Clipper Creek Level 2 charger deal.

[aarond12]

Clipper Creek charger update -- day one! (I promise I won't do daily updates unless something goes wrong.)

Wired up the charger last night when I got home. I attached a NEMA 14-50* plug to the charger -- the new standard dryer plug -- and put the matching socket in the wall. ZERO PROBLEMS. The vehicle started charging instantly. This morning, after the car was presumably fully charged, I used my remote to start the heater. Again, zero problems. I guess the CC software update worked.

Man, with the 3.3kW charger, the car gets WARM when pre-heated! WOW! It was probably 85 degrees in the car! :twisted:

* Yes, I know the NEMA 14-50 plug is WAY overkill. I'm more interested in being able to use this as a portable charger when visiting friend's houses.

 

[acensor]

Regarding the Clipper Creek Level 2 charger:

Received a notice from Mitsubishi today titled: Customer Satisfaction Campaign SC-13-001. Notice dated February, 2013.

It is for vehicles built from 10/28/2011 thru 9/20/2012

....."The current internal software programming for the EV-ECU is incompatible with the Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment charger produced by Clipper Creek."

We want a level-2 charger, but not sure when our car (just purchased off the dealer lot, in enroute to us) was manufactured.

Does anyone here know how to decipher our date of manufacture from the VIN ?
VIN: JA3215H19CU011736

Alex

 

[camiev]

You can call Mitsu. They can tell you and all the recalls applible to yours. You should have all the recall done before taking deliver.

https://www.mitsubishicars.com/media/owners/pdf/12VINs.pdf

Regarding the Clipper Creek Level 2 charger:

Received a notice from Mitsubishi today titled: Customer Satisfaction Campaign SC-13-001. Notice dated February, 2013.

It is for vehicles built from 10/28/2011 thru 9/20/2012

....."The current internal software programming for the EV-ECU is incompatible with the Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment charger produced by Clipper Creek."

We want a level-2 charger, but not sure when our car (just purchased off the dealer lot, in enroute to us) was manufactured.

Does anyone here know how to decipher our date of manufacture from the VIN ?
VIN: JA3215H19CU011736

Alex

 

[acensor]

....... I don't suppose the Wattstation issue has been fixed with the Clipper Creek fix? ............

What's the Wattstation issue? :?:

 

[eMaS]

I live close to Clipper Creek, they used to be the old EVI (under a different name)
and they did the 'california clean air' grant upgrade here at UCDavis
this is my response from them:

Thanks for asking. Mitsubishi would like all customer inquires refereed to their support staff at 1-888-648-7820 (I bet the support folks at this number can decipher the VIN number and verify that it has the updated software). If people call here about the vehicle or this specific issue I would need to refer them to Mitsubishi. You can feel free to provide my information for any questions about the ClipperCreek products.

As long as the vehicle has received the Mitsubishi software upgrade it will work as expected with all of our stations including the L2 station that is on special.

Let me know if you have any other questions or if you need anything else.

--
Will Barrett
Inside Sales Manager
ClipperCreek Inc.
Phone 530-887-1674 ex.303
Fax 530-887-8527

 

[acensor]

RE LCS-25, Level 2 Charging Station

I have an unused fully professinally installed per USA electric code (in 1993 when all electrical was redone in this home) 240 volt 50 amp receptical intended for use with an electric clothes dryer in my garage.
(It's unused because we have a gas, not electrical, dryer ... not because there's anything wrong with it.)

Is it, and its plug, likely to be useable with clipper creek's LCS-25, Level 2 Charging Station? Plug your station right in?
Or might I need any sort of adaptor?

I ask in part because I vaguely remember that there might be two types of 240-volt wall plug configurations.

Any anyone with one know how long the cord on it is (Yeah, I know I can probably find THAT on the Clipper Creek site.)

Alex

 

[alohart]

Does anyone here know how to decipher our date of manufacture from the VIN ?
VIN: JA3215H19CU011736

According to Mitsubishi, the manufacture date is not encoded in the VIN. After your car arrives, you can read the manufacturing date on a plate that's visible in the driver's door jam.

 

[aarond12]

I have that charger, the one on special. I added a NEMA 14-50 plug to it so I could plug it into newer dryer plugs and RV park outlets. I took an unused air conditioner plug near the fuse box and replaced its old-style plug with a matching NEMA 14-50 socket. After carefully checking voltages with a voltmeter, I plugged in the charger -- worked just fine.

Make sure you have a 25 AMP circuit breaker installed to stay within electrical code. The LCS-25 delivers 20 AMPs and requires a 25 AMP breaker.

If you have never done electrical work, PLEASE hire an electrician to do the job for you.

 

[acensor]

.... I added a NEMA 14-50 plug to it so I could plug it into newer dryer plugs and RV park outlets.........
Make sure you have a 25 AMP circuit breaker installed to stay within electrical code. The LCS-25 delivers 20 AMPs and requires a 25 AMP breaker.....

Unless I'm mistaken (and I easily could be) NEMA 5–15R is what most household electric dryer recepticals are. So do you have BOTH NEMA 5–15R and NEMA 14-50 plugs on your charger?

Also, I'm a bit confused with your suggestion that there should be a 25 amp breaker at the service box on the 240 line. In my circuit/service panel there are three 240v DUAL breakers (one for the electrical oven, one for the air conditioner, and one for the unused electric clothes dryer wall plug.
Each is a DUAL (pair of breakers) each with a total capacity of 50 amps.

Doesn't make much sense to me that device you plug in dictates what breaker is back at the box (that's dictated by what the wiring FROM the box is rated for -- not so?). Otherwise if I plugged a desklight with only a rated capacity of 5 amps into one of my 15 amp wall sockets I'd have to go back to the circuit box and remove the 15 amp breaker and replace it with a 5amp.

What am I missing here?
:?:
Alex

 

[Don]

Also, I'm a bit confused with your suggestion that there should be a 25 amp breaker at the service box on the 240 line. In my circuit/service panel there are three 240v DUAL breakers (one for the electrical oven, one for the air conditioner, and one for the unused electric clothes dryer wall plug.
Each is a DUAL (pair of breakers) each with a total capacity of 50 amps.

The one for the oven is properly sized - I'm sure that one has a 6 gauge wire feeding a socket rated at 50 amps

I'm not so sure about Europe, but here in the USA we don't have either dryer or air conditioning outlets rated for 50 amps. If you'll check the markings on the outlets and the size of the wire feeding them, I would bet neither of those circuits should have 50 amp breakers

Doesn't make much sense to me that device you plug in dictates what breaker is back at the box (that's dictated by what the wiring FROM the box is rated for -- not so?).

What am I missing here?

If you want to plug in an EVSE (or any other device) rated at 20 amps into any of those 50 amp circuits, do you think the wire from the plug to the EVSE is the same size as the wire from the socket to the power panel? Nope

The circuit breaker should never be sized larger than the capacity of the wire on the appliance you're feeding, otherwise it could be possible to melt or burn that lighter gauge wire in the event of a short circuit before your huge breaker will trip. If your EVSE is rated for 20 amps, it probably has a 10 or 12 gauge wire attached to it's plug and you cannot use a 50 amp breaker to feed a 10 or 12 gauge wire. If you intend to use that outlet only for the EVSE, you really should replace your breaker with the smaller 25 amp

Now, if your EVSE has it's own 20 or 25 amp fuses, then plugging it into a circuit rated for 50 amps is not so problematic, though if it was to be permanently mounted, I'm pretty sure the code would still require the smaller breaker

Don

 

[aarond12]

In short, acensor, please hire an electrician. This is not me being cruel, this is me protecting you, your car, your house, and your family. Electricity is dangerous. If you do not fully understand ANY of the topics here, do not take a chance with your life.

 

[acensor]

.... please hire an electrician. ...... this is me protecting you, your car, your house, and your family. Electricity is dangerous. If you do not fully understand ANY of the topics here, do not take a chance with your life.

Thanks for your concern. I do not interpret it as "cruel."
I'm definitely not an electrician (don't know codes, names of plugs, etc) but I do know electricity is dangerous (I'm not the village *****) -- particularly 240 volts. Was a physics major, have done some house wiring (usually working with an electrician or consulting with one), know the difference between a watt, amp, volt, and a ground, neutral, and hot, a 10 gauge and 12 gauge wire, and where to and where not to run romex without conduit, etc. And I will either use of consult an electrician on this one.

Alex

 

[aarond12]

That's fair. I was concerned because of your questions. I would rather you err on the side of safety.

 

[aarond12]

I found this list of plug types on Tesla's site. I thought it might be useful in this thread:

The Roadster's "base" plug on their universal charging kit is the NEMA 14-50 -- the one I added to my CC charger. This fits both RV park sockets and newer dryer sockets. Alex was mentioning the NEMA 5-15 which is the standard US 120V plug. Older dryers use NEMA 10-30, including in my house. So now I have both the old-style dryer socket for my clothes dryer and the new-style socket for my EV. :lol:

 

[acensor]

.....The circuit breaker should never be sized larger than the capacity of the wire on the appliance you're feeding, otherwise it could be possible to melt or burn that lighter gauge wire in the event of a short circuit before your huge breaker will trip. If your EVSE is rated for 20 amps, it probably has a 10 or 12 gauge wire attached to it's plug and you cannot use a 50 amp breaker to feed a 10 or 12 gauge wire. If you intend to use that outlet only for the EVSE, you really should replace your breaker with the smaller 25 amp
......Don

Hi Don.

......The circuit breaker should never be sized larger than the capacity of the wire on the appliance you're feeding, otherwise it could be possible to melt or burn that lighter gauge wire in the event of a short circuit before your huge breaker will trip......Don

Hi Don.

You’re quite right, to my surprise, that Clipper Creek more or less insists that one put 25 amp breakers upstream from their L2 charger to protect it and the car.
I’m not going to try to second guess the professional electronics engineers who made that design decision (rather than putting a 24 amp fuse or breaker right in their charger) but it seems an odd way to do it.

In contrast to that I just talked to Leviton tech support. They said for their 002-EVC11-300 12 amp level one charger they want a 15 amp OR HIGHER dedicated circuit. For their 30 amp level 2 “you would want a 40amp or higher rated circuit” . I specifically grilled them along the lines of “no problem if the circuit and breaker is rated even higher than 40 amps, right?” … and they concurred.
What’s more at this moment my stock MiEV level one charger (which says right on itself draws 8 amps) is plugged into a receptacle with a breaker rated at 15 amps. In fact, right in the MiEV manual it specifically says to plug it into a receptacle rated at “15amps or more..”


So we have some sort of misunderstanding between us::

Seem to me that it is actually common to have devices plugged into circuits/receptacles that have breakers larger capacity than the device plugged in and even higher thanthe device's own wiring. The device, unless something's broken/shorted should never draw the full capacity of the breaker.
I'm sitting next to a lamp whose current draw is about 0.5 amps (rated to have a bulb up to 60 watts in it).
Its power cord is proportionally light … doubt it could handle more than 8 amps max if even that. Yet it’s plugged into a receptacle backed by a 15amp breaker.

Look at this list of typical appliance amp ratings:
Refrigerator 3.5
Iron 8
Electric blanket 2
Hair dryer (1500 watts) 13
Hair dryer (400 watts) 3.5
Curling iron 0.7
TV .5-1.0
VCR 0.2
Computer 2

Every single one of those in my house (and I bet yours too) is plugged into a receptacle whose breaker is rated HIGHER than the appliance. If not, the breaker would trip the very first time you turned on the appliance. The breaker limit is designed to protect the house wiring between it and the appliance, not the appliance (with the clipper creek requirement being the exception, not the rule. . Many appliances (such as a VCR) have fuses or breakers built in to protect themselves.
Maybe what you’re referring to is one should never install a breaker rated higher than the wiring between the breaker and the wall receptacle? That I agree on.

Are we getting on the same page here?

Alex

 

[danpatgal]

I agree with you Alex, seems like the house wiring should be rated for the circuit ... but what comes off of that should merely draw less than that. If it's a dedicated circuit, ideally the "appliance" or EVSE should be well matched, but to require a smaller circuit just seems like lazy engineering and/or cost cutting. Or, perhaps just a level of acceptable risk.

If one wires the Clipper Creek 25 amp into a 40 amp circuit, basically you might fry the Clipper Creek IF there is some failure in it ... but otherwise, you won't fry the wiring that would be capable of 40 amps (8ga). This is what I have in my garage (because I already had the wiring done for a higher powered Schneider EVLink - and I wasn't going to re-do that) . If the ClipperCreek dies/fails for some reason, I'm still going to request ClipperCreek replace the EVSE since it would have been the cause (not the wiring). And, for true short circuit situations, it's not going to make a big difference whether the breaker is 25 or 40 amps, they'll both trip. (I guess the 25amp will trip more quickly, but I guess the difference will be measured in microseconds.)

 

[aarond12]

I have the LCS-25 charger from Clipper Creek. Their requirements of a 25A breaker for a 20A EVSE is to protect the house wiring, not the EVSE or car. The i-MiEV has its own fuse protection (from what I've read; and quite expensive to replace). Electromechanical relays are typically wired so when they're not energized, no current will flow through them. This is to prevent current from traveling to the car with a "fried" EVSE. It's kind of an automatic failsafe.