Tesla EV charger/eaton breakers

Y

yo_ryco

Member
Location
Pennsylvania
Occupation
electrician
Hi All -

I am having an issue with a tesla gen 3 charger that has been installed in a new residential home. The client brought their existing charger from their previous home and had it installed in their new home. The service on the home is a 400a service with (2) 200a Eaton BR series panels and breakers. Everything in the home works completely find until the tesla charger is connected to the vehicle. Once the charging process has started, every gfci/afci/dfci breaker in both panels eventually trips. The timing and order of the breakers tripping is completely random. Breakers trip in both panels, on both legs of the service. We have checked and re-checked all connections multiple times. I am not able to find anything that is causing this problem within the panels or wiring of the home. It seems to be a problem with either the charger or the vehicle itself...Has anyone seen this before?
 
Just a follow up for anyone who might me curious/willing to weigh in on this. I made a site visit today and ran a few random tests.

1. I picked up a new dfci breaker to install as a test. I landed the breaker in the panel, but did not install any wiring on the breaker. When the Tesla charger was in use the breaker tripped...with no wires attached to it.

2. I learned that while the Tesla charger is in use, the "test" buttons on the breakers do not function. Some of the breakers blink 6 times, which indicates a failed auto test. When the breaker for the Tesla charger is turned off, the test buttons on all the breakers operate as they should. Eaton is claiming they have never heard of this before, and at this point is not able to offer any reasoning or solution.
 
ActionDave said:
They've heard of this before. Maybe the particular gentleman you were talking to at Eaton had not heard of a problem in this particular circumstance, but nuisance tripping AFCIs is well known in the industry and at Eaton.
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Never heard of the test buttons not working when something was in use, but they do have issues with nuisance tripping.
 
I agree with the nuisance tripping. We sometimes get nuisance tripping on appliance circuits, either with small appliances or with dedicated circuits for large appliances (washers, refrigerators). A large part of the reason we got away from leviton panels was due to the high amount of call backs we were having for nuisance tripping. On this issue, I'm at a loss...I've never had a breaker causing other breakers to trip. And I have never experienced the test buttons not working. That being said, I am not educated on how the internals of these breakers operate. I'm definitely leaning toward some kind of interference from the ev charger...or the vehicle itself. But, I can't prove that because I don't have an extra Tesla laying around the shop that I can take out and try. I took video today and sent it to Eaton, hoping from some kind of solution. Fortunately, the homeowner has been very easy to work with.
 
I’ve had multiple arc faults trip with minutes or seconds of each other, found out it was a loose connection at the utility transformer. They fixed it the first time, worked fine a couple of months, started again, same connection went bad again, so they changed to a different connector, haven’t had a problem since. Do they have an electric range or cooktop? If so, turn everything on, and try the test buttons again, and see if any of the arc faults trip. It may just be the heavy load causing an arc somewhere else, such as the main, or even on the utility end.
 
Thanks for the advice. I will check that...I am wondering if a drop in voltage would make the test button not operate? Seems like your suggestion would prove that out. Thank you.
 
hillbilly1 said:
It may just be the heavy load causing an arc somewhere else, such as the main, or even on the utility end.
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Interesting idea - and a good data point.

I would also suggest the "opposite" idea. If, as you indicate, the homeowner is easy to work with, have them dial down the charging current in the Tesla (car or app). For a standard Tesla L2 charger I think you can set it as low as 6A.

If the gfci/afci/dfci breakers hold, maybe that's a good thing to be aware of and let Eaton know about. Then dial it up until things start tripping. If things do hold at low current limits, maybe also a temp workaround for the customer?

Just thinking out loud.
 
yo_ryco said:
....I've never had a breaker causing other breakers to trip. And I have never experienced the test buttons not working.
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Other breakers tripping happens a lot with AFCIs. This is the first I've heard of the test buttons not working, but I have never heard of anyone checking that.
yo_ryco said:
That being said, I am not educated on how the internals of these breakers operate. I'm definitely leaning toward some kind of interference from the ev charger...or the vehicle itself.
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There is a microchip in there that monitors the current and trips when it sees a "dangerous" arc but doesn't trip when it sees a "normal" arc. Electronic loads mess with the microchip and cause nuisance trips.
 
ActionDave said:
There is a microchip in there that monitors the current and trips when it sees a "dangerous" arc but doesn't trip when it sees a "normal" arc. Electronic loads mess with the microchip and cause nuisance trips.
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This has been my primary objection to AFCIs. GFCIs work on an elegant principle easily demonstrated. AFCIs work on the "trust me bro" principle. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and all that.
 
Sounds like an issue with RFI coming off the Tesla charger. There have been documented cases of AFCI breakers tripping from ham radio transmissions nearby, even walkie-talkies. So it proves there is an issue with them picking up RFI and it messing with the internal electronics. Now WHY a Tesla charger is emitting a lot of RFI is not something I can speculate on, but your evidence certainly points in that direction.

EATON BR AFCI BREAKERS NUISANCE TRIPPING FROM HAM RADIO/RF/HF SIGNAL

Aloha all. I work in an electrical outlet warehouse in Hawaii and recently had a customer come in with an inquiry that's new to me. Apparently one of his arc fault breakers is tripping as a result of his neighbors HAM radio tower. I found some info online about it but most of what I found is...
forums.mikeholt.com


Pl
 
There are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Tesla Gen 3 EV chargers working in houses with AFCI breakers without issues. Something is defective here.
I actually suspect the car, because to my knowledge the Wall Connector contains no power electronics for the charger. I suspect the car is causing some high frequency switching noise that is disrupting the AFCI electronics. So, my next step would be to try a different EV. If neither swapping the EV nor swapping the AFCIs helps then it's time for Tesla to RMA the Wall Connector.
 
I agree with your thought process. I also agree that the charger does not contain any power electronics (to my knowledge). I have an appointment set up with the homeowner to check the gen. of the breakers. That being said, my question is who pays for me to go check the breakers, and then install newer breakers (if Eaton tells me the breakers are the problem)?
 
jaggedben said:
There are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Tesla Gen 3 EV chargers working in houses with AFCI breakers without issues
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There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of cases of AFCI breakers nuisance tripping. I would suspect the breaker as the problem first and put a problem with the car at the bottom of the list, on the last page, at the end of the book.
 
yo_ryco said:
I agree with your thought process. I also agree that the charger does not contain any power electronics (to my knowledge).
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With home charging all the AC to DC conversion is done by the car. I could envision an AFCI tripping because of it. I have up close and personal experience with a new Samsung refrigerator causing one to trip.
yo_ryco said:
I have an appointment set up with the homeowner to check the gen. of the breakers. That being said, my question is who pays for me to go check the breakers, and then install newer breakers (if Eaton tells me the breakers are the problem)?
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Good luck getting Eaton to pay any labor. They may send you a breaker at no charge.
 
I did speak with the homeowner today. He dialed the charger back to 80% as recommended by Eaton. After about 30 minutes of charging, a total of 10 breakers have tripped...including the one I left in the panel with no load attached to it. The homeowner reported the same problem as before - when the car charger is operating, the manual trip buttons on the breakers does not operate.
 
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