RESOLVED Lucid cable charger only charging at 2kw. HELP!

[Golfsnc]

Hi

I did search the four,s but couldn’t find a reference to this problem.

Our old house the car on a 14-50 using the lucid cable provided always charged around 9.5kw


We Moved to a new house and had the. 14-50 outlet installed. #6 copper wire Rand from house to garage to 14-50 outlet.
But now we’re only getting 2kw charging. We used a different lucid branded provided cable and still it’s only charging at 2 kw.

Anyone had this problem or have an idea of what to do?
Thanks


Air gt 48k miles.

 

[DeaneG]

...We Moved to a new house and had the. 14-50 outlet installed. #6 copper wire Rand from house to garage to 14-50 outlet. But now we’re only getting 2kw charging...

Measure the voltage at the 240V outlet. Is it 240V? Or was it mis-wired as 120V?

 

[Golfsnc]

Ok. I’ll try to figure out how to do that. Thank you!!

 

[DeaneG]

Ok. I’ll try to figure out how to do that. Thank you!!

If you have an electrical engineer friend nearby, they can help. Or anyone who is careful with a voltmeter.

 

[EVCar]

Since another Lucid cable also failed, I'd ask the installer to recheck the circuit.
I wouldn't try to learn voltage measurement on my own.

 

[ccarroz]

Can you post a pick of your breakers? Point out what breaker you think you are on. And then if you wouldn't mind killing the breaker and making sure it's the right one. Are you using the included cable or something else?

 

[borski]

The calculation is easy: a 50A breaker, on a properly installed 240V circuit, can run at 40A max continuous (code says continuous load can’t be higher than 80% of the breaker, and 80% of 50 is 40).

Consequently, 40A x 240V = 9600W = 9.6kW. That’s what you *should* be charging at, and your old home was set up correctly. (It may have been 9.5kW because there is variation in voltage; that is, the voltage can be anywhere from 220V-240V depending on a bunch of factors).

So you can do a bit of math to try and figure out what might be happening now. For example, if you hypothetically installed a 10A breaker, it would charge at 8A x 240V = 1.92kW, or roughly 2kW. Of course, the cable has no way of knowing what breaker you’re on, so it would try to run at full speed and pop the breaker; I’m just speaking in hypotheticals.

If you installed it as a 120V circuit, you’d have 40A x 120V = 4.8kW.

If you have three phase power (unlikely, but who knows, you might have bought a commercial warehouse ), then you’re actually running around 208V.

Long story short: call the electrician, because he/she messed up.

 

[Golfsnc]

Thank you all for the responses. Here’s the two pictures of the breakers. The 60 amp first picture is from the house to the sub panel and the 50 amp is from the sub panel to the actual 14-50 outlet in the garage.

I’m using the lucid provided charging cable that was given with the car. I also troubleshoot the cable by using a friends lucid provided charging cable and both only charged 2kw

 

[Golfsnc]

Thank you all for the responses. Here’s the two pictures of the breakers. The 60 amp first picture is from the house to the sub panel and the 50 amp is from the sub panel to the actual 14-50 outlet in the garage.

I’m using the lucid provided charging cable that was given with the car. I also troubleshoot the cable by using a friends lucid provided charging cable and both only charged 2kw

 

[Pragmatic]

Two cables, same result. Call the installer. Something is likely wrong with the circuit.

 

[Golfsnc]

Thank you all for the responses. Here’s the two pictures of the breakers. The 60 amp first picture is from the house to the sub panel and the 50 amp is from the sub panel to the actual 14-50 outlet in the garage.

I’m using the lucid provided charging cable that was given with the car. I also troubleshoot the cable by using a friends lucid provided charging cable and both only charged 2kw

 

[Bobby]

Thank you all for the responses. Here’s the two pictures of the breakers. The 60 amp first picture is from the house to the sub panel and the 50 amp is from the sub panel to the actual 14-50 outlet in the garage.

I’m using the lucid provided charging cable that was given with the car. I also troubleshoot the cable by using a friends lucid provided charging cable and both only charged 2kw

Call an electrician. Opening up the panel, looking at the wires and running tests is potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, take your cable to somebody else’s house who has such an outlet and check if it is working there.

 

[DennisIS]

Looking at the breaker box. The electrician installed a surge protector and a 60A dual leg breaker -- which I believe is correct/allowed for a NEMA 50.

A NEMA 50 outlet has 4 pins.
Safety Ground (round pin) Call that SOUTH.
Neutral - NORTH - directly opposite the Safety Ground
Leg X/Y - East and West

It's hard to fail to connect a leg... you'd have a dangling hunk of copper inside the box. If wiring is the issue, it's much more lilkely that Neutral and one of the legs is swapped/miswired.

If you get/try a meter:

1. Set meter to read >240V AC. Many will autorange. MUST be AC (look for "AC" or a V with a sine wave symbol)
2. Measuring is a pretty safe activity as long as you follow simple rules:
   • NEVER touch the metal ends of the leads OR the outlet box while making these measurements.
   • Move ONE test lead at a time. You should be able to push test leads into the NEMA 50 outlet connections pretty easily.
   • Stick to VOLTAGE measurements.
   • If you don't get a reading that makes sense (see below), just repeat the measurement.
3. Put one lead (black lead) into the ground hole/South.
   • Push the other (red) lead into the NEUTRAL/North Measure voltage to Neutral.
   • Should be ZERO. MIGHT be a couple of volts.
   • IF it's larger (100V+), STOP, turn off the breaker, get the electrician back FAST. Outlet is VERY unsafe.
4. Keep one (black) lead in South/Ground.
   • Push the other (Red) lead into X/West.
   • Should be ~120V. If it's low/only a few volts, that leg isn't connected.
5. Keep one lead in South/Ground.
   • Push the other lead into Y/East.
   • Should be ~120V.
   • If it's low/only a few volts, that leg isn't connected.
6. Leave the lead in Y/EAST - push the other lead into X/West. Should be ~240V.

If you don't get readings that match these, Call the electrician back. Tell them what you found. If it's the UNSAFE outcome, make them fix it then never hire them again.

If you do get these readings, the problem is elsewhere.

 

[DeaneG]

...The electrician installed a surge protector and a 60A dual leg breaker -- which I believe is correct/allowed for a NEMA 50.

A 14-50 receptacle must be protected by a 40-amp or 50-amp circuit breaker, not 60 amp.

 

[DennisIS]

Call an electrician. Opening up the panel, looking at the wires and running tests is potentially dangerous. Meanwhile, take your cable to somebody else’s house who has such an outlet and check if it is working there.

Agree. The tests I described do not involve getting access to any exposed wiring/opening up any electrical boxes - which is definitely the domain of trained/licensed pro's. On the flip side, paying an electrician to come out and tell you an outlet is wired correctly is expensive. A multimeter is pretty safe to use/hard to abuse and can be had for <$40 at any hardware store or Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09C6MGD7J/ref=ewc_pr_img_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

[DennisIS]

A 14-50 receptacle must be protected by a 40-amp or 50-amp circuit breaker, not 60 amp.

My Bad. I was reacting to the cable spec. As you indicated, should be 40 or 50A.

 

[Pragmatic]

60 amp is feeding sub-panel 50 amp is feeding outlet.

The fact that your cable previously worked, now it does not. Plus a different cable gives the same result, indicates the outlet (or the sub-panel) has been wired incorrectly. Whatever the issue you'll need a electrian.

 

[DeaneG]

My bet is that one 240V leg and the neutral are swapped at either the receptacle, or the breaker.

 

[DennisIS]

60 amp is feeding sub-panel 50 amp is feeding outlet.

The fact that your cable previously worked, now it does not. Plus a different cable gives the same result, indicates the outlet (or the sub-panel) has been wired incorrectly. Whatever the issue you'll need a electrian.

I totally agree that the most likely reason for this problem is a miswired outlet.
The "other" miswiring possibility is an open or miswired connections at the breaker.
If either or both are true: make the electrician fix it for free AND never hire them again. This is a licensed trade and mistakes can kill people and start fires.

The best reason to get/learn to use a multimeter is to get comfortable with the tool. Can save a lot of time and $ on having a pro come out to tell you everything's fine. Can also give you reassurance that things are correct.

 

[Golfsnc]

Thank you all. The support on this page is amazing.

Here’s what’s being displayed.

South to north
125 (had to move probe a little bit to get a display)
South to west
125
South to east
250
East to west
135