DIY Home EV Charger
jamesfotherby.com
DIY Home EV Charger
1–10 of 195 posts
Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#2Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#3Save 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.
Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#4Save 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'd have called an EVSE a charger - I might be naive but what's the distinction you're trying to make?
Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#5Save 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'd have called an EVSE a charger - I might be naive but what's the distinction you're trying to make?
The actual AC charger is in the car - it is a pretty important distinction.
Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#6Save 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 have some level of official certification [0].
I personally regret my decision to not go with them when I got my EVSE this year. I went with an EnelX Juicenet because A) it was on the list of devices my power company would mostly pay for and B) at the time it had API availability to integrate with HomeAssistant. They have since killed that second part, which I would have loved to still have. In the long term, the ~$500 I saved by having my power company reimburse was probably not worth the lack of control I now have.
[0] https://openev.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000...
-edit- He does have a total cost, I just missed it: he claims that it was ~£200. I leave it up to the reader if that's enough savings to give up the certification.
Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#7Save 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'd have called an EVSE a charger - I might be naive but what's the distinction you're trying to make?
The name itself, Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment, indicates the focus of the hardware beyond simply being a fancy plug and a contactor. Higher end EVSE will do things like load balancing a shared supply of power (ie chaining multiple Tesla EVSEs to the same 50A line), setting supply power limits depending on how much power is in use (ie the Porsche Connect Plus modulating lower current when a clothing dryer starts), and managing Car to Grid functionality (Hyundai).
EVSEs also manage DC charging in commercial settings, which bypasses part of the charging hardware in some cars.
My Porsche Taycan is available with multiple chargers from the factory. I have the faster AC charger unit and there is a third unit that is only sold in Europe for Type 2 chargers. The actual charger handles converting AC to DC, which is car specific and why it’s not in the EVSE.
Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#8This is such a bad DIY project because the costs of screwing up can be burning your house down. This is non-trivial amounts of power. If you spend the money fot an EV, buy something safe and have it professionally installed. Keep the DIY projects to something less dangerous.
Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#9More like a DIY arson investigation. You might not only burn down your house, but also get in trouble with the law and not receive compensation from your property insurance company. This is a horrendous idea. Just do basically anything else DIY besides high current/voltage electronics.
Re: DIY Home EV Charger
#10This is such a bad DIY project because the costs of screwing up can be burning your house down. This is non-trivial amounts of power. If you spend the money fot an EV, buy something safe and have it professionally installed. Keep the DIY projects to something less dangerous.
I love higher power DIY stuff in general, but yea this project really doesnt thrill me. It does sound like the author did adequate research, which is good, but the soldering joints dont inspire a ton of confidence in overall quality.
Stuff like this is absolutely what I would consider "worth" paying a professional to do. Especially since buying a retail unit/paying a professional to install it will come with warranties.