Possible problem with BMW i WallBox!

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Myi3

New member
Joined
May 1, 2014
Messages
4
I wonder if there has been have had any reported issues with BMW charging unit like me this morning?

Last night the delayed off-peak charge did not work, so I could not use the car this morning. Apparently it rained heavy during the night - not sure if that may be effecting the unit.

The BMW i WallBox unit is flashing red and pressing the button for 5 seconds or more reverts it to green for just a fraction of a second and reverts back to flashing Red. Please note that this is when the car is not connected to the unit.

I have informed BMW- Schneider Customer Care – but just want to make sure the issue is at the box and not the car?

I guess until the box is fixed if faulty I would be charging the car at night with 13 amp plug ;)

BTW we love our i3 :)
 
Hi Myi3 (& welcome to the forum).

In a word... yes.

Fenlander started a thread about it so please could you add your comments in there ?

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=811

I'm going through a variety of charging niggles at the moment. I've had my wallbox replaced (all done within 2 days, very impressive) and my car was at my dealers for 6 days last week but they still haven't got to the bottom of it. I haven't posted much about it here, mainly because we haven't figured out what the cause is so I didn't want to start suggesting problems with the wallbox when it might be the car (or vice versa).

I've got a long email where I summarised my issues which I can share with you if you want? Send me a PM if that'd be of any use.
 
Plug said:
I'm going through a variety of charging niggles at the moment. I've had my wallbox replaced (all done within 2 days, very impressive) and my car was at my dealers for 6 days last week but they still haven't got to the bottom of it. I haven't posted much about it here, mainly because we haven't figured out what the cause is so I didn't want to start suggesting problems with the wallbox when it might be the car (or vice versa).

Many thanks @Plug

Considering I have successfully charged the car up off peak for 2 weeks - I am inclined to think;

1- Software glitch
2- Something to do with the heavy rain last night.

Having said that, the car is a brand new concept and so is the WallBox - I am very happy to beta test both until BMW fix the issue how ever long it may take! We had accepted the notion when we purchased our lovely little i3. We own 2 other BMWs X5 and 3 Series Convertible and we have not driven either of them for 4 weeks ;)

In the mean time I will probably use my 13 amp main plug in the garage to charge off peak during the night using economy 7, as I don't want to charge during the day as electric costs are 3 times more.

#tryingtogogreen
 
Myi3 said:
Having said that, the car is a brand new concept and so is the WallBox - I am very happy to beta test both until BMW fix the issue how ever long it may take!
Yes, I'm pretty chilled about it too as I expected a few niggles and BMW have been very helpful so far in trying to figure it out. Saying that, the REx makes charging issues a lot easier to cope with, I'm sure I'd be more worried if I had the BEV as getting to the car in the morning and finding it hasn't charged would be much more of a problem without the REx back-up.

I too have been using the 13 amp plug charging method in the meantime and I'm a bit surprised by how easy it is. In fact, I could probably live without a 32A charger quite happily.
 
Plug said:
Myi3 said:
I too have been using the 13 amp plug charging method in the meantime and I'm a bit surprised by how easy it is. In fact, I could probably live without a 32A charger quite happily.

@plug >> Theoretically speaking you are right - so long you have the range extender you don't necessarily need the iWALL and the 13 amp plug is enough.<<

Having said that, since We have a second car and now I know that it is simple enough to just reset the iWALL if it trips again, I charged the i3 as before on economy timer through the iWALL. And this morning all was fine with i3 fully charged at 7:40am and nice and warm for my wife to take the kids to school ;)

I am more inclined now to think the issue is the wetness on the night the iWALL tripped as it was rather wet. Water in the iWALL system or even on the connection to the car can perhaps cause enough change in the resistance between live and earth to cause the iWALL to trip.

SG
 
Presume your wallbox is installed outside then ?

With the delayed charging, do you pay attention to when it actually starts ? I don't know why but mine starts way too early.

For example, I have the tariff time set from 00:30am to 6am and the departure set at 8am. If I charge using the wallbox it will start charging at about 11pm and with the 13 am plug it starts about 9:30pm. It wouldn't even need that long if the car was starting from 0% (which it isn't) so I can't figure it out and just wondered if anyone else had experienced that.
 
Plug said:
Presume your wallbox is installed outside then ?

With the delayed charging, do you pay attention to when it actually starts ? I don't know why but mine starts way too early.

I am a software engineer in my day job - I would love to be able to write Apps for the i3 - IMHO iOS or Android type API so third party could build Apps would be great and really expand the possibilities! (I am sure the Germans would not Concur with this notion;)

@Plug - I have not found that - Last night I visited the i3 just before 12:00 am and it had not started - This morning it was fully charged :) and Yes our iWALL is outside on the side of the house as we have separate Garage and to far from the Main E. Board

My i3 is about 4 weeks old - chances are it is using a different version of the software to your i3 - May be you could ask BMW if there is an update?

I will have some time this weekend to have a good look at Usability aspects of the Software. I will write about it if there is something obvious that could improve!

SG
 
Myi3 said:
My i3 is about 4 weeks old - chances are it is using a different version of the software to your i3 - May be you could ask BMW if there is an update?
That's one of the things they did last week when my i3 was at the dealers. I didn't expect it to fix the main charging issue that I have but I was hoping it'd fix the problem with the delayed charging starting too early. Unfortunately it didn't :(
 
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