Is the evse upgrade ul approved ?

Was looking at getting this done but no word here or on the website if this ul approved or not . Was a thermal camera picture before and after mods shown to show heat increase or not. I thought all products that are sold need ul approval that are over 36 volt . Also is he certified to open electronic devices and re assemble them .. There is a city permit for this. Reason asking is my electrical contractor said he wouldn't think he did the ul ing and my home owners insurance would not cover the fire if cause by the evse upgrade . I tried to search the web with no luck . Anyone know if the mod is done legally so to speak ..

bigt said:

Was looking at getting this done but no word here or on the website if this ul approved or not . Was a thermal camera picture before and after mods shown to show heat increase or not. I thought all products that are sold need ul approval that are over 36 volt . Also is he certified to open electronic devices and re assemble them .. There is a city permit for this. Reason asking is my electrical contractor said he wouldn't think he did the ul ing and my home owners insurance would not cover the fire if cause by the evse upgrade . I tried to search the web with no luck . Anyone know if the mod is done legally so to speak ..

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I assume you are referring to EVSEUpgrade.com
The mod is legal and Phil has done testing to ensure that he is comfortable selling the product with his name. It has not be UL certified though. Your electrician is just misinformed that using a non-UL device will exclude coverage for a fire which is the result of said device. Feel free to review your policy but you wil not find any requirements that you need to only purchase UL certified devices. I gaurantee many of the devices you already own are not UL certified.

Just have your electrician install a L6-20 receptacle and have the city inspect it and then use your EVSEUpgrade thinking about how much money you saved with a solution that is just as safe, if not safer than other EVSEs.

i understand, so anyone without any certification and or legal electrical license can open and modify electrical equipment and sell it openly to the public without liabilities.. I hope he doesn't keep his money in his company bank account when the attorneys come .Product liability insurance comes to mind. And all the big box stores in the usa won't sell non uled products.. And its for the liabilities that come without it.. Im sure for the 20 k spent to get the ul it be worth it. Im sure one day something will happen for this modification and the saving may not be worth a burnt house or dead love one. Just google how many house fires happen from old power panels that wouldn't break power properly and cause house fires. Federal Pacific panels got a rep for being unsafe.

bigt said:

i understand, so anyone without any certification and or legal electrical ...

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I suggest you NOT buy one. Problem solved.

bigt said:

i understand, so anyone without any certification and or legal electrical license can open and modify electrical equipment and sell it openly to the public without liabilities..

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Ingineer has a reputation for a quality product that is probably as safe (or safer) than a lot of other products on the market. If you don't want to buy one, don't buy it. If I have a need to upgrade my EVSE, I will go with EVSEupgrade.

In a word, no.

It's probably best for you to run screaming in the opposite direction! As fast as possible!

bigt said:

i understand, so anyone without any certification and or legal electrical license can open and modify electrical equipment and sell it openly to the public without liabilities.. I hope he doesn't keep his money in his company bank account when the attorneys come .

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Stoaty said:

Ingineer has a reputation for a quality product that is probably as safe (or safer) than a lot of other products on the market.

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Seems unlikely that you're truly qualified to make that claim. The word "probably" would be the most important one in your statement

That's the point of UL certification. Some level of agreed upon, standardized testing has been performed.

I have no opinion one way or the other on the product mentioned, and I think the OP is really just trolling. But looking for a standard certification isn't unreasonable.

I hate to break the bubble but a lot of UL testing is very cursory and essentially nothing more than an (expensive) license to sell a product... I don't place a lot of faith in it.

ITestStuff said:

That's the point of UL certification. Some level of agreed upon, standardized testing has been performed.

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TomT said:

I hate to break the bubble but a lot of UL testing is very cursory and essentially nothing more than an (expensive) license to sell a product... I don't place a lot of faith in it.

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Please share some details on this.

I know something about other product certification processes, but have only limited knowledge of UL testing.

http://ulstandardsinfonet.ul.com/tocs/tocs.asp?doc=s&fn=2594.toc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The full text of the test specification does not appear to be freely available online. Have to say I'm not a fan of that. So this is probably the best overview we're going to get of the type of testing required for UL certification for an EVSE.

ITestStuff said:

TomT said:

I hate to break the bubble but a lot of UL testing is very cursory and essentially nothing more than an (expensive) license to sell a product... I don't place a lot of faith in it.

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Please share some details on this.

I know something about other product certification processes, but have only limited knowledge of UL testing.

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UL is an insurance company lobby for the most part. It is not a gov agency, good thing there is competition that does not rip off manufacturers as much but UL wants everyone to believe they are some legal certification that insures good design. I have UL certified products that I would never use in my home and many products form China have fake UL tags. Check for the UL certification on your 400V LEAF that is parked in your garage.

Shouldn't the proof that Phil's upgrade is awesome be in the fact that none of us have had an issue with any of ours that I am aware of. I have owned lots of things that were UL approved that were total junk.

bigt said:

i understand, so anyone without any certification and or legal electrical license can open and modify electrical equipment and sell it openly to the public without liabilities.. I hope he doesn't keep his money in his company bank account when the attorneys come .Product liability insurance comes to mind. And all the big box stores in the usa won't sell non uled products.. And its for the liabilities that come without it.. Im sure for the 20 k spent to get the ul it be worth it. Im sure one day something will happen for this modification and the saving may not be worth a burnt house or dead love one. Just google how many house fires happen from old power panels that wouldn't break power properly and cause house fires. Federal Pacific panels got a rep for being unsafe.

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Holy crap. PLEASE, PLEASE don't buy this product.

You seem to think that UL listing will somehow shield somebody from liability, and I can assure that if a house burns down and the lawyers come digging, they are not going to care if it's UL or not... only how much insurance you have.

But, again, you clearly are not the person to buy this. I wonder if all the electrical products in your car are UL? I'll bet not...

bigt said:

i understand, so anyone without any certification and or legal electrical license can open and modify electrical equipment and sell it openly to the public without liabilities.. I hope he doesn't keep his money in his company bank account when the attorneys come .Product liability insurance comes to mind. And all the big box stores in the usa won't sell non uled products.. And its for the liabilities that come without it.. Im sure for the 20 k spent to get the ul it be worth it. Im sure one day something will happen for this modification and the saving may not be worth a burnt house or dead love one. Just google how many house fires happen from old power panels that wouldn't break power properly and cause house fires. Federal Pacific panels got a rep for being unsafe.

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You realize FPE circuits were certified right?

Phil clearly takes on liabilities by selling a product.. I'm not sure which certification you think he needs to be able to modify EVSEs but he clearly has the skills needed to ensure that is performed correctly.

When you start your own business selling electrical products you can get yours UL tested until then I would suggest you avoid armchair quarterbacking someone elses business unless you believe that the product they are selling is unsafe...

Clearly Phil has no interest in selling his service through "big box stores". Also you are wrong.... Big box stores sell non-ul listed products all the time. If you are going to be all mighty at least do some research first and fully understand product testing.

all you people who think that someone can open a manufactured product and modify outside of its intended manufacturing specs and are free from getting all the money in their bank account sued from them are drinking the punch.. Without going into the boring details why don't you mention you have a modified charger connected to your home without proper certs to say the fire marshal at your company I know that my fire marshal inspects everything when my office gets its turn or maybe your hoa im sure they will have no problem.

Im not a troll.

I didn't gain anything but a bunch of internet bs from this and if you google do i need ul certification to sell to walmart you'll see that the biggest box store does... Why don't you research before being how you are. I did. Here is a clip from a search where walmart sold a fake ul tv that caught fire.


Underwriter Laboratories (UL) has issued a warning that some LCD TVs have entered the US market falsely bearing the UL logo. The UL is an independent product safety certification organization responsible for testing products and writing Standards for Safety for over 100 years. The UL warns there could be safety concerns with the falsely marked TVs; one has already caught fire.

The UL identified the Polaroid Model TDA-03211C as the culprit. You can find this LCD TV over at Walmart and look – yay- it’s in stock. For just $618 you can get this “hot” little unit! And .

UPDATE: the unit just went out of stock as this post was being updated. Walmart showed 160 reviews of the TV that was manufactured from 2007-2009, so the number of these out there could be quite large.

Here is about selling to walmart imported electronics

Many importers get their products certified by Underwriters Laboratories (UL), a standards and testing organization. As the de facto standard in electronics and many other industries, UL certification is required by most major retailers including Wal Mart. However, in most cases its not required by the government to import products.

I've not posted here to start a war.. So lets get this straight this is How this started

I did ask my wife if i could buy the evse upgrade and she said ask the contractor who isn't gaining anything either and after his option my wife asked is it really worth the lives of our children and our pets for $700 dollar savings. Maybe your beloved chargers work great now but how about 10 years from now.

Also as many of you may or may not know the extra hot line in the mod causes heat and heat causes resistance as well as electrical failures including melting plastic that in turn causes fires.
I wonder how the modded evse holds out to the 20 amp draw for the maximum time . Im sure its fine.

Just like how you must remove insulation from romex before putting into conduit.. that extra bit of covering causes enough heat with a big draw to cause a fire.Thats why my first post asked of thermal imaging.
My dyson cord at the plug dam near gets hot enough to melt the copper when going into overtime.

I now know and realize why this was not brought up. thank you all for you valuable input i hope you all sleep well.

Moderators, please remove the troll ^^^^^^^

remove the troll because i speak the truth.

If the public doesn't understand that the evseupgrade nul and voids the 5 million dollar insurance policy that ul provides then maybe they should be..

What makes me a troll? tell me please

You should buy this product instead:

http://www.blinknetwork.com/chargers-residential.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:shock:

bigt said:

remove the troll because i speak the truth.

If the public doesn't understand that the evseupgrade nul and voids the 5 million dollar insurance policy that ul provides then maybe they should be..

What makes me a troll? tell me please

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Because you're not only wrong, but you're persistently posting the same garbage over and over looking for a response. That's the very definition of an internet troll.

We already know that the modified EVSE is not a UL listed product. Neither is the LEAF. Or my modified Clipper Creek charging station charging my car right now. Or the OPENevse that I built. Or a whole host of other products that are in your and my house.

You've made your case, we can all read it, so hopefully this will get locked up soon.