[Rthol21]

I just got my Ford Lightning Platinum last Thursday and already have serious issues. At first the at home charger would not work at any one of my 3 110V outlets that were accessible. So I had an electrician come out and install a 240v outlet, same situation. Amber light, Ford Pass says “plugged in not charging”. I have been on a few trouble shooting calls with ford and took it into the dealer yesterday where they gave me a new at home charger. Guess what, same problem exists. I have now paid for an electrician to come out to my house twice and took the truck to the dealership one week in with no resolution. Pretty frustrating to have to go to a charging station and pay to charge this. Anyone else experience this?

 

[R.I.P.]

I just got my Ford Lightning Platinum last Thursday and already have serious issues. At first the at home charger would not work at any one of my 3 110V outlets that were accessible. So I had an electrician come out and install a 240v outlet, same situation. Amber light, Ford Pass says “plugged in not charging”. I have been on a few trouble shooting calls with ford and took it into the dealer yesterday where they gave me a new at home charger. Guess what, same problem exists. I have now paid for an electrician to come out to my house twice and took the truck to the dealership one week in with no resolution. Pretty frustrating to have to go to a charging station and pay to charge this. Anyone else experience this?

Test #1. Try charging the vehicle at a different L2 charger, there are usually a number of them in any town. If it charges, the problem is likely not the vehicle.
Test #2. Try the mobile cord at a friend's house. If the vehicle charges, the problem is not the mobile cord, it is an issue with the wiring in your home; usually a ground issue. If the EVSE does not work, it is probably the mobile cord. Ford's mobile cords do not have a stellar track record. There is a proximity switch in the end that connects to the vehicle that if faulty, will not allow the unit to provide power (among other things that I have seen fail on them).

This test sequence will let you get back to Ford with some better information.

 

[Voltz]

So I had an electrician come out and install a 240v outlet, same situation. Amber light, Ford Pass says “plugged in not charging”.

What size circuit did your electrician install? As above, best test is to find somewhere that has the same receptacle that you can plug your replacement EVSE in and attempt to charge the truck.

 

[Rthol21]

I just got my Ford Lightning Platinum last Thursday and already have serious issues. At first the at home charger would not work at any one of my 3 110V outlets that were accessible. So I had an electrician come out and install a 240v outlet, same situation. Amber light, Ford Pass says “plugged in not charging”. I have been on a few trouble shooting calls with ford and took it into the dealer yesterday where they gave me a new at home charger. Guess what, same problem exists. I have now paid for an electrician to come out to my house twice and took the truck to the dealership one week in with no resolution. Pretty frustrating to have to go to a charging station and pay to charge this. Anyone else experience this?

Thanks for the responses so far. I have had to go to a couple different charging stations to charge already otherwise I would have a dead truck. It in fact does charge at other stations. Electricians have tested the outlets each time they have been out and it’s putting out appropriate power so I have no clue what else it could be?

 

[R.I.P.]

Thanks for the responses so far. I have had to go to a couple different charging stations to charge already otherwise I would have a dead truck. It in fact does charge at other stations. Electricians have tested the outlets each time they have been out and it’s putting out appropriate power so I have no clue what else it could be?

Well, then complete the testing recommended. You did #1, it charges at "other" L2s. Now, use your mobile cord in an outlet away from your home. If it works, it is your home's wiring, regardless of what your electrician says. If it does not work on other outlets, it is you mobile EVSE. Get rid of the Ford cord, and get a higher quality cord. At $200, the Tesla mobile cord is hard to beat for quality, features and price.

 

[Voltz]

It in fact does charge at other stations.

Is there a possibility that you have built a geofence around your home charging by setting up a target state-of-charge that is too low to start charging? Or, a preferred schedule that cannot be kept because you specified using a utility time-of-use rate?

 

[Leaf to Lightning : )]

A 'yellow/amber' set of lights is confusing, as I've never seen that. It sounds almost as though the truck is not ALLOWING the incoming power to be used since it could be sensing something amiss, such as a dropped neutral or something, although, quite frankly, it seems the EVSE itself would already be having an issue with that, as well. If the truck is charging elsewhere, it's NOT the truck. If your EVSE works anywhere else, it's NOT your EVSE. Therefore, it MUST be your home.

 

[HellBoy]

you likely have an issue with your home wiring and potentially your panel - the charger is intelligent, if it detects a fault it won't start the charging process to avoid a bigger problem - like a fire....
is it possible your ground is disconnected? neutral not operating or not set up correctly? what kind of panel do you have?

I would honestly get the opinion of a different licensed electrician to confirm neutral, ground, panel state, wiring state, etc...

the truck is not the problem otherwise you'd unable to charge at the L2 stations - you can also try to go to a friend's home and check if the truck will charge there - assuming their home is up to modern standards - the truck should charge.

 

[ChasingCoral]

Thanks for the responses so far. I have had to go to a couple different charging stations to charge already otherwise I would have a dead truck. It in fact does charge at other stations. Electricians have tested the outlets each time they have been out and it’s putting out appropriate power so I have no clue what else it could be?

Just to confirm: have you charged at Level 2 chargers or DC Fast Chargers?

 

[Leaf to Lightning : )]

interesting that he stated that the first 120v outlets he tried with, what I assume is, the Ford Mobile Charger, with the 120v adapter, and gets the same 'amber' light ring as when he now tries a NEW 240v outlet, with the mobile charger and it's 240v adapter plug. Interesting conundrum. A 'second' replacement mobile charger gives the same unfortunate feedback. Aggravating.

and, yes, ChasingCoral has a good question: did the other chargers that worked provide DC Fast Charging, which uses a different charging protocol, or was it an L2 240v charger, as well?

 

[douglas]

Are you making the connection in the correct order? Plug charger into outlet first. Then you need to wait 10 seconds or so for blue light on charger. Then plug it into the truck.

 

[Justjoe]

A 'yellow/amber' set of lights is confusing, as I've never seen that. It sounds almost as though the truck is not ALLOWING the incoming power to be used since it could be sensing something amiss, such as a dropped neutral or something, although, quite frankly, it seems the EVSE itself would already be having an issue with that, as well. If the truck is charging elsewhere, it's NOT the truck. If your EVSE works anywhere else, it's NOT your EVSE. Therefore, it MUST be your home.

You have probably checked this but I thought I would mention it on this thread. Before I installed the FCP I was using the 240v plug in charger with the wall mount clip installed. The truck was having trouble charging consistently until I moved the wall mount clip to minimize strain on the inlet side of the charger plug. The plug in at the top of the charger did not look lose but after I unplugged it and plugged it back in with the wall mount clip in the correct position it started to charge ok.

 

[Rthol21]

Just to confirm: have you charged at Level 2 chargers or DC Fast Chargers?

Yup! Have the 240v outlet on a dedicated circuit, having the electrician come out again tomorrow to look into it further. I think the issue is grounding for it. At least that’s what I’m hoping for cost wise

 

[Rthol21]

So testing the outlets in my garage (including the 240v I had installed) they all have correct power coming out 120v and 240v but the at home charger (2nd one) still gets the amber color and won’t charge. I got a 10/3 50 ext cord and plugged into an outlet right below my panel on the other side of the house. Sure enough, blue light and while it says my Truck will be done Charging at 6:34pm on Thursday I at least can charge a bit and am narrowing down the list of potential issues. Hoping it’s grounding for the 240 outlet

 

[Voltz]

I got a 10/3 50 ext cord and plugged into an outlet right below my panel on the other side of the house.

Keep your eyes on it. The Ford Mobile is a continuous 30A load.

 

[HellBoy]

So testing the outlets in my garage (including the 240v I had installed) they all have correct power coming out 120v and 240v but the at home charger (2nd one) still gets the amber color and won’t charge. I got a 10/3 50 ext cord and plugged into an outlet right below my panel on the other side of the house. Sure enough, blue light and while it says my Truck will be done Charging at 6:34pm on Thursday I at least can charge a bit and am narrowing down the list of potential issues. Hoping it’s grounding for the 240 outlet

could be grounding, could be neutral, could be wiring…

good thing the truck refused to charge, could have caused a much bigger issue…

 

[Jim Salinsky]

I have the same problem, my mobile power cord would sometimes work but more often I got the amber light. It turned out to be a bad ground. The electrician relied on the conduit to do the ground rather than wiring a separate ground wire. He came back, ran a dedicated ground wire, and now it’s working perfectly.

 

[Eclectic]

How would the EVSE recognize that a ground was missing or insufficient? Neutral and Ground should probably have a zero Voltage difference, I think. The Tesla J1772 wall connector only has the two hots (240Vac) and a ground coming in. Not sure how it powers a communication circuit with another wall connector box to share power, without a neutral.

 

[R.I.P.]

How would the EVSE recognize that a ground was missing or insufficient? Neutral and Ground should probably have a zero Voltage difference, I think. The Tesla J1772 wall connector only has the two hots (240Vac) and a ground coming in. Not sure how it powers a communication circuit with another wall connector box to share power, without a neutral.

The EVSE verifies that there is a 0v spread between the neutral and ground, and that they are bonded. It will error out if both are not met. It is improper bonding that seems to be a problem in some home wiring.

A way to test to see if the ground bonding is your problem is to run a jumper between the neutral and ground at the outlet. If this solves the error, your circuit is improperly bonded.

 

[grumpy]

The EVSE verifies that there is a 0v spread between the neutral and ground, and that they are bonded. It will error out if both are not met. It is improper bonding that seems to be a problem in some home wiring.

I assume a typical charger also includes a GFCI? Checking if there are loss of current?