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30A DELUXE OVER TEMP

I live in florida, you all know the temperature here is closer to hell than any other place. So even in my garage it gets hot especially the Controller, and it is only drawing 13.4 amps per leg on 220 volts.

Is it possible to add a small fan?

and what is the best place to put it and where would it be the air intake?

The only problem it will no longer be water proof.

2 people have this problem
23 CommentsSorted by Newest First

A heatsink was not effective at lowering the temperature. I replaced the IO expander IC, MCP23017, on August 1st. Temperatures seem more reasonable now.

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I started getting 'service required overtemp' this June in Minnesota. I have the plastic OVSE enclosure that came with the 'Ultimate Bundle - OpenEVSE P50-WV Kit Level1 & Level2 50A Deluxe' I bought back in March 2017. Prior to getting the overtemps, the last time I opened the enclosure was in May 2018. This thermal image was taken after the EVSE was on for < 1 minute, ambient air temp was 23C. Instead of buying a new IC and trying to re-work or buying a new display module I have used a thermally conductive tape and attached a heat-sink. I'll report back if that keeps it cool enough not to flood the sensor reading.


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I have had problems with my EVSE overheating also.  Looking back at temp logs it looks like it reaches 65C and then starts to throttle charging, so I don't think it actually shuts down.   But even at idle right now (charging finished about 7 hours ago) temp is at 31C when ambient is only 21C.  This seems high!


Could I have a problem with my display also?  I have seen this overheating problem happen every week or so, and my EVSE is only about 6 months old.

WELL... some VERY good news to report!
I received the new display today, Thursday 8-9.
My charger has been on all day with an ambient temp of about 100F, and all closed up.
The charger was reporting about 60C just sitting there asleep, so I used this as a baseline reading.
I changed the display, using extremely careful ESD procedures, and powered it up.
First, I looked at the chip with my Flir, and NO SIGNS OF HOT SPOTS!!!!!
This was a GREAT result!
Then I closed it up and powered it up in the same location, and after about 30 minutes the temp was ONLY 33C!!!!
This is more like it, and I thank you for helping out!!!
It's nice when things work out!
I am going to leave it on like I normally do, and see what the temperature stabilizes at, although I am sure it won't be NEAR 60C.
I did take a look with my Flir after it had been on a while, and the chip was about 95F (35C), ambient temp, with NO hot spots!

 

The OpenEVSE v4 controller will tolerate temperatures to about 90C before its power supplies shuts down (internal PS temperature of 142C).


Temperature monitoring and throttling will slow down charging at 65C and shutdown if temperature exceeds 72C. 


On my own "Advanced Series" station (see graphs below) at 32A (7.68kw) my normal temperature rise is 16C over the starting enclosure temperature. It is very hot where I live, my enclosure temperatures during the hottest months of the summer run from 34C - 44C.




What is the maximum temperatur the Open V4 can tolerate? usually mine stay around 32 c (not charging), but some time with a hot day, rise to 65c (charging at 26amp) this is normal?


If it is too hot, they reduce the power itself?

True. My thermal photo shows it being hot,hot,hot!

Yes, it is likely the IO expander that controls the display is the issue. The temperature sensor is on the display module as well, it is part of the RTC clock chip. The sensor and IO chip are just a few mm from one another. 

Btw.... even with power applied but not charging, openevse indicates 65C.... and my Flir shows the display driver cooking, so my guess is the temp is real and the chip is running hot... we'll see.
Thank you, Chris. I am familiar with ESD problems, and even with precautions it can still come back to bite you. I will watch my ESD grounding though, and ensure that everything is well grounded, including me! Thanks.

The replacement display is on the way. 


Please use caution when installing, we believe this issue is caused by ESD. We had a user who was able to trigger display overheating on demand by walking across his carpet then touching his display. He was using a custom enclosure, we were able to resolve the issue by providing better grounding to the display.

Thank You!  I will perform the same experiment and let you know what I find.

 

William, we will replace the display under the 1 year warranty.


OpenEVSE Support

Thanks for your readings.
I think I found the suspect.
I have attached the visible photo and the corresponding thermal image from my Flir, of the display chip.
These pictures were taken at the same time as my E8 Flir has both type of cameras on it.
I had auto hotspot turned on as well, and you can see that the display driver chip is 188 deg F!!!!  AND it is HOT to touch (DUH).
I had the unit running for about 15 minutes with my enclosure open, so the driver IC was exposed and not closed up.
The temperature reading according to OpenEVSE was 48 dig C as well, and it was in sleep so not current was flowing.

There IS something VERY wrong with this because when the enclosure is closed up and current is flowing, it will over temp and shut down, unlike your temp graphs.

 

display therm.jpg
display ther...
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display vis.jpg
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William, Those temperatures are not normal. Something is very wrong if temperatures are 64C. Here is my personal station during the hottest month of summer in the Mojave Desert.


 

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