Today I drove down south in my oil-burning Honda CRX to check on a few of the RAC EH chargers.
First stop Harvey where I replaced the broken CCS Combo latch with a new, 3D printed one. It appears to work, but won't know till Joseph goes for another tour down south.
While I was taking the broken one out, this little guy abseiled out to safety...
Then on to Donnybrook where a suspected IGBT error needed to be fully diagnosed. I de-powered it and had a coffee in the 10 minutes it takes to fully discharge. Testing all of the diodes means taking the huge input capacitor bank out so you can remove the busbars linking them. They all showed the right forward voltages, and nothing in reverse, so they're probably okay. Likewise with the output filter diodes, and the bridge rectifier diodes.
Finally the snubber diode was checked, and it too is up to spec.
So there's a good chance it just needed a hard restart, but I didn't have an EV to attempt a DC fast charge. Hopefully we can know more soon.
I then replaced the CCS Combo latch - it too was broken before it was even commissioned.
Remember folks: Press the button in before yanking on it!!!
A few pictures of the Donnybrook charger site:
My poor old CRX is not quite ready for an electric heart...
Still, it should be operational, and remember, if you see red LEDs in the distance, just follow the instructions and reset it.
AEVA National Secretary, WA branch chair.