Cheap L2 EVSE by converting the 2013-14 Nissan L1 EVSE - $25

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maini

Well-known member
Joined
May 14, 2014
Messages
145
Location
NorCal Bay Area
DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!
It worked for me as I am careful and have good electrical knowledge and am an EEE Engineer.

My wife's daily commute is only 35 miles and I needed to replenish that at a faster rate so I can be sure it is fully charged in 4-5 hrs overnight. I looked around for the cheapest way to achieve this and I found the below link. Here is how I did it.. with a few convenient changes.
http://www.instructables.com/id/313CONVERTING-A-2013-LEAF-LEVEL-1-12AMP-CHARGER-TO/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Instead of keeping the original NEMA 5-15P that came with Nissan EVSE L1 as the Instructable suggests. I completely removed that cable as shown in the above instructions. In order to fool the EVSE that it still has the FDCD I soldered a 33K Ohm resistor between the two terminals. Just to clarify further in the original EVSE cord you will find Live(Black), Neutral(White), Ground(Green) wires. In addition you will find 2 Yellow wires coming from the FDCD device embedded in the 5-15 plug of the EVSE and plugged into the board via a 2 pin connector. Remove this connector and solder a 33KOhm resistor between the two pins on the EVSE. http://cdn.instructables.com/F1T/PTPJ/HRKR2FO8/F1TPTPJHRKR2FO8.LARGE.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
If you DO NOT do this and wire up the 4 core wire and try to use the EVSE will go into an error state in about 2 minutes and will stop charging. This 33KOhm resistor fools the EVSE in believing that the FDCD is still connected. Alternatively you could hack the cable and break the 5-15 plug to retrieve the FDCD device and keep it plugged into that two pin port while you change to the 4 core cable. I did not do this as I did not want to break my original cable.
Rest of the instructions are exactly the same. I used a 12AWG 4 core wire with a L14-30 plug. Wired as below
RED - In the Plug goes to a Phase Line1 terminal - In the EVSE it goes to the Red wire after the cut as described above
BLACK - In the Plug goes to a Phase Line2 terminal - In the EVSE it goes where the original Black wire went
WHITE - In the Plug goes to a Neutral terminal - In the EVSE it goes where the original White wire went
GREEN - In the Plug goes to a Ground terminal - In the EVSE it goes where the original Green wire went
http://www.instructables.com/files/deriv/F4F/RCZA/HRWNBHOC/F4FRCZAHRWNBHOC.LARGE.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://cdn.instructables.com/FT3/99JR/HRWNBIBM/FT399JRHRWNBIBM.LARGE.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thats it your 220V EVSE L2 is ready and will charge at 12AMPS giving out 2.88KWHrs - Will charge at TWICE the rate of the 110V L1 EVSE that came with the car. The car sees it as as L2 240 EVSE and indicates 3.3KWhr charging. The upgrade should cost you about $10 for the L14-30(Ebay), $14 for the 6 feet of 4 Core 12 AWG wire(Home Depot) and $1 for 33KOhm resistor(Radioshack). Total about $25 and your time.

If you really want to still have the 110V capability to charge then you can get L14-30 socket(ebay) and buy a 5-15P plug and wire it as suggested in the above instruct able. This should cost you another $15. It will be wired as below.
BLACK - In the 5-15 Plug goes to a Phase Line terminal - In the L14-30 socket it goes to the terminal that mates with the Black wire in the L14-30 Plug
WHITE - In the 5-15 Plug goes to a Neutral terminal - In the L14-30 socket it goes to the terminal that mates with the White wire in the L14-30 Plug
GREEN - In the 5-15 Plug goes to a Ground terminal - In the L14-30 socket it goes to the terminal that mates with the Green wire in the L14-30 Plug
Now in the L14-30 socket there is an EMPTY terminal put a small piece of wire here and short it with the Neutral white wire.
http://cdn.instructables.com/FWE/L9E7/HN825Z9T/FWEL9E7HN825Z9T.LARGE.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Your 110V adapter is ready.

This L2 EVSE is not as smart and as powerful as the EVSEupgrade which can actually give an output of 20+ Amps etc. and can charge the car at a faster rate which costs almost $300. If that is your need is charging much faster than 2.88KWhr this is not right for you as this does not charge at a very high rate. This is sufficient for me for now. If I really need a much faster charger then I would build myself an Open EVSE that way I have 2 chargers.

Let me know if you have any questions and I am happy to answer. Hope this helps someone who has a need for a cheap L2 EVSE.
 
LeftieBiker said:
Let me know if you have any questions and I am happy to answer. Hope this helps someone who has a need for a cheap L2 EVSE.

How many charge cycles has it survived, so far??

About 5 charges.... 6th one going on right now... Do you expect anything to fail?? this is just a dumb device literally..
 
Interesting. The original EVSEupgrade charged at 12A on 120V and 240V. I wonder if it was done in a similar way.
 
eHelmholtz said:
Interesting. The original EVSEupgrade charged at 12A on 120V and 240V. I wonder if it was done in a similar way.

Definitely not! All EVSEUpgrade.com upgrades replace the power supply (and any other things that can't handle 240volt like mosfets?) with a power supply supporting a wide range so it'll work on 120 and 240 volt. This horrible hack leaves the 120 volt power supply in place thus why they have to add the 4th wire.

Please please please don't ever do this to your panasonic EVSE. While it appears to be a hack that'll work you are introducing problems that completely ruin the the waterproofness of the EVSE and thus the durability and safety of it. This is NOT safe. Electrical tape is not a proper form off insulation for something that is going to be outside on the ground and likely exposed to water, dirt, etc.
 
As I have mentioned before, I did not exactly do that the instruct able says.. I changed it and made it cleaner.
I used soldering as only 1 wire is cut and Sealed it with waterproof shrink insulation.
The 4 core wire fits as tight into the insulation waterproof sleeve as the original cord. I also used some silicon to waterproof it.

What else do you see an issue??
 
maini said:
What else do you see an issue??
Some of the internal components are rated only for 120V and will fail in short order at 240V.

See http://evseupgrade.com/?main_page=faq_info&fcPath=4&faqs_id=24" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cheers,
Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
maini said:
What else do you see an issue??
Some of the internal components are rated only for 120V and will fail in short order at 240V.

See http://evseupgrade.com/?main_page=faq_info&fcPath=4&faqs_id=24" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cheers,
Wayne

I'm not sure what components need 240 volt capability, when that voltage is merely 120 volts on each Line.

I'm not crazy about the way this was done, but I would like to see EXACTLY which component is operated over its limit.
 
smkettner said:
As long as the 120v stuff is still powered by 120v it seems fine to me.

Exactly. I'm not exactly into big scare tactics for folks who know what they are doing. It's a simple mod. If the components don't exceed the 12 amps and 120 volts that they were designed to handle, then it should be fine.

No safety device is disabled (GCFI, etc).

The unit can obviously be made water tight, should the person doing the modification care to.

Obviously, it's not somebody just putting on a adaptor to run 240 volts, which was what the Nissan warranty claim issue was. Obviously, if you fry any modified unit and take it to Nissan for warranty, that probably won't work. That would obviously include an EVSEupgrade unit, however I suspect that they would honor a warranty for a genuinely failed unit that wasn't tampered with, overvoltaged, water logged, or whatever else folks do to destroy things.
 
All,

I have charged my brand new car with this 6 times on 220V and 2 times on the 110V adapter I built. No issues at all.
I used the times, without times.. left it overnight, did a few hours of charge and probably every combination of pulling the J1772 or the wall plug while it was charging.. etc. No problems.. it works normally as before.. does not get hot just a bit warm like before. I know enough electrical and electronics to say that it is sending 2 different phases of 120V through 2 different wires which are both fully capable to handle this. If you were to open an EVSE in Europe which has 220v.. I bet.. it would look exactly like this or very similar. This might be a hack but it works and will not fry your car... I have tried it on my car already and hence posted it here for someone if they have a need for this. I hold an Engineering degree and have been handy on all my cars and electronics for the past 20+ years..
 
wwhitney said:
Some of the internal components are rated only for 120V and will fail in short order at 240V.
Sorry, I misunderstood the mod and thought this was the simple version of running the whole EVSE on 240V only. I see now that the idea is to change the input to 240V/120V and keep the electronics on 120V, using the 240V only for the J1772 cord and GFCI CT. On the face of it, seems like a reasonable idea if you are willing to give up outdoor operation and don't need 240V only operation.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
wwhitney said:
Some of the internal components are rated only for 120V and will fail in short order at 240V.
Sorry, I misunderstood the mod and thought this was the simple version of running the whole EVSE on 240V only. I see now that the idea is to change the input to 240V/120V and keep the electronics on 120V, using the 240V only for the J1772 cord and GFCI CT. On the face of it, seems like a reasonable idea if you are willing to give up outdoor operation and don't need 240V only operation.

Cheers, Wayne

Just to clarify, this is running 2 different phases of 120Vs by this mod (credit to Dave on Instructables). I just changed it to make it a bit simpler using one 4 core wire. . These two 120V phases travel on different wires just like the original design of 120V + Neutral. These two different phases form 240V. Therefore the individual components will need only to be rated for 120V each and they should be fine. In Europe the supply is 240V in 1 phase + Neutral, hence all components in the path need to be 240V rated.

I am taking a guess here but Panasonic may be just making the same EVSE for all markets and hence most line components may be rated for 240V already and might have a small twist for each market. Just a guess though... I can read all the component details as there is a lot of potting. I am guessing the EVSE upgrade guys and redoing the whole thing... as they are also putting in capabilities to adjust the Amps drawn by the car through a clever way.. here is the link for doing that special adjustment the Nissan EVSE cannot do.. unless there is something hidden the EVSEupgrade folks have discovered on their own.
http://evseupgrade.com/evse-programming-g2.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
davewill said:
The main downside I see is that you MUST have a neutral available. No charging from a 10-30/50 or 6-20/30/50.

Agreed!!
However Neutral can be found in every part of your house so can be easily found and wired to a L14-30 or NEMA 14-30 with all 4 wires etc.
 
It crossed my mind that with a four-wire plug/neutral you could accomplish this. But to paraphrase yogi berra, electrical work is ninety percent mechanical and the other half electrical, and from that standpoint I'm not a fan. Why didn't you just put a four-wire dryer plug cord set on it? And what happened to the resistor mentioned earlier?
 
Please read my original first posting at the beginning of the chain, I have clearly suggested that I used the instruction from the instructables but changed it a bit as written in the balance of my posting.
I used a 4 core wire as I wanted to use a Locking L14-30 plug as this is safer. Yes I could have purchased a six feet Dryer cord but that usually comes with a sealed NEMA14-30 which I did not want to use. I also wanted the flexibility to have a longer cord etc.

As for the resistor I did use a 33KOhm (mentioned in my posting) directly soldered on the connector in the EVSE. I am not clear what your question is on this??? :?
 
maini said:
DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!! In order to fool the EVSE that it still has the FDCD I soldered a 33K Ohm resistor between the two terminals. Rest of the instructions are exactly the same. I used a 12AWG 4 core wire with a L14-30 plug. Wired as below
So where exactly did you put the resistor, between which lines? (hot & neutral?). Is it inside the stock evse case or in the plug end, not that it should matter, just where it fits best.
 
BrockWI said:
maini said:
DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!! In order to fool the EVSE that it still has the FDCD I soldered a 33K Ohm resistor between the two terminals. Rest of the instructions are exactly the same. I used a 12AWG 4 core wire with a L14-30 plug. Wired as below
So where exactly did you put the resistor, between which lines? (hot & neutral?). Is it inside the stock evse case or in the plug end, not that it should matter, just where it fits best.

OK.. just to clarify the 33KOhm resistor is NOT between Live and Neutral. PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT.
Just to be clear in the original cord you will find Live(Black), Neutral(White), Ground(Green) wires. In addition you will find 2 Yellow wires coming from the FDCD device embedded in the 5-15 plug of the EVSE and plugged into the board via a 2 pin connector. Remove this connector and solder a 33KOhm resistor between the two pins on the EVSE. If you DO NOT do this and wire up the 4 core wire and try to use the EVSE will go into an error state in about 2 minutes and will stop charging. This 33KOhm resistor fools the EVSE in believing that the FDCD is still connected. Alternatively you could hack the cable and break the 5-15 plug to retrieve the FDCD device and keep it plugged into that two pin port while you change to the 4 core cable. I did not do this as I did not want to break my original cable. Hope this clarifies.
 
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