Nissan L1 EVSE third-party upgrade to both 120V and 240V

[mwalsh]

Nice, thanks Mike! To note that your temp cord solution to the panel was done to test your EVSE and is in no way intended to be a permanent solution or intended for normal use.

The disclaimers are going to be longer than the video! :lol:

 

[LEAFer]

It appears the car is actually aware of the amount of power going into the battery. It's not like a lot of the other "ass-u-mptions" being made by CarWings. So the modified L2 (only 12A rather than 16A) taking longer is properly represented. Nice.

What happens when you unplug at the service panel ? Do you get the "Charging Stopped" notification ?

 

[Ingineer]

Here is my meter after the one hour on the modified L2:

Assuming .4kWH for your house, looks like a hair over 3kWH was used. That's a bit more than should be there, but this is all rough. You may very well have a bit more going on in the house.

We should have seen no more than ~2.9kWH used for an hour. Anything more would put the Leaf over SAE spec, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised! =)

Yes, EVD has a point; "Don't try this at home"! =)

 

[mwalsh]

Here is my meter after the one hour on the modified L2:

Assuming .4kWH for your house, looks like a hair over 3kWH was used. That's a bit more than should be there, but this is all rough. You may very well have a bit more going on in the house.

Yeah, actually it was - I noticed that the cable box was "on" instead of in standby and the brick for my laptop was plugged in. Plus I'll have to look back at the solar thread - now I think about it the phantom power in the house could have been more like 450w.

I've now plugged into 120v and, as you can see from the OP screen capture, the car properly sees that it's now on L1 trickle:

And after an hour on the AV L2, this was my meter, just shy of 492kWh

 

[mwalsh]

What happens when you unplug at the service panel ? Do you get the "Charging Stopped" notification ?

Sorry, only tried unplugging the J1772. I could unplug from 120v by pulling the plug from the wall, if that's at all helpful?

 

[LEAFer]

What happens when you unplug at the service panel ? Do you get the "Charging Stopped" notification ?

Sorry, only tried unplugging the J1772. I could unplug from 120v by pulling the plug from the wall, if that's at all helpful?

Yes, that would help. Had you seen my "bug" thread ? http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2758

 

[mwalsh]

Yes, that would help. Had you seen my "bug" thread ? http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2758

I did. And I'm sorry to say that I did get a charging stopped notification when I simply pulled the plug out of the socket.

I just got through with my hour of L1 using the modified Nissan EVSE. Things were going swimmingly well until my wife came home and screwed up my data collection - "Don't turn on anything electrical", I admonished. "Including the kitchen lights?", inquired she. "Yes", said I "...including the kitchen lights!".

So I go out to see how the meter is doing and all of a sudden it starts pulsing between slow and fast, while I'm looking at it! I say to myself "Uh, oh...there is something wrong". But just to be on the safe side, before I start panicking and sending PMs to Ingineer, I go in the house and ask "You didn't turn on anything electrical, did you?". "No", says the wife. "So the oven isn't electrical?", says I, after looking around the kitchen for the offending appliance. :?

Anyway, that faux pas aside, here is the meter picture from after the hour of L1. I have no clue how much one would need to deduct for the oven, so you'll have to best guess here. Judging from the speed the meter was turning BEFORE the wife came home, I would say that the EVSE was working normally at 120v.

This is how things ended up:

1 bar/17 miles/? % charged
+1 hour on the modified EVSE @ L2 (just shy of 3kWh*) =

3 bars/30 miles/25% charged
+1 hour on the AV L2 EVSE (just shy of 4.5kWh*) =

5 bars/46 miles/42% charged
+ 1 hour on the modified EVSE @ L1 (just shy of 2kWh**) =

6 bars/55 miles/50% charged

* Minus house phantom power
** Minus house phantom power and wife's oven tomfoolery

To say I'm thrilled with this mod would be an understatement. This is so how it should have shipped from Nissan!

 

[EVDRIVER]

When testing anything always lock all doors to the house :lol:

 

[palmermd]

When testing anything always lock all doors to the house :lol:

Or turn off all the breakers in the open panel where you are working.

 

[GeekEV]

This all sounds great. When can I buy one? :lol:

 

[Ingineer]

Or turn off all the breakers in the open panel where you are working.

Be warned that advising people of things like this is unwise. There is still power present in most every panel even with all the breakers off! I would never advise anyone without specific electrical experience ever remove the cover of a service panel!

 

[palmermd]

Or turn off all the breakers in the open panel where you are working.

Be warned that advising people of things like this is unwise. There is still power present in most every panel even with all the breakers off! I would never advise anyone without specific electrical experience ever remove the cover of a service panel!

He already had the cover off, and was performing a test. He asked his wife not to turn anything on in the house. She went inside and did turn on some appliances. It could have been prevented by having all the breakers off. Or as EVDriver said he could have locked her out of the house.

 

[Ingineer]

He already had the cover off, and was performing a test. He asked his wife not to turn anything on in the house. She went inside and did turn on some appliances. It could have been prevented by having all the breakers off. Or as EVDriver said he could have locked her out of the house.

Sorry, I misunderstood; I thought you were saying it's safe to work on an open panel as long as all the breakers are off. I guess all the fear mongering responses around here have got me on hair-trigger safety mode!

 

[tbleakne]

I've hooked up a temporary 240v 20A connection to my service panel. The other end of which contains a socket to plug the EVSE into.
>>>>
You can tell from the meter speed that there is a fairly substantial amount of power being drawn.
>>
Perhaps someone could then discount the phantom power from the total and give us a wall to car figure? I don't know how to work that out.

The dial on your quaint dinosaur meter records 10 Whr/revolution, or 100 revolutions/KWh. You can measure the net power flowing accurately by timing the number of seconds per revolution. Let this by T. For a steady 1 KW of consumption, T will equal 36 (1/100 of 3600 seconds/hour). Therefor your actual consumption at any moment is

KW = 36/T (where T = time in seconds for one revolution of dial)

For example, (T = 24) => 1.5 KW of power.

For your case here, (400 W phantom, a LOT of phantom)+ (12 A * 240V = 2880W) = 3.280 KW = 36/T.
T = 36/3.28 = 11.0 seconds. For more accuracy, you may wish to time 2 revolutions, and then use

KW = 72/T2 (where T2 = time in seconds for two revolutions of dial).

Your phantom power alone case (one revolution is sufficient):
T = 36/(.4KW) = 90 seconds.

Long before I got a TED monitor system, I used this simple measurement technique to gradually reduce my phantom power. 40W of phantom power 24/7 is about one KWh/day, 350 KWh/year. You can drive the Leaf 1,000 miles/year for free for each 40W of phantom power reduction.

 

[EVDRIVER]

He already had the cover off, and was performing a test. He asked his wife not to turn anything on in the house. She went inside and did turn on some appliances. It could have been prevented by having all the breakers off. Or as EVDriver said he could have locked her out of the house.

Sorry, I misunderstood; I thought you were saying it's safe to work on an open panel as long as all the breakers are off. I guess all the fear mongering responses around here have got me on hair-trigger safety mode!

''

Never look at bare wires in a panel without tinted safety glasses unless all the breakers are off.

 

[rainnw]

There is not exactly a non-spec part but more an operational issue but it is not a safety issue, I don't want to make any claims on their unit build other than it is decently made. As far as a diagram, I don't know any businesses that invest many days in a project and then publicly provide all the details of their work for a multitude of reasons.

People are going to be quite more willing to pay you to do this work, rather than attempting to modify a power supply themselves, in terms of time, money, effort, damage, etc. And im quite certain that these modifications will be 'open sourced' sooner than later, anyway.

Don't take this as a personal insult or attack, but how will the community independently verify that these modifications are safe, correct, etc? If you were selling L2 EVSE's, thats one thing, but you are modifying an existing device.

 

[TomT]

The answer is quite simple: If you have qualms, don't buy it.

Myself, I will be ordering the conversion as soon as it is available.

Don't take this as a personal insult or attack, but how will the community independently verify that these modifications are safe, correct, etc? If you were selling L2 EVSE's, thats one thing, but you are modifying an existing device.

 

[Ingineer]

People are going to be quite more willing to pay you to do this work, rather than attempting to modify a power supply themselves, in terms of time, money, effort, damage, etc. And im quite certain that these modifications will be 'open sourced' sooner than later, anyway.

Don't take this as a personal insult or attack, but how will the community independently verify that these modifications are safe, correct, etc? If you were selling L2 EVSE's, thats one thing, but you are modifying an existing device.

Well, the upgrade doesn't affect any of the EVSE's original safety features, they are sill in effect as designed by Panasonic. All the critical components used that handle the power are already rated for the additional voltage. Also, Since the amperage is still limited to the factory 12 amps, the EVSE will not see any additional current.

While an independent testing lab has not tested the unit, we did not think it was necessary, as none of the critical components that could affect safety have been altered. (this would be cost-prohibitive) The upgraded EVSE will speak for itself; as more people get theirs upgraded there will be reports here that prove the unit is safe and reliable. If you are nervous about it, then wait and read the positive reports, or just buy a listed EVSE.

 

[GeekEV]

While an independent testing lab has not tested the unit, we did not think it was necessary, as none of the critical components that could affect safety have been altered. (this would be cost-prohibitive) The upgraded EVSE will speak for itself; as more people get theirs upgraded there will be reports here that prove the unit is safe and reliable. If you are nervous about it, then wait and read the positive reports, or just buy a listed EVSE.

Here, here! If the price is right, I plan on getting one converted...

 

[mwalsh]

Don't take this as a personal insult or attack, but how will the community independently verify that these modifications are safe, correct, etc?

As the first modification customer, all I can tell you the unit works as advertised and that I have no qualms about using it.