EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) for Home Use

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#3009524 13-Dec-2022 15:47

By the regs, the breaker protects the in-wall wiring, so your 20A breaker and 2.5mm wire will be totally fine for a constant load of 20A.

The charger will only draw 16A max (in reality they often draw a bit less. Mine draws 14.5 from memory) so you've still got 4A you can pull from any of those other sockets.

You're likely to charge overnight, so perhaps those other loads won't even be on at that time? And during the day your charger isn't on so you can pull all 20A out of those other sockets.

In summary, you should be fine by the sounds of it. Again, the sparky can confirm that.

SaltyNZ

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#3009718 14-Dec-2022 08:19

mkissin:

By the regs, the breaker protects the in-wall wiring, so your 20A breaker and 2.5mm wire will be totally fine for a constant load of 20A.

The charger will only draw 16A max (in reality they often draw a bit less. Mine draws 14.5 from memory) so you've still got 4A you can pull from any of those other sockets.

You're likely to charge overnight, so perhaps those other loads won't even be on at that time? And during the day your charger isn't on so you can pull all 20A out of those other sockets.

In summary, you should be fine by the sounds of it. Again, the sparky can confirm that.

Our garage has a 25A feed from the house, plus the much larger feed from the inverter which is active when the sun is shining. I leave the EVSE on 22A and this is fine to charge the car, run the chest freezer and the washing machine all at once, even at night when the inverter is off.

iPad Pro 11" + iPhone 15 Pro Max + 2degrees 4tw!

These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

GV27

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#3009773 14-Dec-2022 09:53

Going to have to check around the house when I get home today to see if there's any sheltered spots for an outdoor 'Provide Shelter' wall unit - which I've already bought.

Carport will be the cheapest to run power to but there is no timber/weatherboard for the unit to be mounted on that I can see under shelter, but I can't see that being an issue an electrician couldn't remedy.

Unit should arrive this weekend so I can take a look at the mounting brackets and then make the call once the electrician has given me an idea of what my options are.

GV27

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#3011534 18-Dec-2022 12:08

So I have a three-pin EVSE that I'm using out the window to charge my ZE1. Namely this one here.

https://shop.driveev.co.nz/collections/wall-chargers/products/portable-type-1-10a-electric-vehicle-charging-cable-evse

The EVSE is showing a temperature of 50 degrees - that can't be the battery pack temperature, the car has been in the car port all day and overnight. So... any tips on what it might be showing me?

I have Leaf Spy Pro but I'm not what the actual battery temperature is as there's almost no labels on the graphs and feeds which is kind of hopeless. There is a temperature one but I can't tell if it's cabin or something else.

mkissin

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#3011553 18-Dec-2022 13:32

It'll be the EVSE temperature. There's no facility for the leaf to send data back to the EVSE so it can't know any car details like that.

Seems hot, but not shockingly so. Is it in the sun?

richms

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#3011554 18-Dec-2022 13:34

Not the plug temperature is it? That is a requirement for some EV chargers to monitor.

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mkissin

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#3011555 18-Dec-2022 13:35

Ah, it could well be the plug temperature.

cthombor

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#3011646 18-Dec-2022 18:58

GV27:

So I have a three-pin EVSE that I'm using out the window to charge my ZE1. Namely this one here.

https://shop.driveev.co.nz/collections/wall-chargers/products/portable-type-1-10a-electric-vehicle-charging-cable-evse

The EVSE is showing a temperature of 50 degrees - that can't be the battery pack temperature, the car has been in the car port all day and overnight. So... any tips on what it might be showing me?

I have Leaf Spy Pro but I'm not what the actual battery temperature is as there's almost no labels on the graphs and feeds which is kind of hopeless. There is a temperature one but I can't tell if it's cabin or something else.

My EVSE (from Zencar) reports its own temperature -- which rose to a surprisingly-high 60 degrees last summer after a few hours of charging my e-NV200. I now always place the EVSE under my van, where it'll be protected from both rain and sun. 60 degrees is pretty close to the typical high-temperature cutoff (70 degrees) for power-electronics but I'm pretty sure mine had not yet cut out. Running your EVSE at 50 degrees shouldn't be a problem, although I suppose it might reduce the life-expectancy of its electronic innards.

My EVSE is rated IP54 -- but that merely means some samples of this model passed an ingress-protection test when they came off the factory floor. It says little (or nothing!) about its current level of ingress protection. I don't swing it around by its pigtail, and am rather careful about putting stress on its grommets but I know that (sooner or later) they'll fail to offer much in the way of ingress protection. All to say that tucking your EVSE under the car is a good habit to form.

And... as others have noted already here, an EVSE may have a temperature-sensor in its wall-plug. That'll probably also cut out at 70 degrees; but that *may* not be a low enough temperature to prevent severe damage to the socket, see https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=162&topicid=268188. The safety hazard of an overheated plug&socket is one of several reasons why it's hazardous to plug your EVSE into an extension lead. (I do it routinely when charging at 8A 230V -- after eyeballing my lead's socket & plug for signs of wear-and-tear, and checking temp "by hand" at its connection to the wall-socket at the end of a multi-hour charging session. On the rare occasions I'm charging at 10A I'm watching like a hawk...)

cthombor

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#3011649 18-Dec-2022 19:21

cthombor:

GV27:

I have Leaf Spy Pro but I'm not what the actual battery temperature is as there's almost no labels on the graphs and feeds which is kind of hopeless. There is a temperature one but I can't tell if it's cabin or something else.

Yeah Leaf Spy Pro is "no better than it should be" -- and that's amazingly good if you're a tech-geek, but pretty awful if you're hoping for a self-explanatory easily-understandable user interface. There's plenty of information about it available online that's written by and for geeks; but I don't know of anything that's very helpful for non-geeks. It could be worse -- the bad-old days of DOS come to mind, and it's still easy to get befuddled by the (ever-changing, because always "improving") user-interfaces on a Windows 11 PC! But I digress! http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/wiki/leaf-spy-pro/ sez that Leaf Spy will report:

"The readout from each of the temperature sensors in the battery pack (4 sensors for 2011-2012, 3 for 2013)"

That agrees with my experience. Screenshot below of a seriously-hot battery (but not quite hot enough to enter "turtle mode"!), after too many fast-charges in a single day on a roadtrip in my e-NV200 in April of last year. (An e-nv200 is essentially a 24kWh Leaf with a minivan body).

AFAIK LeafSpy never reports the ambient (outside) temperature which (may!) be displayed on the dashboard of your Leaf.

lchiu7

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#3011957 19-Dec-2022 13:04

I was looking on AliExpress and came across this charger unit

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004707083695.html

It even comes with standard 3 pin plug so all I would need is to replace the wall plug in my garage with one rated at 20A like this

https://www.pdl.co.nz/products/detail?CatNo=C2015/20&itemno=C2015/20-WE&tab-document-1=0

The issuue might be, it is legal to plug one of theses into a wall outlet in NZ without some sort of compliance certificate?

GV27

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#3011971 19-Dec-2022 13:55

cthombor:

Yeah Leaf Spy Pro is "no better than it should be" -- and that's amazingly good if you're a tech-geek, but pretty awful if you're hoping for a self-explanatory easily-understandable user interface. There's plenty of information about it available online that's written by and for geeks; but I don't know of anything that's very helpful for non-geeks. It could be worse -- the bad-old days of DOS come to mind, and it's still easy to get befuddled by the (ever-changing, because always "improving") user-interfaces on a Windows 11 PC! But I digress! http://www.electricvehiclewiki.com/wiki/leaf-spy-pro/ sez that Leaf Spy will report:

So I kind of figured out what was wrong here. The app installed with a whole bunch of screens set-up that were not like the Wiki support screens. I've managed to figure out how to swap them around. It looks like my battery never got above 23 degrees C.

Also heard back from EV Power who make my EVSE - that's the internal temperature of the unit itself. I'm trying to get the wall unit installed ASAP as the EVSE is really for emergencies only and I'll be chewing through brownie points if I keep hanging plugs out the window.

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lchiu7

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#3027943 27-Jan-2023 16:17

mkissin:

By the regs, the breaker protects the in-wall wiring, so your 20A breaker and 2.5mm wire will be totally fine for a constant load of 20A.

The charger will only draw 16A max (in reality they often draw a bit less. Mine draws 14.5 from memory) so you've still got 4A you can pull from any of those other sockets.

You're likely to charge overnight, so perhaps those other loads won't even be on at that time? And during the day your charger isn't on so you can pull all 20A out of those other sockets.

In summary, you should be fine by the sounds of it. Again, the sparky can confirm that.

Finally got a sparkie to come around. Turnes out that the electrical outlets in the garage are on a separate circuit breaker. So all he has to do is wire up a caravan plug for me in the garage and replace the circuit breaker in the switch board with one with a RCD breaker. A half day's work he says so it should not be too outrageous.

Then I bought one of these

https://smartevchargers.co.nz/shop/plug-in-ev-chargers/16a-ev-charger-blue-caravan-plug/

so I should be able to double my charging speed at night without breaking the bank on installation.

ipv0

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Wannabe Geek

#3039413 20-Feb-2023 14:14

Trade Depot have started advertising an EVSE at nice price. https://tradedepot.co.nz/rapide-smart-ev-charger-with-wifi-built-in-rcd-7-4kw-32a-1p/

Anyone got any experience with it? Looks like it's been custom branded just for them so there are no reviews online yet. I'm keen to know if the app is any good.

It's also a bit unclear what RCD is needed. I've asked for the SDoC; still waiting to hear back.

richms

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#3039419 20-Feb-2023 14:27

ipv0:

Trade Depot have started advertising an EVSE at nice price. https://tradedepot.co.nz/rapide-smart-ev-charger-with-wifi-built-in-rcd-7-4kw-32a-1p/

Anyone got any experience with it? Looks like it's been custom branded just for them so there are no reviews online yet. I'm keen to know if the app is any good.

It's also a bit unclear what RCD is needed. I've asked for the SDoC; still waiting to hear back.

It says tuya is the app, but that is just the framework so what you can actually do once the device is opened is where the details will be. Also what features it opens up to other devices and automation rules to control. I have seen massive differences in between tuya devices with what you can do - kettles and lightbulbs can be totally useless or really good in there.

Its very tempting to get one of those vs bodging a hole thru the garage wall for the tesla supplied charger but I would have to limit it to stuff all current till I get more power out to the garage so its not really worth it right now.

Richard rich.ms

michaelmurfy

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#3039439 20-Feb-2023 14:55

@ipv0 That is actually rather expensive for a single phase 32a unit with a fixed cable.

For a grand total of $800 you can get a Tesla Gen 3 Wall Connector which can charge any Type 2 EV - https://shop.tesla.com/en_nz/product/gen-3-wall-connector---7_3m

There is also a really polished third party app for this: https://wallmonitor.app/

Or, just get an Evnex unit installed (these are made in NZ) considering it is around the same cost of buying the above unit + getting a sparky in to install it. But IMHO I wouldn't go with the Trade Depot unit. It is just cheap garbage imported from China and marked up.

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