Schneider EVSE

[mitch672]

Well, its hard for ME to write a review, mine is installed, I'm happy with it (as happy as you can be with an EVSE and no vehicle to charge), I have to wait until sometime in January before I can test it, unless someone in the Boston area has an EV/PHEV with a J-1772 connector on it that would like to test charging at my house in Randolph, MA

 

[redLEAF]

Same here -- although I expect (hopefully) my car sometime next month -- I also received a reminder from HD to post a product review but held off until I actually get to use the product

 

[smkettner]

I submitted a short review today. Another 5 star rating can't hurt.

 

[PatricioEV]

I rec'd my Schneider unit from HD yesterday and there is a installation bulletin stating it must be hardwired with a metal box (or something to that effect) or at least grounded a second time to metal. I should have copied it word for word but I'm at work. Anyway, I see that others have just attached a 50a plug... is there any reason I can't just attach a plug like others have done and plug this sucker in? I'd much rather do that than have it hardwired and permanently attached. Anyone have any issues with it being plugged in?

 

[smkettner]

I am sure you saw my plug in pictures. Absolutely no issues. I would not drag the cord across a walkway but otherwise no worries.

The premoulded plug has 6/2-8/2 cable that is rather large for the strain relief fitting. Consider a separate plug with some 8/3 cord.

 

[essaunders]

Well, you can count me in the "got an EVSE, but no car" group. The electrician was a little worried about the "flimsy plastic" but he got it apart and back together without any breakage.

 

[hodad66]

after a "wired" install the cover just sits there... you just
want to be careful as you take out the cutouts.....
Mine is going strong after a month.

 

[PatricioEV]

Quotes to add one 40amp 240volt breaker to main electrical panel, run conduit to other side of garage and hardwire EV charging station: $600-$1,000. Cost to do it yourself: $95. T minus eleven days and counting for arrival of 2012 Leaf!

 

[TNleaf]

From the sales tracking thread:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2883&view=unread#p156426" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In France, November 2011 :
...
Renault Kangoo : 677
Renault Fluence : 123
Bollore Blue Car : 171 (self-service in Paris)
Mia : 128


Very good number for Renault : 800 sales.

Very interesting to see different Schneider Electric EVSEs in the Renault video. I wonder if Renault and Schneider Electric have a deal worked out much like Nissan and AV or Ford and Leviton. It would make sense, Renault and Schneider Electric both being French-based companies.

 

[pjoseph]

My Schneider EVSE started failing intermittently after two months of seamless operation.

When i try to charge the car, the EVSE's status indicator turns red and glows steady. The user guide mentions ground faults and all other faults. It has been raining (drizzling actually) here in Austin for the past 3 weeks or so. The wet weather is when the unit started failing. i even tried to dry both the J1772 connector and the car's charging port using a hair dryer (without getting too close). No go. Back to L1 charger. After a gap of almost a week, the unit is working again.

Does this EVSE have a very narrow tolerance (5 mA) for ground faults?

Anyways i ended up calling Customer Service. They had me talk to Ben Periasamy who is the PM for this product. Ben provided outstanding service and shipped me a replacement unit which my electrician is scheduled to swap out tomorrow. Very impressed with Schneider's responsiveness.

In my world this would be a ROM/firmware or software update (to fix memory corruption or bugs). My engineer brain is torn on swapping out an apparently functional box with an identical, albeit slightly newer unit.. Anyone else seen this? TIA.

 

[mckemie]

When i try to charge the car, the EVSE's status indicator turns red and glows steady. The user guide mentions ground faults and all other faults. It has been raining (drizzling actually) here in Austin for the past 3 weeks or so. The wet weather is when the unit started failing. i even tried to dry both the J1772 connector and the car's charging port using a hair dryer (without getting too close). No go. Back to L1 charger. After a gap of almost a week, the unit is working again.

I'm 30 miles south of Austin and have also been seeing wet weather the past few weeks.
My Schneider unit is mounted just a foot or so around the corner of a doorless barn opening. It is protected from blowing rain but does get damp in wet weather. The cord reaches outside so that a car can be charged without parking the car in the barn. No trouble here. Yet.

I am struck by the silliness of being forced to pay $800 for a glorified extension cord that is less reliable than standard electrical connections.

 

[pjoseph]

Thank you, McKemie. Appreciate that input.

My car is setup to charge inside or outside the garage. Typical suburban house. The EVSE is installed mid-way on the side wall of the garage. So the unit itself never gets wet (built to be an indoor unit), just the J1772 connector which is snug under the car's charging port cover.

An aside. My first real world job was in technical support at Cisco (almost 20 years ago). While still green and wet, i handled a particularly mystifying case of router repeated crashing (on large routing tables (for that time)). We swapped out hardware multiple times until the development engineers pointed out the fallacy of that. It turned out tot be memory corruption and a software upgrade fixed it. Good lesson in root cause analysis

The Schneider unit is in a similar state. There are three buttons (Stop, Status (Power and Detected Fault), Delay: in that order from top to bottom). And Progress Indicators One through Eight. There is apparently very little troubleshooting a customer can do. Not even a serial number or error codes i could find. Schneider's explanation was that ground faults are tripping the unit (working as designed).

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

My car is setup to charge inside or outside the garage. Typical suburban house. The EVSE is installed mid-way on the side wall of the garage. So the unit itself gets never gets wet (built to be an indoor unit), just the J1772 connector which is snug under the car's charging port cover.

Within the next few days I will have the exact same setup, as I want the cord to reach either when the car is in the garage or just outside the garage, or possibly to another "visiting" EV outside the garage. So I will be very interested to hear the outcome.

 

[essaunders]

I don't have an EV yet, but my Schnieder EVSE is installed. I was moving the cable around trying to figure out where exactly to put the cable hanger and I noticed that the "nozzle" seems to slip (rotate) relative to the cable. Has anyone else seen this? It seems like the handle of the "nozzle" should grip the cable fairly tightly.

 

[pjoseph]

Before we picked Schneider, i searched far and wide. Schneider still appears the best deal*, although not much configurable . It's timers are redundant to that of the car and so i don't use it. Besides we don't have TOU rates just yet. For comparison sake, ECOtality's more expensive Blink charger is a much more futuristic gadget (Wi-Fi, Web portal, metering) but not very reliable for its basic function just yet.

Schneider has a solid reputation, and their support has come through. Although this product seems frozen in time. Hindsight is 20/20 (as the saying goes).

*30% covered by Federal rebates plus any applicable local rebates

 

[pjoseph]

I don't have an EV yet, but my Schnieder EVSE is installed. I was moving the cable around trying to figure out where exactly to put the cable hanger and I noticed that the "nozzle" seems to slip (rotate) relative to the cable. Has anyone else seen this? It seems like the handle of the "nozzle" should grip the cable fairly tightly.

Yes, it should be fairly tight. Went in and checked mine. There is only a very small slip that is barely noticeable. Check the L1 EVSE that came with the car for comparison.

Nissan's included L1 EVSE's 'nozzle' is also engineered better. It always fits the car on the first try. With the Schneider, i have to grope around a bit. MInor annoyance.

The cable is just 18 ft, so i have to park fairly close (2 to 3 ft) to the garage door, if i want to charge outside. And keep the garage clear to store all my junk Plan accordingly.

My cable hanger is installed at the bottom of the unit, just like the pictures show.

 

[keydiver]

My Schneider EVSE started failing intermittently after two months of seamless operation. When i try to charge the car, the EVSE's status indicator turns red and glows steady.

For some reason I'm having the same issue today. After some charging attempts the EVSE fails almost immediately, turning the red indicator on steady, while other times it fails after a few minutes. Very frustrating! Ben tells me that they are waiting to receive your unit to examine it. Even though there is no evidence of moisture in either connector, I blew into them with my heat gun for a few seconds, and it is now charging (last time I checked).
It has been VERY rainy the past few days here in South Florida, but I don't know why that would affect it. I did leave the charge port open on the first day, but that was almost a week ago now.

 

[hodad66]

happy to report no problems here in central Florida....... EVSE
is well inside directly under the breaker box. We had three
days of rain also.

 

[Weatherman]

I had mine installed right next to the breaker panel, also. It's just about the driest location in the garage. I had an electrician perform the installation, and I watched him hook things up. It was a very clean, professional job.

No problems, so far, but it has only been in operation for a couple of days.

One thing I noticed... When I was using the L1 EVSE it got pretty warm for the nearly nine-hour period when the car was charging, so it seemed to be wasting a lot of energy as heat. The Schneider EVLink stays remarkably cool for the four hours it takes to perform the same battery recharge.

 

[smkettner]

Mine has worked flawlessly. I used the Schneider delay function and it worked fine to limit the normal charge timer hours I have set in the Leaf. Seemed easier than resetting the Leaf timer and then changing back. I had a short drive to a place I would be charging all day for free so I did not want to arrive near full.