Q: What makes this product innovative?
A: Well, anytime you're dealing with a plug-in hybrid or a full-fledged EV vehicle, whenever you get a customer complaint of “This won't accept the charge,” or maybe “It accepts a charge, but it's at a very slow rate of speed,” primarily, you have to go ahead and diagnose the two main circuits on the charging circuit, which are the proximity detection as well as a control pilot circuit, and a lot of times, your scan tool will pull up that data for you. But if there's a problem with the vehicle accepting a charge, that data becomes blank.
So, depending on your scan tool manufacturer, it's either going to read zeroes or possibly N/A or whatever the case happens to be. At that point, you have to go out and do some pinpoint circuit testing on the PD and circuit. And one of the first steps in most scenarios like that would be to test the proximity detection circuit, which is a whole bunch of different resistance tests and a couple voltage tests. But in order to do that, you have to open the circuit between the charging plug and the onboard charger. Well, on a lot of vehicles, this onboard charger could be virtually anywhere. Some vehicles, it's nice and easy to do. But the majority of them, like the first time I had to do it was on a Chevy Volt, and I had to take the front bumper cover off, which then necessitated an ADAS calibration after I put it back together. And very seldom is it ever that problem, but that's step one in the diagnostic process. So that's what makes it innovative, its ability to save the shop time and make your job a little easier diagnosing these types of complaints.
Q: What was the inspiration behind creating the kit?
A: After the Chevy Volt that was the first one I had to take the bumper cover off, the next one happened to be a Tesla, and on that particular vehicle, the onboard charger is located underneath the back seat, and that wasn't that big of a deal to do, but after the second one, I said, “I don't want to keep taking cars apart to diagnose right.” So that was my main innovation, just as a working technician, to save me time and energy of having to diagnose this stuff.
Q: How does this product improve the lives of technicians and shop owners?
A: Well, you have one of two possibilities in that scenario. You either have a problem with the with the actual EVSE, the charger itself, or you have a problem on the car side. And there's a lot of companies out there that make an EVSE tester. I kind of dumbed it down, for lack of a better term, for the automotive industry because the manufacturers that make the EVSE testers, they're made for electricians. So you can simulate a ground, you can simulate a whole bunch of different wiring type of scenarios; whereas a mechanic, the only thing we're really concerned about is, “Is the charger good?” So I went ahead and I made a two-part kit, which is the EV Detective kit.
First one, you basically just plug the EVSE, the charger, into the box. A little green light should come on. I've got some exposed terminals if you want to measure the 110V circuit or the 220V circuit, but it's not like the customer's ever going to ask you to come over and rewire their charger for them if you determine that was a problem. A lot of shops, that first part of the kit isn't really even that necessary because a lot of shops could just call up their local parts store, order a Level 1 charger, a 110 charger, and if the vehicle starts to charge, then they could safely assume that it's probably a problem with the charger. Where it's really kind of unique is the second box, which is in essence a glorified breakout box. So you will plug the second box into the charging port on the car with all the various plugs, whether you got a Tesla plug or if you got a J1772 plug, and then you plug the charger into the box and then all five of the main terminals are easily exposed. You could use either a digital voltmeter or lab scope and you can go ahead and access the 110 voltages and the 220 voltages. But that's very seldom ever the problem, it’s usually a problem with the PD or CP circuits. So you go through and follow the manufacturer's procedures of diagnosing those circuits and you can do step-by-step diagnostics without having to go ahead and take whatever you got to take apart on the car to get to it. Plus, it's safer this way too, because as you are well aware, the orange wiring and the stuff that has to do with high voltage -- even though the CP circuit is just basically a 12V signal and it varies, you could go all the way to –12 -- it's not easy to gain access to it, and even if you're trying to use back probe connectors and stuff like that, usually those terminals are such that even the traditional back probing terminals that we have in our scope kits and meter kits aren't really long enough to make a connection there, so overall, it's just a huge time saver for a shop.
Q: What's the feedback been like from technicians who have purchased this tool?
A: We've had several schools across the country, even in some of the European countries and up in Canada, we've also had other national training organizations, as well as repair shops, all purchase the tool, and so far, the feedback’s all been very positive. It was a simple concept, a simple idea. And you know, I was just fortunate enough to be the one that decided, “Hey, I could do it, there's got to be a better way to diagnose these.
Q: Anything else that our readers should know?
A: The only other things I can think of, there’s my YouTube channel, which is Electron John - The Drivability Guy. There is a video of this kit being used on there. If somebody's interested to see how to use it or if they just want to know how to diagnose a charging type of complaint, they could watch that. The number one question I get all the time is, “Hey, how do I order one of these things?” because, although I work for a national company, my personal training company, A.S.T. Training, is just me. I have no marketing -- I have nothing. So in essence, they have to basically call me. I mean, it's not for sale online anywhere. There's a little article about it on my website, but they could just reach out to call me, and I offer educational discounts and stuff. I didn't really do it to make $1,000,000 selling these. I did it primarily because I needed it for my own service repairs and then, if other people can benefit from it, I'll be more than happy to make them up a kit and send it out to them.
