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DIY Home EV Charger

jamesfotherby.com

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Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#131

Post by bigfudge »

beej71 wrote: post #48
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 also a little disappointed. Yes it can go wrong, but it sounds like the author has learned a lot and listens to criticism. And clearly embodies the hacker spirit. And I have a large number of items that either came with my house or I purchased legitimately that could absolutely burn it to the ground. It's all measured risk. When I get an EV, I'll be adding a consumer grade charger to the house. And then I'll trus…

You don’t have zero knowledge though. Most electronics sold is safe, and designs tested. So your prior for them burning down the house should be much lower than for something you diyed

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#132

Post by dbrgn »

Symbiote wrote: post #113
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.

I talked to the electrician about using a CEE16 connector to charge the car. He said that this should only be done if you don't load it near its max (16A) for long periods of time. He's seen multiple CEE16 connectors that deformed condsiderably after a year of use with regular charging sessions at 16A. If you load it to 10-12A, it should be fine.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#133

Post by Symbiote »

michaelt wrote: post #123
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 would love to see a breakdown of that £900... that seems really high. The £900 will include: supply of a 7kW EVSE; adding a new circuit to your consumer unit/fuse box; running a few tens of meters of fairly expensive cable (6mm SWA suitable for outdoor and underground use) in a careful, tidy way; adding an extra ground point, if needed; an electrical safety test with a special tester; and issuing a certificate (w…

> the cheaper option is just to get an outdoor socket installed on an existing ring main

From my searching, this doesn't meet the current regulations of the socket is intended for EV use. The costs to make it compliant bring it up to the better options anyway.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#134

Post by wcoenen »

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…

£900 seems cheap to me. I'm in Belgium and I installed a charging point at my house earlier this year. The cheapest quote I got was 1300 euros.

I ended up installing one myself, but spent almost as much anyway. 800 euro for an Alfen Eve charging point with support for OCCP protocol (for reimbursement of electricity cost by employer), about 200 euros in other materials (admittedly with some scope creep), 150 euros for the mandatory technical inspection...

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#135

Post by Symbiote »

dbrgn wrote: post #132
Symbiote wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I talked to the electrician about using a CEE16 connector to charge the car. He said that this should only be done if you don't load it near its max (16A) for long periods of time. He's seen multiple CEE16 connectors that deformed condsiderably after a year of use with regular charging sessions at 16A. If you load it to 10-12A, it should be fine.

I have servers and UPSs and so on connected with these sockets, drawing a high current 24/7. Just like every datacentre in Europe, UK included. They are only very rarely unplugged though.

Is it a case of using a high quality socket which costs 2-3 times as much?

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#136

Post by benhurmarcel »

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…

The UK VAT is 20%. California's sale tax is only 7.25%.

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#137

Post by gambiting »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #126
gambiting wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's funny that people don't want to call it a charger specifically because it doesn't do the AC-DC conversion, and your example of a thing people call a charger is an AC-DC converter. And depending on the sophistication of the phone, that converter outside the phone might be doing most of the work.

>>It's funny that people don't want to call it a charger specifically because it doesn't do the AC-DC conversion

Well yeah, they are being silly - I don't know why that would be the distinction, even if it did AC-DC conversion it would have no idea what the battery is doing which is the entire point.

>>that converter outside the phone might be doing most of the work.

Maybe, but usually the circuit that controls and monitors the battery is inside the phone, not in the "charger" outside. Even battery chargers for power tools and such work this way - the circuit that controls the battery charging is actually inside the battery pack not in the base, but everyone would call the base a "charger".

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#138

Post by Faaak »

progbits wrote: post #103

Disagree with the fire risk comments, even if it burns it's outside in a suitable enclosure. The real problem here is DIY RCD with microcontroller in the loop. The soldering on the high voltage wires is absolutely horrendous and if those come loose and the enclosure or chassis becomes live you are trusting your life on the atmel interrupt delay and software. Good luck! Edit: it's not even an interrupt, its just part…

I agree on the RCD part. An "off the shelf" one would be cheaper and more safe IMHO. Appart from that, good job ! :-)

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#139

Post by michaelt »

Symbiote wrote: post #133
michaelt wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would love to see a breakdown of that £900... that seems really high. The £900 will include: supply of a 7kW EVSE; adding a new circuit to your consumer unit/fuse box; running a few tens of meters of fairly expensive cable (6mm SWA suitable for outdoor and underground use) in a careful, tidy way; adding an extra ground point, if needed; an electrical safety test with a special tester; and issuing a certificate (w…

> the cheaper option is just to get an outdoor socket installed on an existing ring main From my searching, this doesn't meet the current regulations of the socket is intended for EV use. The costs to make it compliant bring it up to the better options anyway.

It goes without saying that you've got to have a 'granny cable' with appropriate protection - but AFAIK every EV comes with one of those.

And of course, you'd fit a socket like [1] which is waterproof even when in use, and has a built-in RCD if your consumer unit doesn't have one. It's common sense when using electricity outside. And your installer will want to make sure the circuit has enough capacity to avoid nuisance trips - put your EV on the same circuit as your kettle, washing machine, dish washer and tumble dryer and you'll have a frustrating time :)

But my point is, not every Brit with an EV spends £900 on EVSE - especially if they're only commuting two days a week, or they've got a plug-in hybrid.

[1] https://www.screwfix.com/p/masterplug-ip66-13a-1-gang-weathe...

Re: DIY Home EV Charger

#140

Post by nsteel »

foobarian wrote: post #58
schiffern wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm disappointed at the anti-DIY sentiment How would you feel about a "DIY House Circuit Breakers" project? This is essentially the equivalent. Total insanity.

I disagree though, DIY circuit breakers actually could burn down your house, which I think is a step up from this project. It's like a DIY kernel file system driver vs. DIY bittorrent client.

If you put something like this in your garage and you get it wrong (despite using the right components), you can cause an electrical fire. Burning your house down seems quite possible.

But I appreciate he didn't put this in his garage. However, even hooking it up to the CU is not something some random guy should be doing: https://www.speakev.com/threads/a-cautionary-tale-of-severe-... (this one was probably due to not-adequately tightening the terminals, would you even think/know as a DIY'er?)

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