Home Charging PHEV

[maby]

Ah, I see. I have never heard of such "main rings" in the Netherlands. Doesn't guarantuee anything, but I am pretty sure we don't have them over here.

Are the fuses of such a ring 32 amps? Or still 16?

I guess when NightPHEVer mentioned 'single wire' he kinda meant 'singe cable'?

The fuses are 32A. The ring main design can significantly simplify installation and reduce costs since it reduces the amount of cable that needs to be installed. I'm sitting in my living room right now which is on the opposite side of the house to the fuse board. There are five sockets on the walls of this room - in a radial design, that would be five separate cable runs crossing the house and climbing one level. With a ring design, there are two cable runs from the fuse board to this floor and then far shorter runs linking the sockets on this floor together.

I do remember from the times we have lived on the continent much bigger bundles of cables leaving the fuse board and disappearing off round the house. The ring design is a compromise - I have sockets on this floor of the house with a combined rating of probably 150A, but they are sharing a 32A fuse. On the other hand, the total loading on this floor probably rarely exceeds 10A - there are sockets installed that have probably not had anything plugged into them since we moved in 20 years ago!

 

[NightPHEVer]

Yes, quite right - I should have said 'cable' not wire. The single cable contains live, neutral and earth wires - double insulation - each of the three wires insulated and then the whole thing insulated again so it looks like one thick wire (cable). I always imagined that the UK building regulations probably originated from the EU and that everywhere in EU world was similar. I've seen a few spurs-off-spurs-off-spurs etc. before too. In the UK you're now not supposed to do much home wiring yourself, and if you do it's supposed to be 'signed off' by a qualified electrician. Not always the case though. All the stuff you need to wire houses is easily available retail though.

 

[jaapv]

No, the EU is quite different from the UK. 16 A circuits, unfused schuko-type and two-prong plugs and centrally fused sockets, no ring circuits, etc.
It differs by country, though. The Dutch follow the NEN 1010 and NEN 3140 norm, which are closely related to the German DIN norm, which is based on the VDE norm, but Southern European countries are different, although they are falling into line gradually.

 

[Regulo]

No, the EU is quite different from the UK.

But we can still be friends, can't we?

 

[jaapv]

Hmmmm... Let's see how Brexit turns out :twisted: Patricia has obtained a Dutch passport, doesn't trust her British one any more.

 

[Regulo]

Relax, it'll be fine, our government ministers said so. Err, good move Patricia! :lol:

 

[NightPHEVer]

I mentioned earlier in this post my concerns that everytime I've charged using the 3-pin cable supplied with the PHEV, from an ordinary domestic socket (including my c.1963 garage socket) that the three pin plug seems to get rather hot for my liking. I recently stayed in Scotland at a 7 year old holiday home (so pretty up-to-date wiring) and in the shed/kennel in the driveway was an ordinary looking, domestic quality, white plastic interior style 3-pin double socket, but I noticed it was supplied by what looked to me like at least a 16amp cable - possibly even 32amp. There was some sort of dog heater in the kennel so I don't know if maybe this required more than 13amps to run it.

When I charged the PHEV from this socket the three pin plug on the charge cable got warm, but nothing like as hot as it usually does. So is this evidence that the size of the supply cable does in fact have some influence on the how hot the charger plug gets?

 

[anko]

No

Sorry. Of course there is a relationship. When you have a very thin lead the lead will get hot and so will everything touching it, including the plug. But in that case the temperature of the plug is the least of your worries as the whole lead will be very hot, most likely hotter than the plug.

More likely causes are imho:

- Worn out socket causing a bad connection between socket and plug
- Poor connection between lead and socket.

Both will cause local resistance and locally increased temperature.

 

[pasquinade]

I have another possible cause: low mains voltage.

I have a remote farm where the mains voltage drops quite a bit from the 230V it should be (I've measured 180V RMS on poor days). I notice that the plug connecting to mains gets hotter when I connect it there (not the box, not the PHEV connected cable, but the usual 3 prong plug connecting to the wall). I'm guessing the home charger that comes with the PHEV regulates charging power, so if mains voltage is low, it will request more amps (maintaining charging power constant), leading to a hotter wire due to extra current (potentially fire dangerous!)

NOTE: this is a guess based on observation

EDIT: I also notice that the PHEV takes longer to charge there than at home, so my constant charging power hypothesis seems flawed. But the plug does heat up.

Best,
Ricardo

 

[anko]

The box regulates amps, not power.

 

[maby]

The box regulates amps, not power.

All the regulation is inside the car, not in the box. The box in the supplied charging cable simply does the same as the electronics in the EV charging unit on the wall outside your house - it talks to the charger in the car, telling it the characteristics of the power supply including how many amps it is allowed to draw.

 

[pasquinade]

Thanks for the reply,

I had thought the mains charger converted the mains voltage (230VAC in my case) to some regulated intermediate voltage used by the PHEV (I would think something like DC 300V) and communicates how many amps the PHEV is allowed to suck in, which for a mains charger i'd guess 16A@230VAC at most (probably lower), which would result in the box communicating to the PHEV ~12A@300VDC. But if the mains tension were 180VAC instead, this would mean the box would have to suck 20A@180VAC to meet the PHEV demand of 12A@300VDC.

From your comments, I'm now thinking that the box is simply a voltage pass-through (so PHEV sees 180VAC if that's the mains voltage) and it serves only to communicate on a data line something like "16A max". Do you know any more details if this is a constant value reported (e.g. "16A") or if it takes other info into account (e.g. voltage drop with current, implying a non-ideal mains supply)?

I can probably read more about it in Wikipedia...

NOTE: All the above numbers are how I thought it worked, and probably reflects no resemblance to reality.

 

[anko]

The box regulates amps, not power.

All the regulation is inside the car, not in the box. The box in the supplied charging cable simply does the same as the electronics in the EV charging unit on the wall outside your house - it talks to the charger in the car, telling it the characteristics of the power supply including how many amps it is allowed to draw.

The box only tells the car how much amps it is allowed to draw, nothing more. But how is that not "regulating"? Either way, that is not what this was about. It was about whether the box would say something about amps or power

 

[anko]

Thanks for the reply,

I had thought the mains charger converted the mains voltage (230VAC in my case) to some regulated intermediate voltage used by the PHEV (I would think something like DC 300V) and communicates how many amps the PHEV is allowed to suck in, which for a mains charger i'd guess 16A@230VAC at most (probably lower), which would result in the box communicating to the PHEV ~12A@300VDC. But if the mains tension were 180VAC instead, this would mean the box would have to suck 20A@180VAC to meet the PHEV demand of 12A@300VDC.

From your comments, I'm now thinking that the box is simply a voltage pass-through (so PHEV sees 180VAC if that's the mains voltage) and it serves only to communicate on a data line something like "16A max". Do you know any more details if this is a constant value reported (e.g. "16A") or if it takes other info into account (e.g. voltage drop with current, implying a non-ideal mains supply)?

I can probably read more about it in Wikipedia...

NOTE: All the above numbers are how I thought it worked, and probably reflects no resemblance to reality.

The charger (the part external to the car) has a contactor that connects or disconnects the mains to or from the vehicle plug. Before closing the contactor, the charger checks that a vehicle is indeed connected and that this vehicle indeed intends to draw power. As long as this is not the case, the contactor stays open. No conversion is done, whatsoever.

For the standard portable charger, the communicated max power is fixed to 10 amps (at least in Europe). There are portable chargers that allow you to manually select from preset values, typically 6, 10 or 16 amps. I use one of those instead of a 16 amps wall box.

Non-tethered non-portable chargers detect the capacity of the charge cable used and adjust the allowed amps to not exceed this capacity when needed.
Tethered non-portable chargers typically know the capacity of the cable used and are pre-programmed to take that capacity into account.

Both types of non-portable chargers are (or should be) configured not to exceed the capacity of their grid connection (taking into account fuse and cable).

More advanced portable chargers will check for voltage drops (as they cannot know about the capacity of the grid connection they are using), but I believe they will go into an error state when voltage drop exceeds certain limits. This way, poor cabling (thing wires or bad connections) will cause the charger to refuse duty.

Finally, smart chargers use sensors to inform themselves about total amps consumption (per the house or per main fuse) and will throttle down the charging process to prevent blowing main fuses.

 

[pasquinade]

Then now I'm left with the mistery of why my plug heats up more on the farm than at home

Thanks Anko, I also read a bit online and found that there's some sort of negotiation between the charger and the car to achieve a common capability (the standard seems to support either AC or DC).

I'm also wondering how low can I go (if I connect a 12V supply to the PHEV will it start to charge? - very slowly of course)... or if I put 3 or 4 solar panels on top of a caravan (lets say 500W with usual cloud cover dips) would I be able to trickle it directly to the PHEV, or would I need to charge an intermediate battery to intermittently provide a more stable supply at a higher power output... so many possibilities

 

[anko]

Then now I'm left with the mistery of why my plug heats up more on the farm than at home

I would say, check for wear and tear on the socket iteself / connection of wires to the socket.

Thanks Anko, I also read a bit online and found that there's some sort of negotiation between the charger and the car to achieve a common capability (the standard seems to support either AC or DC).

When it comes to mode 2 / mode 3 chargers (portable or non-portable chargers that use the Type 1 connector) there is not much negotiation going on.

I'm also wondering how low can I go (if I connect a 12V supply to the PHEV will it start to charge? - very slowly of course)... or if I put 3 or 4 solar panels on top of a caravan (lets say 500W with usual cloud cover dips) would I be able to trickle it directly to the PHEV, or would I need to charge an intermediate battery to intermittently provide a more stable supply at a higher power output... so many possibilities

The car will be just like any other AC appliance that you hook up to the mains. There will be some flexibility in terms of what voltage it accepts, but I am pretty sure there will be limits. For one, it has to be AC, unless you go through the ChaDeMo port.

The standard goes as low as 6 amps. I don't think the car will charge when the liit is set to < 6 amps by the charger. Probably 500 watts will be enough at any supported voltage.

 

[ThomasT]

Had a problem with my 115 V charging cord here in the United States. The plug kept overheating, read that the charging cord was not covered under warranty and the heating problem became what I considered dangerous so (One lead continually discolored from heat generation any plug that I plugged it into ). I decided to cut off the bad plug and change it out. What I discovered was that the The lead that had the heat problem was connected to a smaller gauge wire by the factory than the other two wires in the harness. So that cable could handle an eight amp charge but when I set it to 12 A that small wire in the harness caused a heating problem that eventually became dangerous. I think I’ve discovered a recall item that Mitsubishi needs to address before their wiring causes housefires.

 

[Outlanderyouwin]

Hi, I'm a new 2021 Outlander PHEV owner. Can we safely use the 12 amp button on the OEM granny charger in the U.S. on a 5-15 NEMA outlet? This charger has a standard 5-15 NEMA plug on it, suggesting that it is okay to plug this charger into a regular U.S. 120 volt outlet and it says nothing about whether you can use that button. I see the post above stating that there is a wire issue. I've also been using the 2021 granny charger, seemingly safely, on a new NEMA 14-50 with an adapter. Further, I picked up on EBay a used charger and it had some plug prong discoloration like it had burned. Am I right/wrong?

 

[Outlanderyouwin]

[Edited to delete this comment - I was technically incorrect]

 

[Outlanderyouwin]

The NEMA 14-50p to 6-20r adapter I bought is here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0915D75KR?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details_. When using this adapter to adapt the granny charger to the 14-50 outlet, a button on the granny charger allows at the higher charge rate (light moves to show 12 amp, as opposed to only 8 amp when plugged into the typical US 120 volt 5-15 receptacle). The unit's button needs to be pushed before plugging into the car. I believe this is now allowing safe charging (safe because the 14-50 receptacle is appropriately wired with an appropriate breaker) close enough to the onboard charger's max rate to make it unnecessary to have a more powerful charging unit. (I have also purchased a Shell Recharge unit with a 14-50 plug which I'll keep because it has a very long charging cord and charges at full onboard charging capacity (less than 4 hours to a full charge).
I still wonder if I am being overly cautious; maybe I can just use the granny charger with the 12 amp button pressed, plugged into a regular (NEMA 5-15) outlet. In the few months I've had this car, I have not tried this.