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DIY Home EV Charger

jamesfotherby.com

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Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#111

Post by sokoloff »

shiroiuma wrote: post #92
sokoloff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what I find so infuriating about many first-party sites. I’ll often find something on Amazon and if it seems like it’s from a small business, I’ll check to see if I can buy it direct. (Arguably, this behavior is unethical on my part against Amazon, but whatever.) I very rarely (like matches Amazon’s. Look, I tried. I came to you and gave you a shot, but if you want to charge the same item price and also tack o…

>I’ll often find something on Amazon and if it seems like it’s from a small business, I’ll check to see if I can buy it direct. (Arguably, this behavior is unethical on my part against Amazon, but whatever.) According to whom? The people who think going to the bathroom during a TV commercial break is "stealing"? Since when is comparison-shopping unethical?

I don’t think comparison shopping is unethical; it’s what makes a market work.

I do think “thank you for letting me know this product exists and meets my need, but if all else is equal to me, I’ll buy it somewhere else where you don’t benefit from the effort to help me address my need” is not the standard that I hold myself to generally.

Further, I think many would object if I found a product through a small business directly and bought it for the identical terms via Amazon rather than direct.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#112

Post by jesterson »

tw04 wrote: post #27
foobarian wrote: post #12

I'm disappointed at the anti-DIY sentiments here, it's this safety obsessed mentality that got us to where kids can't walk outside by themselves any longer. The box in that guy's build is outside and could probably burn to a crisp without hurting anything else. I suspect it would not hurt anything even inside a garage, other than making a lot of smoke and setting off smoke detectors.

>I'm disappointed at the anti-DIY sentiments here, it's this safety obsessed mentality that got us to where kids can't walk outside by themselves any longer. Just no? That analogy is EXTREMELY strained. From his own link: A word about safety. I’m not an electrician. I’m not allowed to make alterations to my consumer unit. I let my kids play outside all the time solo and with friends without supervision. On the flip s…

> I’m not an electrician. I’m not allowed to make alterations to my consumer unit.

It's funny how we reach a society where you need government as a babysitter and tell what you can do and whatnot.

> Would I mess around with attaching something at 240v that I made from scratch that could burn my house down and kill my family

It's also funny how those people readily plug in any consumer device they buy on amazon, which is assembled in china/india without any thought about safety.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#113

Post by Symbiote »

mrb wrote: post #94

"It costs about £900 in the UK to have an EV charger installed by an electrician" £900 is $1140. In southern California, it cost me $750 for top notch work and hardware, including: $400 to have an electrician install a 240V 50A outdoor outlet (NEMA 14-50), plus $350 for a good quality level 2 40A EVSE (this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082LMVSLY ) that I installed myself as it simply plugs in the outlet and it's j…

From some searching, I think paying an electrician to install a 32A CEE socket (often called "Commando" in Britain after a particular manufacturer) and then installing the EVSE yourself would be similar. Although there do seem to be some safety requirements for the socket if it's to be used for charging EVs, which increase the cost.

Also, the £900 includes 20% tax.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#114

Post by zelos »

mrb wrote: post #94

"It costs about £900 in the UK to have an EV charger installed by an electrician" £900 is $1140. In southern California, it cost me $750 for top notch work and hardware, including: $400 to have an electrician install a 240V 50A outdoor outlet (NEMA 14-50), plus $350 for a good quality level 2 40A EVSE (this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082LMVSLY ) that I installed myself as it simply plugs in the outlet and it's j…

I'm in the UK and I've got a charger being installed next week. The basic Ohme model is costing me £900 installed. Prices were the same pretty much everywhere I looked.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#115

Post by adev_ »

Thanks for the experience sharing and the blog, it is very interesting to read and your humility about the feedback is definitively appreciated.

I currently also did my own DIY EVSE charger mainly for fun [1].

If you are interested about the main differences between your approach and mine:

(1) I use an industrial contactor DIN form factor for the power switch instead of passing the power through the relay directly. Mainly for safety reasons (I do not trust much small relays) and also because I wanted to support three-phase power for an European T2 installation.

(2) Instead of printing my own PCB with an Arduino for the PWN, I just bought one command module from China/UK provider. Mainly for pure lazyness reason :) The module itself is shield behind the RCD class B.

(3) I have added a shelly 3EM front of the system. To use it as a watt-meter with MQTT report and also as a remote control system.

My little advice for people interested to do their own: DIY is always an excellent way to learn and if you want to do your own, do it... BUT please make your installation reviewed by someone with an electrical engineering or technician background if possible. These systems can easily pump 7 to 22KW during extended period of time: Any cable which is not screwed properly or under-sized can bring you a fire.

[1]: https://github.com/adevress/open-ev-station/blob/master/READ...

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#116

Post by myself248 »

MostlyStable wrote: post #6
myself248 wrote: post #3

Save you a click: It's an EVSE, not a charger. Looks very similar to OpenEVSE but he wrote his own code. Nice clean build. Not sure why the extra work instead of just downloading OpenEVSE.

I would have liked to see a cost breakdown. If it's significantly cheaper than OpenEVSE (somewhwere between $500-$600 depending on which kit you get), then maybe some people would be willing to take the risk (it seems like there are some safety concerns with his design that I don't feel qualified to adjudicate). But without some kind of a cost difference, I'd probably stick with something like OpenEVS, which seems to…

OpenEVSE can be a codebase or a kit. If you want to source all your own parts, or maybe reuse significant parts of a non-open EVSE and just drop the processor into it or whatever, then it can be very cheap indeed. If you buy their branded kit, then full price applies.

When OpenEVSE was new, I built one on perfboard, actually a very compact modular stack of perfboards, one layer per subsystem. Handed it off to my software-savvy friend, and he couldn't get it to pass self-test, despite both of us agreeing that every piece of the circuit appeared correct as per the published schematic.

Eventually he gave up and ordered one of OpenEVSE's commercially-produced boards, and it failed self-test at the exact same place. Apparently there was some unclear documentation and it was supposed to fail there until something else was hooked up, I don't remember the details, but there was nothing wrong with my stack of perf in the first place. Argh.

All of which is to say, it's not hard at all to build one of these things. if you want to lobotomize your closed-crap EVSE and lash an open board to it, do so! I'm pretty sure the JuiceBox is OpenEVSE-based in the first place so it might be as simple as reflashing some firmware.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#117

Post by prmoustache »

mrb wrote: post #94

"It costs about £900 in the UK to have an EV charger installed by an electrician" £900 is $1140. In southern California, it cost me $750 for top notch work and hardware, including: $400 to have an electrician install a 240V 50A outdoor outlet (NEMA 14-50), plus $350 for a good quality level 2 40A EVSE (this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082LMVSLY ) that I installed myself as it simply plugs in the outlet and it's j…

Also. £900 is negligible and pocket change compared to the price of an EV, even in the second hand market.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#118

Post by gambiting »

prmoustache wrote: post #117
mrb wrote: post #94

"It costs about £900 in the UK to have an EV charger installed by an electrician" £900 is $1140. In southern California, it cost me $750 for top notch work and hardware, including: $400 to have an electrician install a 240V 50A outdoor outlet (NEMA 14-50), plus $350 for a good quality level 2 40A EVSE (this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082LMVSLY ) that I installed myself as it simply plugs in the outlet and it's j…

Also. £900 is negligible and pocket change compared to the price of an EV, even in the second hand market.

No one looks at it this way, because extremely few people buy cars with cash. Majority of buyers buy a car on finance - and compared to the monthly £500 a car might cost you, £900 is not insignificant, that's nearly two car payments, and also I have no idea how wealthy you'd have to be to call £900 "pocket change".

We have an EV and a PHEV, I had a charger installed back when government grants were much more generous, we paid £250 to have one installed, but nowadays I think I'd just make do with a 3 pin charger, or get a commando socket installed + OHME 32amp commando socket charger, much cheaper than this.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#119

Post by gambiting »

oceanplexian wrote: post #80

Level 2 chargers aren’t actually chargers, they just pass mains voltage and some signaling. The charger is inside the vehicle.

Yes, just like your phone charger isn't a charger, yet I see absolutely no point in arguing about it, literally everyone understands what you mean when you call it a charger.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#120

Post by gambiting »

elihu wrote: post #61
KennyBlanken wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not by the general public. The general public typically refers to the EVSE itself as a "level 2 charger." The general public does not know or care about the distinction and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

And yet the technical people need accurate names to call things so they can communicate without ambiguity. I think "charging station" is the least confusing term for the fixed infrastructure part. If regular people call those "chargers" in non-technical conversation, then I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

The thing that you use to provide your phone with electricity - do you call it an AC-DC converter, or do you call it a charger like nearly everyone on earth, even though the charger part is actually inside your phone?
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