Ford Mobile Charger and 14-50 -- GFCI

[OttawaGuy]

Quick question

Ford mentions that a GCFI 50A is recommended for the Mobile Charger. Usually "recommended" is not mandatory....

Any of you using the mobile charger on a regular 50A breaker? Seen any issues?

My outlet will be in the garage, without risks of water, etc... Building code, around here, does not require a GFCI, so I will not be asking electrician for one

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[generaltso]

You'll be fine.

 

[OttawaGuy]

You'll be fine.

Thanks

 

[OttawaGuy]

Another quick question


Since the mobile charger is supplying 32A to the car, had anyone tried it on a 40A circuit?


I mean a nema 14-50 outlet but the breaker on the circuit is 40A?

 

[dbsb3233]

Another quick question


Since the mobile charger is supplying 32A to the car, had anyone tried it on a 40A circuit?


I mean a nema 14-50 outlet but the breaker on the circuit is 40A?

Shouldn't have any problem with that. In fact, technically something that draws 32A (like the mobile charger) would work on a breaker as low as 32A (if there were such a thing). But they always recommend not going over 80% of the breaker to account for small surges and add some extra safety buffer.

Drawing 32A from a 40A circuit is fine.

 

[OttawaGuy]

Shouldn't have any problem with that. In fact, technically something that draws 32A (like the mobile charger) would work on a breaker as low as 32A (if there were such a thing). But they always recommend not going over 80% of the breaker to account for small surges and add some extra safety buffer.

Drawing 32A from a 40A circuit is fine.

Exactly

Was just wondering if the 50A breaker is strictly linked to the need for a 14-50 outlet .. Anyhow when it comes in I'll try it out..

 

[dbsb3233]

Exactly

Was just wondering if the 50A breaker is strictly linked to the need for a 14-50 outlet .. Anyhow when it comes in I'll try it out..

I don't think so. Seems like 40A plugs and receptacles are not very common. It's usually 30A or 50A for 240V (in the US anyway, not sure about Canada). So I think they just usually use 50A plugs/receptacles for anything above 30A. (And hardwired above 50A.)

Now, if the device were actually drawing 40A, it could be that 14-50 is more heavy-duty to handle that (not sure). But it doesn't matter here because you're only drawing 32A.

 

[Maquis]

Exactly

Was just wondering if the 50A breaker is strictly linked to the need for a 14-50 outlet .. Anyhow when it comes in I'll try it out..

This is allowable in the US per the NEC. I can't say how it's treated in Canada!

 

[Mirak]

We went with the 50A because it wasn’t much more expensive than a 40A. The real money for us was in the labor to run the circuit from a finished basement to the garage, so we went ahead and sprung for the slightly higher cost of the 50A materials.

We did not install GFI on the breaker or the outlet, and the electrician was fine with that, because we didn’t want the mobile charger to nuisance trip due to it already having built in GFI. It’s kind of surprising that Ford recommend a GFI circuit, but maybe they just do that for liability reasons or something.

DO make sure your electrician uses grounded Romex. The mobile charger requires a grounded circuit to work. So that’s actually 4 wires instead of 3.

 

[Maquis]

We went with the 50A because it wasn’t much more expensive than a 40A. The real money for us was in the labor to run the circuit from a finished basement to the garage, so we went ahead and sprung for the slightly higher cost of the 50A materials.

We did not install GFI on the breaker or the outlet, and the electrician was fine with that, because we didn’t want the mobile charger to nuisance trip due to it already having built in GFI. It’s kind of surprising that Ford recommend a GFI circuit, but maybe they just do that for liability reasons or something.

DO make sure your electrician uses grounded Romex. The mobile charger requires a grounded circuit to work. So that’s actually 4 wires instead of 3.

Copper has skyrocketed in past couple of months. If you're running wire any distance, the cost of going from #8 to #6 may be significant. ($0.67 vs $0.43 per foot single conductor).

I stopped fighting you guys about the fallacy of GFCIs nuisance tripping each other...do it how you want to! ? ?

 

[Illinibird]

We went with the 50A because it wasn’t much more expensive than a 40A. The real money for us was in the labor to run the circuit from a finished basement to the garage, so we went ahead and sprung for the slightly higher cost of the 50A materials.

We did not install GFI on the breaker or the outlet, and the electrician was fine with that, because we didn’t want the mobile charger to nuisance trip due to it already having built in GFI. It’s kind of surprising that Ford recommend a GFI circuit, but maybe they just do that for liability reasons or something.

DO make sure your electrician uses grounded Romex. The mobile charger requires a grounded circuit to work. So that’s actually 4 wires instead of 3.

I went with 50 amp GFCI and there have been no nuisance tripping of the breaker (I use the Ford Mobile Charger as well). I was also wondering why Ford recommended a GFCI breaker and it may just be CYA but I wanted to follow their recs if something should go wrong later. The electrician that did my 14-50 outlet said GFCI breaker was code in our area too. He used oversized conduit with #6 gauge wires with 2 hot and 1 neutral and #8 gauge wire for ground (which actually went to ground rod right outside our house). Edit: I stand corrected! Last sentence is wrong as I went outside to see what was connected to ground rod in the earth and there was no wire. It was a bar that went inside the panel and I can't see how that bar is connected and ultimately how the ground rod is connected.

 

[Maquis]

I went with 50 amp GFCI and there have been no nuisance tripping of the breaker (I use the Ford Mobile Charger as well). I was also wondering why Ford recommended a GFCI breaker and it may just be CYA but I wanted to follow their recs if something should go wrong later. The electrician that did my 14-50 outlet said GFCI breaker was code in our area too. He used oversized conduit with #6 gauge wires with 2 hot and 1 neutral and #8 gauge wire for ground (which actually went to ground rod right outside our house).

If the ground conductor from your receptacle goes directly to a rod and not the ground bus in your panel, that would be a code violation and may be hazardous.

 

[OttawaGuy]

My electrician put the 40A and said that it would be safer since the charger only pulls 32A. It would prevent sending an overload too big


The wire is for a 60A (because of how I asked him to set things up)

If ever I need a 50A I could switch it myself

Just wasn't sure if having a 40A would bother the mobile charger


And no GFI, everything is inside plus the GFCI is so much more expensive

 

[Illinibird]

If the ground conductor from your receptacle goes directly to a rod and not the ground bus in your panel, that would be a code violation and may be hazardous.

The green wire goes to a strip inside the panel where all the other green wires go which I assume to be the ground "bus" you're talking about. I think that strip is grounded but actually I don't know where it goes because I'm scared of getting close to the inside of our 200 amp service panel and I don't want to get electrocuted. The ground rod outside is is connected to a bar that goes inside the service into the house and I cannot see how it is connected to my electric service coming in. It passed two separate building code inspections so I know it was done correctly. The wires to the 14-50 outlet are 2 hot wires and 1 neutral wire and 1 green ground wire. Anyhow, it was done correctly according to code here in Frankfort Illinois. The 50 amp GFCI breaker WAS very expensive too.

 

[dbsb3233]

My electrician put the 40A and said that it would be safer since the charger only pulls 32A. It would prevent sending an overload too big


The wire is for a 60A (because of how I asked him to set things up)

If ever I need a 50A I could switch it myself

Just wasn't sure if having a 40A would bother the mobile charger

That is an interesting extra layer to the issue. No, it won't bother the charger at all because the circuit doesn't push 50A down, it just allows the charger to pull anything it wants up to 50A before tripping the breaker. The charger won't care at all. It could be on a 100A breaker/wire/plug and it would be just as fine because it only pulls 32A.

However, a 40A breaker instead of a 50A could add a little extra protection in case the charger went haywire and tried to draw 43A or something and start to melt down. A 40A breaker would trip, while a 50A would keep the juice flowing.

But that's a pretty quirky situation. It would require a serious malfunction of the EVSE, and a weird one that would drawn more than 40A but less than 50A. More likely, such an overdraw would probably be a short that would push it over 50A too, and still trip.

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