Modified Avcon EVSE using on LEAF

Has any used a Modified Avcon ( by replacing AVcon plug with J-1772 -2009 plug) ??I have an old DS-50 Avcon unite I well be modifying to be used on friends leaf ..I well test to make sure it can be used with the delayed timing for night charging ..Any one else have any old Avcon laying around there not use ??? Ken [email protected]

This guy has a step by step on the mod: http://tucsonev.com/EVIDS50.html

lincomatic said:

This guy has a step by step on the mod: http://tucsonev.com/EVIDS50.html

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Just don't use that J1772-2010 cable they show in the pictures (the orange cable with the grey head and plastic covering over the release latch) as some users (including myself) have reported these won't properly unlock from the car without modifications being made. Use a good quality J1772-2010 cable!

I have Modified a Avcon EVSE DS-50 with the http://tucsonev.com/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ,Plug only.. Had some problem with the soldering the 2 large pins , the wires on old Avcon cable were smaller the the pins of new plug.. Pilot pin did not work at first and needed some play crippling it a bite.But , after that it been working well . Nice to to have a faster charge ,L2 , charger..while waiting for EV Project , Blink EVSE..

My colleague got an old Avcon (Ford Ranger) from a neighbor and I told him it was an easy conversion to J1772 by following the aforementioned website. Well he bought a J1772 cable for it and...it doesn't work. When I plug it into my LEAF I get a single beep with no charging indicator lights, and the red "call for service" indicator on the front of the Avcon lights up. When he plugs it into his 500e he gets a single solid charge light and no charging (he didn't say whether or not the "call for service" lamp comes on).

I can't open the box to see if it's obviously miswired or not, since I don't have the required security bit, but anything obvious I can tell him to go back in and look for before he gives up on it?

On the plus side, he already understood from his neighbor that it wasn't known if the unit worked, and I can always guide him to Chris' Open EVSE site, so his J1772 cable is not lost money.

Well, it turned out that the security screws were just finger tight, and when I opened the box I thought I had found the problem immediately - he had tied ground from the plug to the neutral wire coming from the Avcon's circuit board (I don't know if that's correct or not, but it sure doesn't seem correct to me). So I changed that so the ground wire went to the Avcon's chassis and my car's relays now started to click when I plugged in, like it was going to charge, but it didn't, and once again the Avcon's "call for service" lamp came on.

Any other thoughts/ideas would be welcomed. Picture or the unit's internals:

Any chance that the pilot and proximity wires were misidentified? The color of those wires is not consistent across manufacturers.

If I remember correctly the ITT Cannon J1772 connector has the pilot signal on the orange wire instead of the blue wire.

This is (Chinese?) Dostar J1772. It only contains one wire (blue) that could possibly be used for the pilot signal.

Here's a thought - is it possible that the unit needs to have both a neutral wire AND a ground wire plus the two hots, like the old school electric ovens? If so, then he just used the wrong kind of wiring to get from the Avcon to the service panel. I'll give that a try tomorrow.

If anyone in SoCal can provide a good home for an AVCAN to Nema 14-50 socket box, I've got one and will give it away.. You'd need your own EVSE to go from 14-50 to J1772. my mail here is clogged but reach me at dash display at gmail

As I suspected, once I'd changed his original wiring so that the chassis went to ground and only got a bit further along in making it work, I've found that this particular unit needs BOTH a chassis ground and a neutral connection. At my house, since the neutral and ground wires both go to the same bus bar in the service panel, I've solved this by adding a short jumper wire between the neutral terminal and the chassis ground block, and the unit is now charging my LEAF just fine.

This should work out for him too UNLESS his home has seperate netural and ground bars.

Edit 1: Looks like the seperate neutral and ground bus bar rules (and not mixing within) normally only apply to sub-panels. Is that correct?

If the main service panel happens to be the same place that the grounded (neutral) conductor is bonded to the grounding electrode, then there is no problem mixing grounds and neutrals on the same bus bar (as long as there is an appropriate number of conductors terminated under each lug). If the two bus bars are not connected; as would be the case anywhere other than the main disconnect (exceptions exist), then you cannot mix them.

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Edit 2: For the archive, it's this kind of EVSE: