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Charging cable life span

Discussion in 'Prime Plug-in Charging' started by mdhare, Feb 10, 2017.

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  1. mdhare

    mdhare Member

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    plug in newbie here. Still waiting for my Premium to arrive, glancing through the Prime manual (pg 110 of OM47A88U.pdf), regarding the CCID, what is the "Charging cable life span" and how much does this cable cost? I'm talking about for L1 charging. Wikipedia claims the J1772 connector is good for 10,000 matings, if that's what we're talking about for lifetime I'm not really worried but if we're talking far less my eyebrows are starting to raise a bit.
     
  2. priuscatprimeguy

    priuscatprimeguy Senior Member

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  3. mr88cet

    mr88cet Senior Member

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    Quick back-of-the-envelope calculation: If you charge to get to work, charge to get home, and every other day, do a top-off charge for some evening errands, doing that 365 days per year, 10K matings will get you through about 11 years.
     
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  4. Rmay635703

    Rmay635703 Senior Member

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    This is true unless your car is outside in freezing sleeting conditions, winter wreaks years of life off stuff
     
  5. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    it's been 5 years, and i haven't heard of any pip cables failing yet. we had this discussion back then too. and new cables were $5 or 600. now $300.? and if you ever do need one, they'll probably be a hundred bucks. i wonder what happens to the salvage cables?
     
  6. ukr2

    ukr2 Senior Member

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    On my old PIP, the only problem I had was the orange O-Ring slipped and restricted plugging into the car. I removed the O-Ring and it worked ok. Had my old PIP for 5 years and the charging cable was fine.
     
  7. mdhare

    mdhare Member

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    Thanks all. I'll check with the dealer see what I can find out. I'm not worried about 3 cents a click over 10000 clicks, but if the lifespan is defined in a non favorable way (ie, lets say it was time based in some magical way) that could really change the cost of this vs the legacy Prius for us as we don't drive everyday.

    There is a definite answer because the manual clearly indicates that the CCID "knows" when the charging cable is nearing the end of its usable life span. Big question; will Toyota share it? I don't want a fire as much as the next guy, but this reminds me of inket printer cartridges and not in a good way.
     
  8. I'mJp

    I'mJp Senior Member

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    Probably about the same lifespan as the socket on the car.
     
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  9. mdhare

    mdhare Member

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    Picked up our Premium yesterday. Local Toyota rep claims the cable is targeted for a 15 year lifespan but didn't have details on how exactly the CCID knows when its lifetime is almost up. He said the cable is covered by the 3 year bumper/bumper, not the 8 year hybrid warranty.
     
  10. PT Guy

    PT Guy Senior Member

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    The SAE J1772 plug would be easy to replace. Finding one might be the hardest part. It's only four conductors. Easy. (The fifth pin is just a proximity pin that tells the car's charger that the cord is plugged in and ready to charge.)

    "Local Toyota rep claims the cable is targeted for a 15 year lifespan"
    Know when car salesmen tell the truth? When they're in the little booth and say, "Father forgive me...."
     
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  11. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    can you clarify your first sentence? are you saying you might cancel your order and buy a non plug in if you have to replace the cable very 10 years?
     
  12. mdhare

    mdhare Member

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    We took delivery (Smart Motors NY dealer trade) so the point is moot. I'm not worried about every 10 years, I just wanted the data because it informs a buyer (and likely puts them at ease).

    So, TLDR, I'm sure it's number of clicks, but I was really curious how many. Like I pointed out, J1772 is rated to 10000 pairings so if that's what the CCID is bombing out at, I'll let you know if it is true if I'm still around to drive my 2017 Prime in 2067 :)

    No, what I was trying to say; since the manual says the CCID "warns" when the lifespan is over, somewhere there exists an engineer that can define what a lifespan is. I'm a numbers guy, I like numbers. Is it number of clicks, some kind of active cable test fails, number of years that have passed, number of KWH charged, or something else? The fact they don't publish the details makes me wonder if the terms are not favorable in some way.

    We don't drive every day, so lets say I charge about 200 times a year.

    For an arguments sake, let's say it was 1000 clicks (picked a very low number for effect). If you charge several times a day, 1000 clicks would be a surprise/bummer. In reality it's probably something like 5000 or 10000 cycles (it would be the simplest thing to implement) and I'll never reach 5000 over the lifetime of the car.

    For arguments sake, let's say instead it is 5 year time bomb on the CCID (almost certainly not, how could the CCID really know this without some complicated electronics). But keep with me, if the CCID costs $250 [probably more for OEM] and I click 1000 times, it cost me $0.25 a click just for the CCID, not the kwh. So a time bomb would punish infrequent users. Obviously, this skews the economics a bit when my electricity is 16.5c kwh (green energy surcharge) and gas is at $2.25.

    If it's an active cable test, and the more gentle I am on the cable, the longer the CCID lasts. That's something completely in my control.
     
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  13. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    I suspect one of two possible scenarios.
    1) The cable has some circuitry to test the conductance of the wires and integrity of the insulation. If it fails the test, the system refuses to charge and gives a message saying the cable has failed. this could at least partly explain the delay after you plug it in before it starts charging.
    2) One of the conductors develops an open and it simply won't charge, or two conductors short and they trip either the gfci or the circuit breaker.
    That's just guessing, but I don't know why they would build in extra complexity.
     
  14. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    how do you sleep at night.:p
     
  15. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    funny thing is, we had this same thread with the pip. one guy found the info in the o/m, and a thousand posts later, we hadn't settled anything.:cool:
     
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  16. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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  17. Lee Jay

    Lee Jay Senior Member

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    Since that would require two separate technologies (surge tester and TDR) typically costing thousands of dollars each, I think we can rule that one out.
     
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  18. Since2002

    Since2002 Senior Lurker

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    I tend to doubt that Wikipedia's unreferenced statement about 10,000 matings is all that relevant. Since they don't give a source it's hard to determine what exactly is meant by that, my guess is that this is a minimum that a manufacturer has to meet in order to claim they meet the standard, not a "do not exceed". Otherwise after 10,000 matings not only would a light illuminate on the cable, but a light would also come on the dash informing you that you have to bring the vehicle in for service to get the connector on the car replaced. The car would need to keep it's own separate matings count since different cables might be plugged into the car, for example if the original cable was lost or damaged and had to be replaced, or if you bought an L2 cable for home and used the L1 cable at work.

    And anyway the manual refers to number of charges, not number of matings. Isn't that the same you may ask? Not necessarily, since you might plug it in when you get home expecting to charge later, but then later decide not to (or forget). Also to initiate Charge Now without having to select this mode in the MFD the manual mentions that you can connect the cable, disconnect, and connect again within five seconds and it will immediately start charging. Even though that's two matings, it's only one charge cycle.

    My guess is the concern is more about the circuitry that is built into the cable, especially since that circuitry is part of what allows or disallows power to flow. And since the cable will quite possibly be plugged into uncontrolled power sources I would guess that they built voltage regulation and surge suppression into the cable. All of which has a limited lifetime and I would think this is why they put a limit on the number of charges. The only mystery is why Toyota for some reason chooses not to state what that number is.
     
  19. Lee Jay

    Lee Jay Senior Member

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    Correct.
     
  20. Rebound

    Rebound Senior Member

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    I believe I read that there's a counter inside the cable electronics which disables it after 10,000 pairings, which is over 13 years of twice a day pairings.