Very straight-forward for the DIY'er that understands working with home wiring circuits. Remember 240V can kill you so turn off the main power to you breaker panel before attempting this work. Leviton Evr-Green Level 2 Electric Car Charger install - YouTube
The Toyota one is $999 "installed" But I guarantee installed means hung on the wall and plugged into an existing socket. There is no way that installation will include running a 240v circuit and wall socket. That will have to be taken care of separately.
Yep When I asked about that on the phone with Leviton, the guy on the other end got quiet. Then he said: "We have several installation packages which the installer will select from after looking at your situation". This is a case where saving a "buck" only makes sense if you are an electrician or very close to that. Safety is important.
I'm sure it will be other more economic options in the very near future. In a little research I made, I just found a USA company manufacturing the EVSE electronic control interface for the EV DIY market. modular EV power, LLC This is one way to take control of your EV connections expenses
No. He's upgrading the 120 volt Nissan Leaf EVSEs to work at either 120 or 240 volts. See EVSE Upgrade - Products.
"PeeF" here, "Ingineer" on MNL, or just "Phil" if you know him, will certainly be evaluating the EVSE that Toyota ships with the PiP, if it can be safely upgraded to function at 240V, I'm sure he 'll let the forums (Priuschat and MNL) know about it, he modifies the Nissan supplied Panasonic unit for the Leaf for under $300, and it functions at 120 or 240 after he's done. If Toyota also uses a similar design unit from Panasonic, chances are good it can be modified. Checkout his website EVSE Upgrade - Products BTW, Home Depot now sells quite a variety of EVSE's as well, I have the Schnieder myself. http://www.homedepot.com/Tools-Hard...NT_ID&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053&langId=-1
pEEf/Phil and his modification along w/some other Leaf enthusiasts were featured in the NY Times. MNL thread at My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - NYTIMES.COM Electric Leaf.
I find it really annoying from an electronic engineer point of view that these devices are called "Chargers". They are not "Chargers" . The real chargers are onboard the vehicle. All these powercube/box devices are are safety switches that pass through AC mains to the vehicle. Basically a GFCI power relay combo switched open or closed on/off by a voltage level and continuity sensor on the control wire coming back from the vehicle. Max current is set by the safety switch device or mains current rating. This value is signaled to the vehicle by a pulse width modulated 1 kilohertz squarewave on the control wire. This squarewave is amplitude/voltage modulated to provide the switch signal mention above. Yes I have a copy of the SAE Final standard. No switching power supply battery charger functions. No vehicle state of charge functions. Just a "hey we are properly connected OK to close the switch" function.
Yep. I've mentioned this a bunch of times in my replies at http://priuschat.com/forums/toyota-prius-plug-in/. On MNL they have an EVSE - Charging Equipment subarea with the description "All the discussion about the EV supply equipment (incorrectly referred to as charger by some) go here." Since you mention that square wave, that's the pilot signal that I've seen referred to on MNL, right?
