Anonymous
05/21/2024 14:15
Subject: Home EV charging
DP re the trench (can’t speak to phases). Get multiple estimates. When I had a level 2 charger installed, the estimates were all over the place. One company wanted to run the line up into my basement ceiling and then down outside the house into a trench—the box was on the other side of the house wall from the car so all that was needed was a hole and a 3 ft trench.
Anonymous
05/18/2024 13:30
Subject: Home EV charging
Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Our parking pad is 80 feet from the house. I got a quote for installing a level 2 charger near the pad and it included $5k of trenching to run the line. If we put the charger by the house, could we use some sort of extension cord?
No. Learn how direct current electricity works and why an 80 foot cable would be essentially impossible.
Spend the money and do it right. Stop cheaping out.
A level 2 charger is AC, but your point more or less holds.
It’s not AC from the charger to the car.
Yes it is AC. The conversion takes place in the car. Technically, we are not even talking about chargers but rather Electrical Vehicle Supply Equipment or EVSEs. They don't actually charge but simply control the supply of electricity to the car. Systems in the car convert the electricity to DC and do the actual charging.
DC fast chargers are different, of course.
If that’s the case, then a 100ft extension cord of 10-8 gauge would be fine.
No, first that couldn't even be connected in this scenario. Second, if it was somehow connected, it would probably catch on fire.
This is the sort of thing that would be needed, but the longest available is 40 ft:
https://evdances.com/blogs/news/the-versatility-and-benefits-of-evdance-j1772-ev-extension-cables
Nonsense. If it’s carrying 3-phase 240 /100 amp AC line voltage from the house down to where the charger installs, that could be done with 12/4 Romex. The main service line coming into the meter for a house with 200 amp service isn’t much larger.
Seriously - look at your residential power lines. The local distribution wires are handling about 6kV on most neighborhood poles.
I think that you have lost track of what we are discussing. This is a home and, therefore, will be single phase. Of course we understand how to get electricity from the circuit box to the EVSE. The original poster has a quote for that. The issue is the expense of digging a trench for the wire. The OP is asking whether he can install the EVSE closer to his house and save the cost of the trench. In that case, he would need to extend the cable from the EVSE to his car, a distance of 80 feet. You are proposing a cable that is meant for dry installations to be used in an outdoor environment. Not a good idea. The reason these cables are so thick is that they have to be weather-proof. The OP will not find a 80 foot extension cable and, therefor, should focus on other solutions.
100%
And 12 gauge wire cannot be used for the 40-60A circuit that is required for a charger, even if dry…
Though, technically, I think 240v uses 2 phases. The third phase exists out on the pole and is used for commercial purposes and 2 phases are run to standard residential meters. Though it’s never called that…
It's even stranger than that. There's no third phase on the pole, or the two phases at the home would only be 120 degress out of phase. Our 120/240V system is sometimes called single phase because the two phases are at 180 degrees.
Commerical and industrial locations can have three-phase power. Between two phases it is 208V which is usually close enough to 240V to not matter in most cases.
Anonymous
05/17/2024 21:46
Subject: Home EV charging
jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Our parking pad is 80 feet from the house. I got a quote for installing a level 2 charger near the pad and it included $5k of trenching to run the line. If we put the charger by the house, could we use some sort of extension cord?
No. Learn how direct current electricity works and why an 80 foot cable would be essentially impossible.
Spend the money and do it right. Stop cheaping out.
A level 2 charger is AC, but your point more or less holds.
It’s not AC from the charger to the car.
Yes it is AC. The conversion takes place in the car. Technically, we are not even talking about chargers but rather Electrical Vehicle Supply Equipment or EVSEs. They don't actually charge but simply control the supply of electricity to the car. Systems in the car convert the electricity to DC and do the actual charging.
DC fast chargers are different, of course.
If that’s the case, then a 100ft extension cord of 10-8 gauge would be fine.
No, first that couldn't even be connected in this scenario. Second, if it was somehow connected, it would probably catch on fire.
This is the sort of thing that would be needed, but the longest available is 40 ft:
https://evdances.com/blogs/news/the-versatility-and-benefits-of-evdance-j1772-ev-extension-cables
Nonsense. If it’s carrying 3-phase 240 /100 amp AC line voltage from the house down to where the charger installs, that could be done with 12/4 Romex. The main service line coming into the meter for a house with 200 amp service isn’t much larger.
Seriously - look at your residential power lines. The local distribution wires are handling about 6kV on most neighborhood poles.
I think that you have lost track of what we are discussing. This is a home and, therefore, will be single phase. Of course we understand how to get electricity from the circuit box to the EVSE. The original poster has a quote for that. The issue is the expense of digging a trench for the wire. The OP is asking whether he can install the EVSE closer to his house and save the cost of the trench. In that case, he would need to extend the cable from the EVSE to his car, a distance of 80 feet. You are proposing a cable that is meant for dry installations to be used in an outdoor environment. Not a good idea. The reason these cables are so thick is that they have to be weather-proof. The OP will not find a 80 foot extension cable and, therefor, should focus on other solutions.
100%
And 12 gauge wire cannot be used for the 40-60A circuit that is required for a charger, even if dry…
Though, technically, I think 240v uses 2 phases. The third phase exists out on the pole and is used for commercial purposes and 2 phases are run to standard residential meters. Though it’s never called that…
jsteele
05/16/2024 08:11
Subject: Home EV charging
Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:jsteele wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Our parking pad is 80 feet from the house. I got a quote for installing a level 2 charger near the pad and it included $5k of trenching to run the line. If we put the charger by the house, could we use some sort of extension cord?
No. Learn how direct current electricity works and why an 80 foot cable would be essentially impossible.
Spend the money and do it right. Stop cheaping out.
A level 2 charger is AC, but your point more or less holds.
It’s not AC from the charger to the car.
Yes it is AC. The conversion takes place in the car. Technically, we are not even talking about chargers but rather Electrical Vehicle Supply Equipment or EVSEs. They don't actually charge but simply control the supply of electricity to the car. Systems in the car convert the electricity to DC and do the actual charging.
DC fast chargers are different, of course.
If that’s the case, then a 100ft extension cord of 10-8 gauge would be fine.
No, first that couldn't even be connected in this scenario. Second, if it was somehow connected, it would probably catch on fire.
This is the sort of thing that would be needed, but the longest available is 40 ft:
https://evdances.com/blogs/news/the-versatility-and-benefits-of-evdance-j1772-ev-extension-cables
Nonsense. If it’s carrying 3-phase 240 /100 amp AC line voltage from the house down to where the charger installs, that could be done with 12/4 Romex. The main service line coming into the meter for a house with 200 amp service isn’t much larger.
Seriously - look at your residential power lines. The local distribution wires are handling about 6kV on most neighborhood poles.
I think that you have lost track of what we are discussing. This is a home and, therefore, will be single phase. Of course we understand how to get electricity from the circuit box to the EVSE. The original poster has a quote for that. The issue is the expense of digging a trench for the wire. The OP is asking whether he can install the EVSE closer to his house and save the cost of the trench. In that case, he would need to extend the cable from the EVSE to his car, a distance of 80 feet. You are proposing a cable that is meant for dry installations to be used in an outdoor environment. Not a good idea. The reason these cables are so thick is that they have to be weather-proof. The OP will not find a 80 foot extension cable and, therefor, should focus on other solutions.