a flat battery on the outlander used to take arround 5h to fully charge.
Mine takes 6,5h to fully charge with supplied charger (connected to a dedicated plug (2,5mm cables from the main switch))

How long yours takes to charge?

About 3.5 hours from a 16A wall charger, about 4.5-5 from a 10A charger box.

jaapv said:

About 3.5 hours from a 16A wall charger, about 4.5-5 from a 10A charger box.

Click to expand...

Which 16A charger you use?

Circontrol.

fsimao222 said:

Hi,
I’ve seen somewhere that a flat battery on the outlander used to take arround 5h to fully charge.
Mine takes 6,5h to fully charge with supplied charger (connected to a dedicated plug (2,5mm cables from the main switch))

How long yours takes to charge?

Click to expand...

It sounds you got a 6A charger .. 6A @ 220v x 6.5h = 8.5kwh .. that is around the capacity to inject in the battery from 30% to go to 100%

As far as I know the original charging box with the car is a 10A charger

elm70 said:

It sounds you got a 6A charger .. 6A @ 220v x 6.5h = 8.5kwh .. that is around the capacity to inject in the battery from 30% to go to 100%

As far as I know the original charging box with the car is a 10A charger

Click to expand...

How can I check it? In the charger says 10A
Its the one that comes with the car

I was taking a look on the car specs in the mitsubishi website and they say 6,5h with 8A and 5h with 10A
Why mine is charging at 8A?

fsimao222 said:

I was taking a look on the car specs in the mitsubishi website and they say 6,5h with 8A and 5h with 10A
Why mine is charging at 8A?

Click to expand...

I did not know 8A was possible .. I though we had steps, lie 6A, 10A .. etc

I did find this interesting table in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772

PWM SAE continuous SAE short term
50% 30 A 36 A peak
40% 24 A 30 A peak
30% 18 A 22 A peak
25% 15 A 20 A peak
16% 9.6 A
10% 6 A

But I'm not 100% sure I'm getting the right context ... our big expert in this and many other PHEV topics is Anko, so maybe he will step up for correct me here. (Anko reported to have made his own EVSE charger, so he knows all the possible details)

Anyhow ... from my understanding of the charging process over J1772 plug .. in nutshell what happen is following

The Charging box / External BOX, is just an ON/OFF switch that provide the 220v from the house power line "as it is" ... in additional to the ON/OFF switch .. the box does send some signalling ... and one of these signalling, is the one from the table above (possibly, else is a different type of signal) ... but definitely the box send a signal to the car about which charging current should be used by the car. In theory the Box is responsible to check that the car does not consume more current then what is specified in the signal.

The charging process is happening inside the car , it is the car that have all the logic and electronic for convert the 220v power line , into whatever is needed for charge the 80 batteries in series inside the car ..

If you have EvBatMon, I think you could monitor the charging process of the car .. and verify if the car use 10A or 9A or whatever charging current.

As well .. it is also possible that charging take longer, since the end part of the charging process is different .. charging lithium battery means charging initially at constant current, and end with a charge at constant voltage .. this because lithium battery should never have more then a defined voltage (4.1 or 4.2 or similar) .. charging at constant voltage can take longer or shorter, based on the IR of the battery and it can be effected by some balancing process too


So ... at the end .. it is maybe something worth to investigate .. since maybe something is not correct in your car .. or ... maybe is just the charging box that send the signal for 8A or 6A to the car.

Between certain boundaries, 1% increase in pulse width results in 0.6 ampere increase in charge current. So, that table seems quite right.

The PHEV responds well to these steps. However, 6 amps may be a lower limit, not 100% sure about that.

And there is a way to measure how much ampere is it charging?
In the software or with a multimeter

fsimao222 said:

And there is a way to measure how much ampere is it charging?
In the software or with a multimeter

Click to expand...

A clamp ammeter is what you need! A good one is expensive, but there are devices on eBay for under £20 - see http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UNI-T-UT202A-LCD-Digital-Multimeter-Auto-Handheld-Clamp-Meter-Volt-AC-DC600-AMPS-/263064056734?epid=2143196949&hash=item3d3fd6f39e:g:Z2IAAOSwbopZVeru for example. It will not be stunningly accurate, but should make clear whether it is drawing 6 or 10 amps.

I have a 6/10 A Ratio charger box. I notice that it will switch down to 6A when connected to a low-power outlet. I don't know whether your box has a similar feature.

fsimao222 said:

And there is a way to measure how much ampere is it charging?
In the software or with a multimeter

Click to expand...

How about one of these:

Or spend a little money on an OBDII adapter + EvBarMon or PHEV WatchDog app.

I use a WEMO Insight switch. It gives a readout of kW going in while it is charging, on your phone, as well as total kWh consumed when charge is finished.
Saves getting out a calculator

It shows about 200Wh more than the MMCS on a full charge, i.e it might say 9.3Kwh in, the MMCS will indicate 9.1.

jaapv said:

I have a 6/10 A Ratio charger box. I notice that it will switch down to 6A when connected to a low-power outlet. I don't know whether your box has a similar feature.

Click to expand...

I have an industrial 16amp plug connected directly to a 3 x 2,5mm cable that it’s connected to the main switch box. Then I have an adaptor cable (40cm) to convert from industrial to a regular plug (also 3x2,5mm cable and a 16amp plug). The only thing I see is that the cable from the charger box that connects to the plug is 3x1,5mm and that it gets a hot while charging.

anko said:

How about one of these:

Or spend a little money on an OBDII adapter + EvBarMon or PHEV WatchDog app.

Click to expand...

I’ve tried one of this last night and it said 9,5amp
At least in the beginning of the charging

Ive measured again the amps during charging and the lower value I’ve read was 9.13A
Fill charge took 6,5h to complete.
Is this normal?

I have an industrial 16amp plug connected directly to a 3 x 2,5mm cable that it’s connected to the main switch box. Then I have an adaptor cable (40cm) to convert from industrial to a regular plug (also 3x2,5mm cable and a 16amp plug). The only thing I see is that the cable from the charger box that connects to the plug is 3x1,5mm and that it gets a hot while charging.

Click to expand...

Whatever else, your power supply should not get hot.

fsimao222 said:

Ive measured again the amps during charging and the lower value I’ve read was 9.13A
Fill charge took 6,5h to complete.
Is this normal?

Click to expand...

Clearly it will not be using 9.1A for 6.5h all the time .. it must reduce current in the final stage of the charging process.

You also mention that some cables are getting hot ... I doubt that much power can be loss due to the cable resistance that cause your heat, since 100w constant waste in heat will burn the cable after a couple of hours of usage.

Still .. is possible that you may not provide 220v AC to you car, since some volts get lost in the cables resistance ... but I doubt this can make a big difference in charging time

Most probably there is nothing wrong on your car .. but it would be nice to know if the car take longer to charge due to one cell (or more) that need longer time for be balanced .. balancing of the battery pack should mainly happen in the last phase of the charging process

I think ... the only why to analyse it in deep .. is via a ADB2 adapter and EvBatMon (not sure PHEV Wtachdog can be used for monitor charging process and each battery cell)

elm70 said:

Clearly it will not be using 9.1A for 6.5h all the time .. it must reduce current in the final stage of the charging process.

You also mention that some cables are getting hot ... I doubt that much power can be loss due to the cable resistance that cause your heat, since 100w constant waste in heat will burn the cable after a couple of hours of usage.

Still .. is possible that you may not provide 220v AC to you car, since some volts get lost in the cables resistance ... but I doubt this can make a big difference in charging time

Most probably there is nothing wrong on your car .. but it would be nice to know if the car take longer to charge due to one cell (or more) that need longer time for be balanced .. balancing of the battery pack should mainly happen in the last phase of the charging process

I think ... the only why to analyse it in deep .. is via a ADB2 adapter and EvBatMon (not sure PHEV Wtachdog can be used for monitor charging process and each battery cell)

Click to expand...

The car predicts 6.5h since the time I connect the charger.
And I’ve clocked it and it takes exactly the 6,5h as estimated by the car in the begging

Suddenly the last full chargings took only 4,5/5h.
It used to take 6,5h to charge.
I dont have changed anything. Same cable, same plug. The only difference i noticed is lower outside temperatures. 10/12 degrees difference.
Is that the cause of it charging 8amp and not 10amp when its hot days?