DIY 220VAC outlet.

Hello.
I would like to have installed a 220VAC outlet inside my C-Zero.
220VAC to be used to drive a small 200W electric fan heater.
I want to connect it to 220VAC cable that goes from the car's charging port for the charger.
Can I do it without disturbances of the communication between the charger and the charging cable?

What you want is something like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/231747146169

Just make sure the "lighter" socket can handle the load.

Hello wmcbrine .
With this inverter, I will quickly drain the 12 volt battery ?

You can tap into the J1772 power here on top of the charger until, like I have:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jthued676yyba6e/2015-10-12%2009.56.22.jpg?dl=0

The thick black cord is the one I've added. I've done it for the opposite purpose - to have a built-in EVSE inside the car so I can charge without using the J1772 port.

JKO said:

...I want to connect it to 220VAC cable that goes from the car's charging port for the charger.
Can I do it without disturbances of the communication between the charger and the charging cable?

Click to expand...

You could easily add such a cable, but it seems to me that it would only have power when the EVSE has energized the relay to allow charging. The car controls the EVSE by telling it when to send the power, that is to say, there is no power from the EVSE on the J1772 connector until it is commanded by the car, at least in the US.

As I know, (EU model) - the level 1 charger turns on as soon as it signals the connection to the car. Than the car`s onboard charger shots down when the battery is full. Splicing cables to the 220 lines BEfore the charger should - therefore - work, IMO.

Tiborx8 said:

As I know, (EU model) - the level 1 charger turns on as soon as it signals the connection to the car.

Click to expand...

I didn't think EU models used Level 1 charging at all?? I thought everything over there was all level 2, 240 VAC?

Don

It's real since 2012 :shock:

The box can connect to chademo plug.

pascalFrigoriste said:

... It's real since 2012 :shock: The box can connect to chademo plug.

Click to expand...

This thing never came to fruition as far as I can tell.

https://www.plugincars.com/mitsubishi-unveils-blackout-inspired-i-miev-power-box-114873.html

Discussed on this forum, among other places, here:

http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1111&p=5646

Anyone have any more info on this or any other CHAdeMO-->ac inverter?

For CHADeMO to AC, check out the Wallbox Quasar. It is a real thing (at least in Europe).

Andrew

jsantala said:

You can tap into the J1772 power here on top of the charger until, like I have:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jthued676yyba6e/2015-10-12%2009.56.22.jpg?dl=0

The thick black cord is the one I've added. I've done it for the opposite purpose - to have a built-in EVSE inside the car so I can charge without using the J1772 port.

Click to expand...

Hi jsantala,

I would also like to install a 220V ac outlet in my I-miev with wifi or 4g switching, to be able to preheat my car in winter using a small ceramic heater: https://eurom.nl/en/product/heating/ceramic-heaters/safe-t-heater-1500/ . At home as well as at other charging points. Would that be possible?

Could you give me/us some more detailed information/scheme about how you made the connections for and the place you installed your outlet?

Hi Herbie, and welcome to the forum.

Sadly, I'm afraid that jsantala has moved on and hasn't posted here in five years.

Let me try to understand what you are trying to accomplish:

Place a ceramic heater inside the i-MiEV with a wire from the car going into a conventional home outlet (or 220vac interface box) which is controlled via a programmable WiFi or 4G-switch. You are not trying to generate the ac power inside the car. Is this correct?

If you are trying to generate the 220vac from inside the car, that is a whole different issue, and actually the topic of this thread, and a much more complicated problem.

Even at its lowest setting (500W) that ceramic heater should be more than adequate to heat up the inside of the car.

BTW, I corrected your link to this thread from the previous (Remote) topic that you had posted on.

JoeS said:

If you are trying to generate the 220vac from inside the car, that is a whole different issue, and actually the topic of this thread, and a much more complicated problem.

Click to expand...

Speaking on Herbie's behalf (because I think he's also after what I'm after), I think he's after something a little different to what this thread is about. Herbie also posted the same question on this http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4444 and (assuming he's after what I'm after) we're wanting to install a 220vac socket/feed in a triplet, piggy backing off of the 220vac coming from the J1772 socket, so when the car has finished charging, the control pilot gets hijacked (for want of a better term) to turn the EVSE back on. Tiborx8 was working on something which overlapped with this. Then the 220vac 'socket' can be made live, so that it can be used to preheat the car, probably controlled by a timer or through a 4G/Wifi controlled switch. The preheat being provided by a dedicated 220vac fan heater put in a useful position in the car (but not likely to burn it to the ground).

What I'm not sure about is how to determine with absolute certainty that the car has stopped charging before putting the 220vac fan heater on (so not to overload the cables running to the J1772 connector both in the car and to and from the EVSE). My guess would be to use a relay which would disconnect the 220 vac Fan Heater socket when the car is charging, although I don't know where to get the feed from for this. Or possibly have a double pole double throw relay on the 220vac live and neutral between the J1772 and the car charger so it's impossible for the car charger and the 220vac fan heater to have power at the same time. Actually, I quite like that idea; But I don't know what would happen if the car was requesting a charge from the EVSE and was charging at 16amps, then the relay switches the J1772's 220vac over to fan heater's circuit and the Control Pilot hijack kicks in to keep the EVSE switched on. Would the car identify a fault if the charge was to stop whilst requesting through the Control Pilot, but the proximity detection pin was still connected to the EVSE? I suppose the extreme way around this would be a 4 pole double throw relay which switches the J1772's 220vac live, neutral and the CP and PD all off of the car charge circuit and onto the 220vac fan heater circuit and from there we spoof the CP and PD to control the EVSE. I know very little about how the CP works other than knowing that depending on the voltage, it has three states: No Connected, Connected not charging and Charging. I don't understand if the EVSE's charge current command will have an impact on our implementation as we'd keep the current below 10amp to save any overloading.

The above is a big ol' rambling brain dump, hoping that someone much smarter than I will look at it and know exactly hot to do this or parts of this.

JoeS said:

Hi Herbie, and welcome to the forum.

Sadly, I'm afraid that jsantala has moved on and hasn't posted here in five years.

Let me try to understand what you are trying to accomplish:

Place a ceramic heater inside the i-MiEV with a wire from the car going into a conventional home outlet (or 220vac interface box) which is controlled via a programmable WiFi or 4G-switch. You are not trying to generate the ac power inside the car. Is this correct?

If you are trying to generate the 220vac from inside the car, that is a whole different issue, and actually the topic of this thread, and a much more complicated problem.

Even at its lowest setting (500W) that ceramic heater should be more than adequate to heat up the inside of the car.

BTW, I corrected your link to this thread from the previous (Remote) topic that you had posted on.

Click to expand...

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your reply and welcome! I will make some introduction in the near future. For the moment I'm working on improving the heating system in my I-miev. Inspired by this thread and TiborX' work on infrared heating.

My current plan is to mount a 220V outlet in my I-miev, which is powered by the 220V charger at home or a 220V charging station 'on the road'. My intention is to be able to use a 500W 220V ceramic heater for some time during charging.

Today I've opened the 'little box' on top of the charger-inverter unit (see photo by jsantala https://www.dropbox.com/s/jthued676yyba6e/2015-10-12 09.56.22.jpg?dl=0), and tested current on the connection points inside.
I discovered/confirmed that only during charging (European 220V charging), both the left as the right two connectors in this box have 220V. The left connector/wire on the right side has a 'live' label, the right conncector/wire on the right has the label 'neutral' The wire inbetween is ground.

So without the J1772 charger connected, or when the battery is full and the EVSE gets signal to turn of, there is no current.

But it seems possible during charging, to use the connection showed by jsantala, to run a small heater for preheating the car. Which is my intention. I will have to test if this will interfere with normal charging or not....

Before I start making this connection: Did anyone else but jsantala ever try this?

footandmouth said:

Speaking on Herbie's behalf (because I think he's also after what I'm after), I think he's after something a little different to what this thread is about. Herbie also posted the same question on this http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4444 and (assuming he's after what I'm after) we're wanting to install a 220vac socket/feed in a triplet, piggy backing off of the 220vac coming from the J1772 socket, so when the car has finished charging, the control pilot gets hijacked (for want of a better term) to turn the EVSE back on. Tiborx8 was working on something which overlapped with this. Then the 220vac 'socket' can be made live, so that it can be used to preheat the car, probably controlled by a timer or through a 4G/Wifi controlled switch. The preheat being provided by a dedicated 220vac fan heater put in a useful position in the car (but not likely to burn it to the ground).

Click to expand...

Thanks footandmouth for your additional information and thoughts! It's right that I want to install a 220vac socket/feed in a triplet, piggy backing off of the 220vac coming from the J1772 socket.

But I'm not definitely in need of hijacking the control pilot. I would like to run a 500W ceramic heater for some time during charging. I won't be for very long time, I guess something like 15 minutes to 45 minutes might be sufficient. I will have to test that in various temperatures.

I suppose/hope that this 500W heater will not negatively interfere with charging, other than that charging will take a little longer when this heater is activated. Turning the heater on and off can be done manually, by timer or by automated switch (wifi or 4G).

Herbie said:

Thanks footandmouth for your additional information and thoughts! It's right that I want to install a 220vac socket/feed in a triplet, piggy backing off of the 220vac coming from the J1772 socket.

But I'm not definitely in need of hijacking the control pilot. I would like to run a 500W ceramic heater for some time during charging. I won't be for very long time, I guess something like 15 minutes to 45 minutes might be sufficient. I will have to test that in various temperatures.

I suppose/hope that this 500W heater will not negatively interfere with charging, other than that charging will take a little longer when this heater is activated. Turning the heater on and off can be done manually, by timer or by automated switch (wifi or 4G).

Click to expand...

Ok, cool, we ARE trying to achieve a similar goal, but whilst you want to run a small heater whilst charging (is this to keep yourself warm whilst waiting in the car for a J1772 charge?) and I want to heat the car up with a 2kw fan heater after the car has charged, just before I want to get in it and defrost the car.

Running a 500w heater (or any power heater) from the J1772 connector whilst charging the car will not slow the car's charging - it will increase the total current on the EVSE and cabling. So if your car is charging at 3,500watts and your heater is 500watts then the total power going through the EVSE will be 4,000w. The EVSE itself may be asking the car to charge at 3,500, but your heater doesn't know this and the car isn't aware that there's also 500w going on top of it's 3,500 draw.

If you want to know more about how this happens, check out this for how EVSE, J1772 and the Car all relate and communicate to each other https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772#Signaling and this https://openev.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000052074-basics-of-sae-j1772

Very basically, you plug the car in and the EVSE will send a signal along the Control Pilot to say how many KW it can provide, the car interprets this and will only draw up to that amount. On the same Control Pilot, the car will add resistance to drop the voltage to say that it's connected, and then will drop the voltage again to ask for a charge. Then the EVSE relays will close and power will flow into the car. The EVSE does not restrict the current draw, it only asks the car not to draw too much. There's also the Proxity Detection pin to allow for too, but there's a few caveats to this.

When/if I get time and the right resistors to experiment with getting the EVSE to turn on and deliver a charge, I'll report back and share my experiences.

OK, so I've tried out my practical test with resistors and can get the EVSE to provide power. Note that my experiment was using an unusual EVSE; an ELPA EVR01 which I've effectively hardwired to my household mains circuit and built into a box on the outside of my house to make it permanent instead of portable.

I took a prototyping breadboard and stuck a 2.7k and a 1.3k ohm resistor in parallel with each other after a diode, as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772#Signaling. I had wondered if I would need to have the 2.7k resistor permanently wired and the 1.3k come into the circuit a few seconds later somehow, but thankfully with my EVSE (and maybe others, or all others) it didn't matter. Then I stuck this little circuit between the Control Pilot and the Earth (CP-PE) and the power came on instantly. I also had a 2.2kw fan heater hardwired into the J1772 plug too (very hacky) and it worked no problem.

Next, I'll start looking at how to get this circuit into the car and how to have it come on remotely. Maybe a Tasmoto Wifi switch running off of a USB backup battery which charges when the power is on. Something like that. Would rather not take the car's 12v power as it's extra wiring.

footandmouth said:

OK, so I've tried out my practical test with resistors and can get the EVSE to provide power. Note that my experiment was using an unusual EVSE; an ELPA EVR01 which I've effectively hardwired to my household mains circuit and built into a box on the outside of my house to make it permanent instead of portable.

Click to expand...

That's an interesting test thanks for sharing; so did you have any PWM signal going to the EVSE for setting a current level, or was it just full circuit capacity at maximum current pulled?

i had never thought to just use the EVSE as an outdoor extension cord with a goofy connector but it has possibilities. :lol:

kiev said:

That's an interesting test thanks for sharing; so did you have any PWM signal going to the EVSE for setting a current level, or was it just full circuit capacity at maximum current pulled?

i had never thought to just use the EVSE as an outdoor extension cord with a goofy connector but it has possibilities. :lol:

Click to expand...

No need for signaling to EVSE - it is the other way around - it is the car charger which governs the amount of power that it draws. All the EVSE does is tell the charger over the Control Pilot the maximum amps it can put out, then the charger takes up to that amount. So as I'm taking over from the charger, I don't care what the EVSE is telling me in the waveform. I know that my EVSE is 16amps and that if I were to use the granny cable then it would be 10amps, and the fan heater I'm going to use is up to 10 amps, so feel safe enough ignoring the EVSE signals. As a failsafe (it is just a resistive heater, after all) I'm going to try putting in a 13a MCB into the car's fan heater installation, but I don't know how that's going to handle being on a circuit which gets switched off and on regularly. Worst case, the fan heater also has a good ol' 13a fuse in it.

That's an interesting idea about turning the J1772 into just a regular (but expensive) extension lead. I personally wouldn't do that as it costs so much to replace a J1772 connector and cable that I don't like it being anywhere but wrapped around my EVSE or slotted into the car. But I can see it could have uses.

As I can't be bothered to figure out how to put up pictures on here, and I wanted to keep my notes in one place, here's what I've done/plan to do:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P0fdEsi-awfmaAln66X_ZajnWWTwuCT0VGSTO6Wo0dk/edit?usp=sharing