V2L discharge specs, 60Hz output on Australian MG MG4 EV

[MGMG4GK]

I couldn't find anything about standards that govern V2L output specifications for the MG MG4 in Australia. To me, the MG is a mobile inverter which can deliver AC power to loads and wouldn't be any different to a standalone inverter hooked up to a battery.

I recently got a V2L adapter and one of the first things I did was plug in a power meter that can measure voltage, current, power, PF, frequency.

I was a bit surprised at the output readings.

1. No load voltage is 215Vac (which is a bit low for Australian standards). Minimum is 218V up to 252V (240V +5%/-10%)
2. Frequency is 60Hz, which is more alarming because Australian grid frequency is 50 Hz.

Some appliances will malfunction or fail at 60Hz.

Just wondering if anyone else has picked up on this? I will be emailing MG for their comments on this.

 

[decrep]

I've been thinking of getting one, and I must say I'm also very surprised, I thought I'd read specs much closer to Aussie standards. I'm fairly sure UK and most of Europe runs at 50Hz.

It seems unlikely, but I wonder if it's a no-load thing, Will your meter work if it's under load? A kettle won't mind 60Hz but may be very slow to boil at 215 V.

Looks like the UK version is 60Hz 220V. I'd be reluctant to run any motors off that, could burn them out.

 

[MGMG4GK]

I've been thinking of getting one, and I must say I'm also very surprised, I thought I'd read specs much closer to Aussie standards. I'm fairly sure UK and most of Europe runs at 50Hz.

It seems unlikely, but I wonder if it's a no-load thing, Will your meter work if it's under load? A kettle won't mind 60Hz but may be very slow to boil at 215 V.

The meter is a passthru type with a plug. I will have to use the multimeter (needs new battery) and measure the voltage and frequency with a load/no load. Could be the plugmeter may not be very accurate. Although, I wonder if the output is a pure sine wave inverter or modified sine wave. But trying to find specs on the V2L inverter is not easy.

Looks like the UK version is 60Hz 220V. I'd be reluctant to run any motors off that, could burn them out.

No doubt... I've run a kettle and a small heater (resistive). No issues with that but load power is lower as the voltage was only 215Vac.

I guess most electronic devices like computers/laptops/phones have powerpacks that accept mult-voltage input and dual frequency support ..... eg. a lot of them are 100Vac-240Vac with 50-60Hz. These should work fine without issue (haven't tried it yet though).

The concern would for devices that must run at 50Hz. Like my main house fridge is labelled at 240v/50Hz. I wouldn't be game to run it from V2L in a blackout. This would be an essential item to keep running in a blackout.

 

[kiwi]

You have the wrong resistor in your V2L cable. The resistor appears to set the output voltage, frequency, and max load. For Aust/NZ cable see my post here:

V2L - we have ignition

Home made V2L cable in time for New Year’s BBQ: The cable is made out of a Phoenix Contact CCS AC charging cable I scored on a local auction site. The yellow outdoor weather proof cord socket is from a local hardware. The cable’s existing 680 ohm ID resistor (sets AC charge rate to 20A)...

www.mgevs.com

The output voltage with this configuration is limited to 217V so I expect the 2000 ohm value is nominal 220V 50Hz.

 

[Coulomb]

I wonder if the output is a pure sine wave inverter or modified sine wave.

At a guess, it would be a pure sine wave. You have filers and electronics there for drawing a pure sine wave of current for the Power Factor Correction stage, so making a pure sine wave for output should not be too hard.

 

[MGMG4GK]

You have the wrong resistor in your V2L cable. The resistor appears to set the output voltage, frequency, and max load. For Aust/NZ cable see my post here:

V2L - we have ignition

Home made V2L cable in time for New Year’s BBQ: The cable is made out of a Phoenix Contact CCS AC charging cable I scored on a local auction site. The yellow outdoor weather proof cord socket is from a local hardware. The cable’s existing 680 ohm ID resistor (sets AC charge rate to 20A)...

www.mgevs.com

The output voltage with this configuration is limited to 217V so I expect the 2000 ohm value is nominal 220V 50Hz.

The V2L cable/adapter is the official one sold by MG in Australia.

 

[decrep]

The V2L cable/adapter is the official one sold by MG in Australia.

Do we trust MG to get it right? If I had a frequency tester, I'd be game to try changing the resistor, if you can get into the cable without damaging it

 

[tsedge]

I'd have thought a 50Hz to 60Hz difference would be within the tolerance range of most/all equipment, especially as grids dynamically vary frequency to manage loads and maintain voltage. A widely different voltage would be much more of an issue.

Is this a case of one size fits all?

 

[kiwi]

Well my home brew cable delivers 50Hz on both the MG4 and MG ZS EV.

Can you meter the PP PE resistor value? Maybe double check the frequency?

 

[decrep]

Transformers and motors don't like too much frequency variation, but my theory is almost 60 years old now, so it's all a bit vague.
If it's a synchronous motor it's going to run about 20% fast.
Electric wall clocks run on mains frequency, so relies on frequency being very close. The utilities here had to make sure over a 24hr period they had the correct number of cycles.

 

[DixieTGS]

Can you meter the PP PE resistor value? Maybe double check the frequency?

Just for reference, using a £15 V2L adaptor plug I get:
Resistor 1.989K from volt meter, 2K on resistor.
Voltage 215.7 from meter. RMS
Voltage 290 from a scope. Peak to peak.
Frequency 50.5 Hz from scope.
I took an image of the waveform but was too sunny and I couldn't shade it very well.

From the mains I got 241, 330, 49.95.
The waveform looks very odd with straightish lines between peaks and flat tops. Nearby solar generation maybe?

Anyway the MG looks like a better sine wave to me but a rather low voltage.

 

[decrep]

Weird, Whenever I've looked at the mains it's been a perfect sine wave.

But I query your "peak to peak", it looks more like peak to 0 to me.

I have a theory that your scope is cropping the top of the mains wave form.
Peak voltage for 241vRMS should be 341v so you have 11v missing at the top of the wave form. Try using a higher range, that should stop the cropping, unless it's happening at the input,

 

[decrep]

It's a similar thing for the inverter, although it looks better, peak voltage for 215.7 (x1.414) is 305 So if that is RMS it's missing 15v

 

[MGMG4GK]

I'd have thought a 50Hz to 60Hz difference would be within the tolerance range of most/all equipment, especially as grids dynamically vary frequency to manage loads and maintain voltage. A widely different voltage would be much more of an issue.

Is this a case of one size fits all?

Australian grid frequency variation is very, very, tight, usually within 0.3% (i.e., less than 0.15 Hz), the size of the grid with its inertia will see the grid operate somewhere between 49.85 to 50.15Hz as standard operating range. Any excursions outside of this range will call for FCAS to come into play (FCAS in Australia is Frequency Control & Ancillary Services).

For a standalone inverter, having a 50hz or a 60Hz inverter is critical as some devices will either do nothing (eg resistive loads like kettles), speed up or slow down (like record players) or overheat due to drawing more current (like some motors).

Voltage tolerances are much greater than frequency. In Australia, grid voltage can be as low as 218Vac to as high as 252Vac which is within +5% to -10% range allowed at 240Vac the distribution networks in Australia.
***** Edit - just remembered that standards changed to 230Vac +10% to -6% which is 253Vac to 216Vac. 240V was abandoned a few years ago. But still very much present on my local grid (usually between 240V and 252V most days). Occasionally, it might drop down below 230V.

Modern powerpacks can handle 100Vac-240Vac 50/60Hz ac input. They're not an issue.

 

[Coulomb]

Whenever I've looked at the mains it's been a perfect sine wave.

In my last job, I spent a lot of time looking at the mains at a university. It was horrible, far from a sine wave. Clipped peaks, third harmonic distortion, and just lumpy.

It's not unusual to see the peaks flattened; that's because of a bunch of cheap and nasty power supplies (e.g. in PCs, if not designed for compliance in Europe) that rectify the mains and filter with a capacitor; these draw power only at the peaks. All higher power devices like EV on-board chargers have to have a Power Factor Correction stage that forces the current drawn to be sinusoidal, avoiding this problem, but the proliferation of small devices still causes noticeable clipping.

I suspect that many compact fluoros and probably inexpensive LED lights contribute to this peak clipping, though they may have tiny PFC chips these days.

Edit: Of course, Western Australia has a completely separate power grid to the rest of Australia. It's possible that it has cleaner mains than elsewhere.

 

[wattmatters]

Mine is definitely 50 Hz, tested several times. Here it is tested with a bar radiator. Voltage is a bit low at ~216-217 V. Australian standard is 216-253 V AC (230 V -6% to +10%).

 

[wattmatters]

I'd put the scope on it to check the waveform but all my step down isolation voltage transformers are in use for my Iotawatt and I'm in no hurry to take one out of use just to do this test. It's not safe to test otherwise, and the peak voltage is outside the limit of my scope's input rating.

 

[decrep]

Coulomb.
When I'm talking about looking at scope wave forms, it was last century, before all these modern, clipping gadgets were around. So all my posts in this regard are severely dated.

 

[tsedge]

Australian grid frequency variation is very, very, tight, usually within 0.3% (i.e., less than 0.15 Hz), the size of the grid with its inertia will see the grid operate somewhere between 49.85 to 50.15Hz as standard operating range. Any excursions outside of this range will call for FCAS to come into play (FCAS in Australia is Frequency Control & Ancillary Services).

For a standalone inverter, having a 50hz or a 60Hz inverter is critical as some devices will either do nothing (eg resistive loads like kettles), speed up or slow down (like record players) or overheat due to drawing more current (like some motors).

Voltage tolerances are much greater than frequency. In Australia, grid voltage can be as low as 218Vac to as high as 252Vac which is within +5% to -10% range allowed at 240Vac the distribution networks in Australia.
***** Edit - just remembered that standards changed to 230Vac +10% to -6% which is 253Vac to 216Vac. 240V was abandoned a few years ago. But still very much present on my local grid (usually between 240V and 252V most days). Occasionally, it might drop down below 230V.

Modern powerpacks can handle 100Vac-240Vac 50/60Hz ac input. They're not an issue.

Thanks for the info. All makes sense.

 

[DixieTGS]

A few further comments about my measurements. I'm not an electronic engineer so don't know if any are relevant to the odd waveforms:

The scope is quite old and was fairly cheap at the time of purchase. I believe it uses ccd's to capture the signals and has an 8 bit A/D for readout. It was on its highest range of 50V/div so may well be at or over its best accuracy range.

For the V2L the waveform was the same with a 40W filament bulb and 2kW kettle which is reassuring. Grid waveform was no load I think, and also at the end of 30m of cable.

If it actually mattered I would go out and measure again when there's no sun. That would take the effects of solar generation out of the equation, and maybe also see if the area under the graph matched the meter reading.