BC2BC Mexico to Canada via Electric Highway June 12-20, 2012

[LEAFer]

Seattle to Portland - GaslessInSEattle
Redding to Sacramento - LEAFer
SFO-SAN - KeiJidosha
Bakersfield to Santa Clarita - chris1howell
Stockton to Merced - GRA

Who can do Oregon ?
edatoakrun, can you do Medford to Redding (or Red Bluff) ? Or is someone else in the Redding/southern Oregon area able to help "move" Tony's LEAF across the border ?

In any case, this relay requires one RELAY driver for Tony's LEAF, plus at least one other driver (hopefully LEAF or other "clean" vehicle) to return the RELAY driver back home -- unless RELAY driver is counting on other form of (public) transport to return.

 

[edatoakrun]

Seattle to Portland - GaslessInSEattle
Redding to Sacramento - LEAFer
SFO-SAN - KeiJidosha
Bakersfield to Santa Clarita - chris1howell
Stockton to Merced - GRA

Who can do Oregon ?
edatoakrun, can you do Medford to Redding (or Red Bluff) ? Or is someone else in the Redding/southern Oregon area able to help "move" Tony's LEAF across the border ?

In any case, this relay requires one RELAY driver for Tony's LEAF, plus at least one other driver (hopefully LEAF or other "clean" vehicle) to return the RELAY driver back home -- unless RELAY driver is counting on other form of (public) transport to return.

Sorry, but I think I'll pass.

I would suggest Amtrak, for this, and perhaps some other sections, if you are determine to try a rely return, as it won't be too much fun in a LEAF, without faster-than-L2 charging. IMO, this section of I-5 will probably eat a lot more kWh, than the profile below suggests:

I have made longer trips with greater ascent and descent in one day (on L2) before, by getting close to 5 m/kWh, but this section of I-5 will not, IMO, allow anywhere near the low speeds that requires. Both of the lanes each direction tend to have heavy truck traffic at most all hours, and, unlike I-5 south of Red Bluff, there are few miles of side roads available to take as lower-speed alternates. I actually tried a short part of the northbound trip yesterday, and found it very frustrating. Once North of Shasta lake City (about mile 140 on the profile) I had a very difficult time trying to maintain safety and economy.

Going uphill on the steep grades is no problem, you just follow a heavy truck going 40-45 mph in the right lane. On the downgrades however, the same trucks will accelerate to well over 65, and will tailgate you till you do the same.

I just don't think you can drive this route safely and get very much over 3 or 3.5 m/kWh average (as compared to the ~5m/kWh I got driving "I-5" (old 99) from Dunnigan to Red Bluff. So, even after leaving the Ashland DC, at about mile 13, with a 100% charge, you will probably need a minimum of about 6 hours of L2 driving south, and 7 hours of L2, on the same route, driving north.

Amtrak is slow, and you can only depend on it to be late, but I'd suggest you consider it, over trying a two-way LEAF drive, unless you have faster-than-L2 both ways, or a few days to spare.

 

[LEAFer]

Helpful info ! Thanks, Ed !

 

[Ingineer]

Seattle to Portland - GaslessInSEattle
Redding to Sacramento - LEAFer
SFO-SAN - KeiJidosha
Bakersfield to Santa Clarita - chris1howell
Stockton to Merced - GRA

I can take the Sacramento to San Francisco leg.

What date will this fall on?

-Phil

 

[Ingineer]

Would there be any reason why I could not use two NEMA 14-50R outlets (at an RV park) and combine them into one box for 100 amp service ?

Disclaimer: This is not safe in the hands of a non-experienced user, but would be fine for Tony, and only if continuously supervised.

Take a 4 slot small subpanel, install two 50A breakers in there, connect your QC to the main bus. Connect two 14-50 plugs on cables, one to each breaker, (hot-hot) do not connect neutrals, but do parallel the grounds. Install four 240v pilot lamps, with the first two lamps across the same 2 legs on each of the 50A breakers, (14-50 sides) two more pilots the same way, except swapping the hots on one breaker. (X)

To confirm, the four pilot lamps are connected as follows:
Lamp1: leg 1 of breaker 1 and leg 1 of breaker 2
Lamp2: leg 2 of breaker 1 and leg 2 of breaker 2
Lamp3: leg 1 of breaker 1 and leg 2 of breaker 2
Lamp4: leg 2 of breaker 1 and leg 1 of breaker 2

To use: Verify all breakers OFF, Connect your 14-50's, and verify that you have this pattern of lights:
Off-Off-On-On

Then, and only then, is it safe close the breakers. If there is significant resistance difference in the circuits, you may have an imbalance that could trip circuits, so it might be worth carrying a clamp-on ammeter to verify.

If you have this pattern instead:
On-On-Off-Off

You need to simply swap the hots in one 14-50.

Any other pattern indicates the outlets are on different phase legs, on different power systems, or have one or more dead legs, so try others.

NEVER unplug any 14-50 unless all breakers are off!

This same box could be used with a single 14-50 outlet, setting the QC to pull under 50a, just only close the breaker of the cord in use.

This box could be made automatic and safe for general use by the addition of contactors and a control system, but it would get bulky, heavy, and expensive.

-Phil

 

[TonyWilliams]

Seattle to Portland - GaslessInSEattle
Redding to Sacramento - LEAFer
SFO-SAN - KeiJidosha
Bakersfield to Santa Clarita - chris1howell
Stockton to Merced - GRA

I can take the Sacramento to San Francisco leg.

What date will this fall on?

-Phil

No specific date yet! But, I don't intend to be done with the car until June 20, 2012. So, let's say:

June 21 at the earliest from Seattle through Washington

June 22 through Oregon

June 23 through (real) northern California

June 24 still in northern California?

June 25 San Francisco Bay area?

July 1 Monterey Refuel Event

July 22 (on or before) my house in San Diego

 

[Ingineer]

No specific date yet! But, I don't intend to be done with the car until June 20, 2012. So, let's say:

June 21 at the earliest from Seattle through Washington

June 22 through Oregon

June 23 through (real) northern California

June 24 still in northern California?

June 25 San Francisco Bay area?

July 1 Monterey Refuel Event

July 22 (on or before) my house in San Diego

Ok, I'll confirm that I can take on the return relay leg when we get closer and know when it will be, but I'll tentatively commit. =)

-Phil

 

[TonyWilliams]

Would there be any reason why I could not use two NEMA 14-50R outlets (at an RV park) and combine them into one box for 100 amp service ?

Disclaimer: This is not safe in the hands of a non-experienced user, but would be fine for Tony, and only if continuously supervised.
-Phil

Good plan! Thanks for penciling that out. I do have an inductive clamp on ammeter for the Fluke, so I can either monitor that way, or install two dedicated ammeters in the box.

 

[Spies]

On the downgrades however, the same trucks will accelerate to well over 65, and will tailgate you till you do the same.

It's unfortunate they don't keep to the 55 mph limit.

 

[EVDRIVER]

Would there be any reason why I could not use two NEMA 14-50R outlets (at an RV park) and combine them into one box for 100 amp service ?

Disclaimer: This is not safe in the hands of a non-experienced user, but would be fine for Tony, and only if continuously supervised.
-Phil

Good plan! Thanks for penciling that out. I do have an inductive clamp on ammeter for the Fluke, so I can either monitor that way, or install two dedicated ammeters in the box.

There is no way this will work, the 14-50P is physically larger than the car and will fry the charger. You need to install an over-unity adapter between the two so it will work. If you do this you don't need to monitor the charging and you will put more in the pack than the outlet actually supplies.

 

[DaveEV]

Good plan! Thanks for penciling that out. I do have an inductive clamp on ammeter for the Fluke, so I can either monitor that way, or install two dedicated ammeters in the box.

Where you have "disconnect?" for crossover - I might suggest that you make a short NEMA 14-50R to 14-15P adapter which crosses over the 2 hots. That way it's easy to cross over the lines without having to swap wires around in your sub-panel.

 

[TEG]

There is no way this will work, the 14-50P is physically larger than the car and will fry the charger. You need to install an over-unity adapter between the two so it will work. If you do this you don't need to monitor the charging and you will put more in the pack than the outlet actually supplies.

Huh? I am confused by that. All they are trying to do is get more wire between the grid and the offboard charger so that it is safe to pull 80 amps. I think Tony will use an external charger box that provides DC to the LEAF CHAdeMO port. Why wouldn't that work?

Also, if you were thinking that this would just go into the regular J-plug what would be the problem there? The car would just happily draw 3.3kW from a circuit capable of delivering 19.2kW. The extra wire paths and dual breakers wouldn't do anything to overload the car. The car's charger regulates its input current based on what it thinks is safe to draw as a load. If the wiring has extra capacity, great. Less waste heat from resistance. If going to the AC J-plug it needs to be 120V or 240V, but nothing discussed here would change the voltage, just the available ampacity.

 

[Ingineer]

Good plan! Thanks for penciling that out. I do have an inductive clamp on ammeter for the Fluke, so I can either monitor that way, or install two dedicated ammeters in the box.

Looks good. I would have probably saved time if I had just drawn it in the first place!

-Phil

 

[Ingineer]

Where you have "disconnect?" for crossover - I might suggest that you make a short NEMA 14-50R to 14-15P adapter which crosses over the 2 hots. That way it's easy to cross over the lines without having to swap wires around in your sub-panel.

This is a good idea. You might also make up a straight through extension that's at least 20 feet of maybe #8, this could act as a load balancing resistor if you get in a situation where one outlet is pulling too much current. (over 50a)

I hope you take lots of pictures, you'll probably have some fun charging scenarios! =)

-Phil

 

[TonyWilliams]

Good plan! Thanks for penciling that out. I do have an inductive clamp on ammeter for the Fluke, so I can either monitor that way, or install two dedicated ammeters in the box.

Where you have "disconnect?" for crossover - I might suggest that you make a short NEMA 14-50R to 14-15P adapter which crosses over the 2 hots. That way it's easy to cross over the lines without having to swap wires around in your sub-panel.

Yes, way better plan; I just need to mark the crossover adapter. So, now I need a heavy cable to stretch all the way to wherever the second NEMA 14-50R might be,

How about this idea; I use my two existing 100 foot 10 gauge cables, and combine both conductors in each cable and therefore each cable becomes one hot leg to the far away 14-50R.

So, one of those mega expensive CS6365C 50 Amp, 125/250 Volt AC connectors (which I have the plug end already) with two six gauge conductors, each one going into a "shorted" L6-20 so that all the conductors in each cable act as one conductor (each cable), then reverse the connectors on the other end that connects two shorted L6-20's to a single 14-50P.

 

[LEAFer]

Take another look at this thread by "jackbowers"; the info regarding RV park phases and equal length extension cords. (You'll unlikely find two 14-50R in direct proximity.) I don't know if you have a way of controlling current on your external charger (on the Tesla he does), but that may be a good feature to check imbalance.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/8661-Adapter-to-combine-two-30A-level2-into-one-60A-J1772-faster-charging/page2?p=143755&viewfull=1#post143755" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[TomT]

Time (speed) is money to them!

It's unfortunate they don't keep to the 55 mph limit.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Take another look at this thread by "jackbowers"; the info regarding RV park phases and equal length extension cords. (You'll unlikely find two 14-50R in direct proximity.) I don't know if you have a way of controlling current on your external charger (on the Tesla he does), but that may be a good feature to check imbalance.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/8661-Adapter-to-combine-two-30A-level2-into-one-60A-J1772-faster-charging/page2?p=143755&viewfull=1#post143755" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, I can control voltage, phase, current, etc.

 

[TonyWilliams]

There is no way this will work, the 14-50P is physically larger than the car and will fry the charger. You need to install an over-unity adapter between the two so it will work. If you do this you don't need to monitor the charging and you will put more in the pack than the outlet actually supplies.

Huh? I am confused by that. All they are trying to do is get more wire between the grid and the offboard charger so that it is safe to pull 80 amps. I think Tony will use an external charger box that provides DC to the LEAF CHAdeMO port. Why wouldn't that work?.

I think he left out a few of these :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[LEAFer]

... your external charger ...

Yes, I can control voltage, phase, current, etc.

Will it (portble DCQC) be available on the return trip ? (However, I also do not advocate use of your "14-50 combiner" by inexperienced relay drivers.)