EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) for Home Use

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#2861554 4-Feb-2022 09:29

Dingbatt:

Are you willing to divulge how much it cost? (Even ballpark). The Tesla wallbox itself is about $900 I think.

It is interesting that it will do other brand EVs.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…….

Generally the actual charger cost is really the only thing you can compare when it comes to installing one as the install cost will depend on the unique factors of your own house. Things like the distance from where you want it to the switchboard and the current capacity of your switchboard could make your install much less or much higher than someone else.

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Scott3

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#2861597 4-Feb-2022 10:27

SaltyNZ:

Batman:

is there a 240V socket charger cable & box that can live outdoor and be safe to do so?

Yes, all of them. Certainly anything that is supplied with a vehicle. Ours lived outside while the house was being rebuilt. Given it was a building site and there was mud and other hazards, and it had to go on the ground as opposed to a neat hangar or anything we cut a hole in the side of a plastic container and put it in that for extra protection. But you don't have to.

Need to check the IP rating. Many are not suitable for being outside, including mine. But it is possible to find outdoor rated ones.

RunningMan

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#2861608 4-Feb-2022 10:47

@Scott3 just saw this for sale. Don't know if you're wanting new or 2nd hand.

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#2861615 4-Feb-2022 10:51

Scott3:

Need to check the IP rating. Many are not suitable for being outside, including mine. But it is possible to find outdoor rated ones.

Well, yes, I suppose ... but very surprised that people would be selling unrated ones with cars. Where did you get yours from? Both of mine - the 8A one that came with the car (from GVI) and the 16A one I bought later for camping (which I now also use at home) are from OEM Audio.

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cthombor

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#2861620 4-Feb-2022 10:57

SomeoneSomewhere:

cthombor:

If you have an electric hot-water heater, then I'd suggest you install a smart-controller that'll feed it any excess power from your PV array. But I don't know how that'd interact with the Wallbox Pulsar EVSEs...

There is no need for any messy current-limiting, pulsing, or voltage converting solutions. The EVSE can tell the car the maximum current it is allowed to draw. A communicating EVSE could receive info from the meter/inverter about the current amount of export power, and adjust the charging rate to suit, simply by changing the maximum charge current it allows the car. I believe some EVSEs already use a variant of this to charge one car at high speed or 2+ cars at lower speeds from a single circuit.

I don't really like supplying variable-voltage or chopped power to hot water though; it could get messy if in five years time someone installs for example a hot-water heat pump and doesn't carefully check the supply.

I think you're missing my point -- I have a small rooftop PV array, and I'm trying to maximise my use of its power. If I charge my 2013 24 kWh Leaf at its maximum AC charge rate of 3.1 kW (i.e. from a "dumb" EVSE that can deliver 16A 230VAC), then most of the charging power will be coming from the grid. If I charge it from a "solar-smart" EVSE which can throttle itself back to the minimum charge rate (6A) but is running at 230 VAC lines voltage, then I'll be doing a bit better, but not much -- to get efficient use of my PV power I'd have to charge my EV only at mid-day hours on cloudless summer days. Whereas if I charge it with a "dumb" EVSE that's running on 8A 115VAC, then I'm getting solar-efficient charges pretty much any time between 11am to 5pm on sunny summer days... and my HWC can take up the slack because of its variable-voltage controller.

Here's the power output of my PV array yesterday as a case in point. Note that, for many hours of that day, my PV array was producing more than the 900W required to power my 8A 115VAC EVSE -- and that it only briefly produced the 1.4 kW required to power a 230 VAC EVSE at the minimum charging current (6A) allowed by my Nissan Leaf.

You're absolutely right that a heat-pump HWC can't be powered from variable-voltage or chopped AC power. And yes indeed it would be a "messy" situation, if some clueless electrician were to install a heat-pump HWC as a replacement for a solar-controlled but otherwise bog-standard electric HWC, and (for some reason!) had assumed that the solar-controller for the resistive HWC would (somehow!) work for the heat-pump HWC. The possibility of such a messy situation ever developing seems *really* remote to me... and, with respect, I don't think this is a good reason to warn people off from installing a smart-solar HWC controller. (I have a cheap-as dumbish one, which installs easily and inexpensively with a conveniently-placed control panel, because it has no thermosensors. The better ones have a couple of thermosensors, one for the top of the HWC and one for the bottom, allowing them to estimate the volume of heated water... and allowing better solar efficiency because there's no need to program them to supply full mains power to the HWC for a few hours every night to ensure that it gets fully hot at least once every 24 hours.)

cthombor

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#2861638 4-Feb-2022 11:18

RunningMan:

@cthombor check out Zappi & Smappee https://www.plugndrivenz.com/evse

Thanks for the pointers. I have looked at these products briefly... I get the impression that both can vary their output current anywhere between the 6A minimum-allowable charging rate of my Nissan Leaf and whatever amperage (roughly 13A) is required to max-out the wimpy (3.1 kW) AC charging circuit on my 24 kWh 2013 Leaf.

What neither seems to offer (unsurprisingly!) is a low-power mode (e.g. 100 VAC) so that they could ever make efficient use of my (wimpy) PV rooftop array. Their minimum charge-rate is 6A * 230V = 1.4 kW. My (wimpy!) PV array rarely puts out that much power, even during the summer. Here's yesterday's graph:

Someday... in my dreams... I'd have a itty-bitty battery pack (a few kWh should suffice) hooked to my solar inverter, and a smart-enough controller in that inverter which can communicate to a smart-enough EVSE charger that there's enough charge in the battery to spare for another 5 minutes of AC charge at 230 VAC *without* ever sucking any power from the grid.

And even more far-fetched: perhaps my neighbourhood will club-together to purchase a fast-charger with (say) 50 kWh of battery capacity that we collectively feed from the "spare" PV power from our arrays. That'd allow someone in our 'hood to get a half-hour 50 kW fast-DC charge every time our shared-battery got to 80% SOC, and our 'hood's battery should live through thousands of such charge-cycles because it'd never get below 20% SOC. Yeah well I can dream ;-)

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#2861652 4-Feb-2022 11:39

Dingbatt:

Are you willing to divulge how much it cost? (Even ballpark). The Tesla wallbox itself is about $900 I think.

It is interesting that it will do other brand EVs.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…….

Cost just under $1000 to get it installed in my case by a one man band electrician (Mr Watts Electrical for those on the Kāpiti Coast, highly recommended). It is important to get a Sparky who understands these do contain a Type B RCD and ensure this is enabled in the wallbox firmware for safety too. Some electrician insist that a Type B RCD needs to be installed which is actually incorrect.

The wallbox also contains a very basic web interface - basically when the wallbox boots it'll broadcast a secure SSID for 5 minutes (and connect to your network for firmware updates only). The idea is you only connect to this for configuration but in this is vehicle ACL's:

I currently don't have my Tesla to actually test this (still on the ship!) but would imagine the list will get populated as you charge Teslas. You can also unlock this to All Vehicles which is a nice feature.

The main page looks like this:

You can see the voltage, software version and very basic information. Also if it errors out you can see error logs here also. The annoying thing is despite this being connected to my network you actually can't see this page if you browse to it's IP address (it is locked out to configuration via Direct WiFi only) - I guess the reason for this is to stop this from being on a potential shared network as configuring it incorrectly can cause safety issues. I do think it is worth the extra coin in this case.

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Scott3

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#2861668 4-Feb-2022 11:52

SaltyNZ:

Scott3:

Need to check the IP rating. Many are not suitable for being outside, including mine. But it is possible to find outdoor rated ones.

Well, yes, I suppose ... but very surprised that people would be selling unrated ones with cars. Where did you get yours from? Both of mine - the 8A one that came with the car (from GVI) and the 16A one I bought later for camping (which I now also use at home) are from OEM Audio.

Came with my car (used, private sale).

Actually it is IP rated (IP55), but is described as for indoor use only. Frankly the construction seems far to light to be out in the weather, UV etc.

cthombor

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#2861684 4-Feb-2022 12:14

SaltyNZ:

Batman:

is there a 240V socket charger cable & box that can live outdoor and be safe to do so?

Yes, all of them. Certainly anything that is supplied with a vehicle. Ours lived outside while the house was being rebuilt. Given it was a building site and there was mud and other hazards, and it had to go on the ground as opposed to a neat hangar or anything we cut a hole in the side of a plastic container and put it in that for extra protection. But you don't have to.

In addition to checking the IP rating (as suggested by Scott) it's important to keep an eye on its physical status. I'll no longer be using my trusty-old Khons 8A EVSE even in my garage, because its cabling is now electrically unsafe even in dry conditions -- picture below -- the multicoloured internal wires of its cabling to the car are (barely) visible at the bottom of the image.

BTW this EVSE is rated IP54 ("Protected from limited dust ingress. Protected from water spray from any direction."), so it was never really appropriate for use in wet conditions ... but nevermind, I did use it anyway in the rain, but always taking care to tuck its (vulnerable) control box under the vehicle and never never never touching anything other than its vehicle-connector plug after it was powered.

And ... I *always* check the temperature of its AC plug after every charge -- it never got warm, but it's definitely possible to overheat a plug that's pulling 8A at 230 VAC for many hours if the pins of the plug are pitted, or if the socket has become worn-out from too many plug/unplug cycles (as will happen eventually to any socket, even if you never plug or unplug it while it's live).

SaltyNZ

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#2861691 4-Feb-2022 12:26

Yeah the OEM Audio ones are IP65 and quite rugged.

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Dingbatt

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#2861747 4-Feb-2022 14:16

@michaelmurfy Thanks for the info on your Tesla wall box install.
Does it show up on your Tesla App?
I assume the setup is pretty straight forward after it's powered up and you don't have to search for a "how to" video to get it working. After all it's designed for Americans. :-D

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cthombor

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#2861799 4-Feb-2022 16:00

Scott3:

Came with my car (used, private sale).

Actually it is IP rated (IP55), but is described as for indoor use only. Frankly the construction seems far to light to be out in the weather, UV etc.

Your instincts are correct. An IP55-rated device is protected against dust (protection against solids being the first digit) and also against water jets (protection against water being the second digit), but it's usual to insist on IP65 or even IP67 for electrical devices that'll be used routinely outdoors. An IP6x device has "Full protection against dust and other particulates, including a vacuum seal, tested against continuous airflow." My IP54-rated EVSE has a rather weak seal on its case -- very far from being vacuum-tight. But... what's required for safety is a suitable IP rating, a highly-durable design, and a periodic inspection...

michaelmurfy

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#2861800 4-Feb-2022 16:09

Dingbatt: @michaelmurfy Thanks for the info on your Tesla wall box install.
Does it show up on your Tesla App?
I assume the setup is pretty straight forward after it's powered up and you don't have to search for a "how to" video to get it working. After all it's designed for Americans. :-D

Afraid it doesn't show in the Tesla app - it seems the WiFi on it is very, very basic just for configuration more than anything. In the box it has step by step configuration instructions and is laid out nicely in the web interface and once it is configured I don't see you having to go in apart from unlocking it for all vehicles etc.

Batman

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#2862012 5-Feb-2022 10:22

Scott3:

Need to check the IP rating. Many are not suitable for being outside, including mine. But it is possible to find outdoor rated ones.

just managed to take a look at mine Leaf charger - it says OEM Audio, IP65 rated

does that mean it will survive a good drizzle but not in a storm?

Jase2985

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#2862097 5-Feb-2022 13:04

Batman:

just managed to take a look at mine Leaf charger - it says OEM Audio, IP65 rated

does that mean it will survive a good drizzle but not in a storm?

Google IP rating and find out what it means.

IP65 Protected from total dust ingress. Protected from low pressure water jets from any direction

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