Mach E Level 2 Charger

[PA Bob]

Could you plug the car directly into the dryer outlet?

No!! There were two issues. 1. The plug on the Ford portable charger did not match the 30 amp outlet. The adapter was to fit into the 30 amp outlet. 2If you plug the Ford chargerdirectly into the dryer, It will draw 42 A which will trip the circuit breaker. It could also cause a fire. Assuming my father-in-law didn’t want me to burn his house down, I brought the Juicebox which will allow me to dial down to 24 A to accommodate the 30 amp breaker.

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[Accord07]

You sure about that? My Ford Pass always shows kWHs added but it is always 5-10 less than what is reported from my ChargePoint app so not sure which one to trust.

Maybe you are thinking about current kw charging rate which I can only view in ChargePoint. This is a metric I do not see in my Ford Pass app.

There is always some loss between what the EVSE sends out and what goes into the battery. The only reason I am tracking kWh is to see how much of my monthly energy consumption is for EV charging, so I would go with the numbers in ChargePoint app.

 

[Accord07]

I have a ChargePoint HomeFlex. It is one of the more expensive ones but I spend more on electricity to charge my MME in five months than the one-time cost of the EVSE, so it is not a big deal. The app works well, except when their backend servers are unreachable: unlike some other Wi-Fi enabled devices that allow connections directly from the mobile app as long as they are on the same network, the app becomes useless. When it happened last December, the extent of the impact was that I couldn't view charging stats for a while; when it happened again this week, I found myself unable to override the charging schedule: I am on a time-of-use rate plan with my utility company, and I set charging schedules on the EVSE accordingly, ChargePoint has the TOU rates in their database so the app shows how much each charging session costs; my car was at the dealer the other day from some work unrelated to charging, but when I got it back the charging settings were cleared, so I had to set a desired charging level again - as you all know the car has to be plugged in at least once in order to set the value in FordPass for that location, but I was unable to override the EVSE to start charging before the scheduled window opened because the ChargePoint app was inoperable. I ended up pulling out the Ford mobile charger to get around that.

 

[Warren Peace]

For the Grizzl-E owners, am I seeing that correctly, that if the box is going to be above your outlet you need the outlet to be ground down?

 

[RickMachE]

No!! There were two issues. 1. The plug on the Ford portable charger did not match the 30 amp outlet. The adapter was to fit into the 30 amp outlet. 2If you plug the Ford chargerdirectly into the dryer, It will draw 42 A which will trip the circuit breaker. It could also cause a fire. Assuming my father-in-law didn’t want me to burn his house down, I brought the Juicebox which will allow me to dial down to 24 A to accommodate the 30 amp breaker.

32A, not 42.

 

[dbsb3233]

For the Grizzl-E owners, am I seeing that correctly, that if the box is going to be above your outlet you need the outlet to be ground down?

If you want the pigtail to stay vertical, yes. Some people mount it on the side of the outlet and bend the power cord in a "U".

And actually, there's a bit of an advantage to mounting it low on the wall anyway... you gain an extra few feet of cord reach. The handle/cord holder is a separate piece. You usually want to mount that higher for easy grabbing and cord draping, but there's really no reason to mount the EVSE itself high on the wall.

 

[dfcliff]

For those people that have multiple EVs and only one circuit to charge them, the JuiceBox chargers have the ability to group chargers and set a max circuit amperage. For example, you could have 1 50-amp breaker that feeds two outlets. Install two chargers and group them. They will communicate and coordinate charging so that combined they will never exceed the max amperage for the circuit, but if only one is actively charging, it can use the max amount available.

https://support-emobility.enelx.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002651411-What-is-Load-Sharing-

 

[Tell It Right]

I'm getting multiple charges installed when my EV comes in. I've already asked an electrician to give me prices.

1) A 240V/48A charger tied to the electrical panel supplying constant power. We'll use this charger when our EV's battery is low on charge or we plan a trip the next day.

2) A 240V/32A charger tied to a new electrical panel my solar installer is going to install that'll be powered intermittently (whenever my solar system's home batteries are charged at least 75% or whatever I set it to). We'll use this charger for most commuting days (if we come home with over 100 miles left of charge and no trip the next day).

If a normal day requires about 15-20 kWh to replenish from the day's driving, the charger #2 will probably work for 90% of the time. We'll plug the EV up and go into the house with the knowledge that the solar system will cut power to the charger in the night if it has to preserve the home solar batteries to make sure the home will be powered through the night for free (when the home battery SOC gets to 75%). Maybe if we go 3 or 4 days in a row with rain (read: no solar power) the charger #2 might not charge the EV for a while and we'll decide to charge it with charger #1 (knowing that some or all of the power will come from the grid and increase our power bill).

If my estimates on the solar upgrade and EV charging are as accurate as my estimates for the original solar system I had installed a year ago -- we're talking about over 90% of all power consumed for both charging the EV and running my two-story, all-electric home being free from solar.

But part of that math is because charger #2 is a 240V/32A charger and pulls a hair less than 8 kW. My solar inverters will be able to convert DC to AC at 18 kW continuous power. With the EV charging on green power I'll still have 10 kW left to power appliances in my house (i.e. my dryer on high pulls 6 kW).

 

[Deleted member 9461]

https://evcharging.enelx.com/

best charger on earth.

 

[connoisseurr]

https://evcharging.enelx.com/

best charger on earth.

I'd have to disagree with your designation of Juicebox being the best on earth. Juicebox might have some features that are a tad "better" than other options; but in my eyes, a smart charger is a smart charger, and a dumb charger is a dumb charger.

A single point why I think the Chargepoint Home Flex is superior to all, comes down to the charging cord/cable selection Chargepoint made for the unit. The cable remains very flexible even in sub-zero conditions, where many other cable manufacturers offerings were very stiff or firm in similar conditions.

 

[TonyaE]

Yep, this one: https://grizzl-e.com/product/usa/chargers-usa/grizzl-e-classic-nema-14-50/

If you order directly from them instead of Amazon they set the dip switches for the correct amps

Good to know. I was going to order from Amazon.

 

[Maquis]

For those people that have multiple EVs and only one circuit to charge them, the JuiceBox chargers have the ability to group chargers and set a max circuit amperage. For example, you could have 1 50-amp breaker that feeds two outlets. Install two chargers and group them. They will communicate and coordinate charging so that combined they will never exceed the max amperage for the circuit, but if only one is actively charging, it can use the max amount available.

https://support-emobility.enelx.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002651411-What-is-Load-Sharing-

I'm getting multiple charges installed when my EV comes in. I've already asked an electrician to give me prices.

1) A 240V/48A charger tied to the electrical panel supplying constant power. We'll use this charger when our EV's battery is low on charge or we plan a trip the next day.

2) A 240V/32A charger tied to a new electrical panel my solar installer is going to install that'll be powered intermittently (whenever my solar system's home batteries are charged at least 75% or whatever I set it to). We'll use this charger for most commuting days (if we come home with over 100 miles left of charge and no trip the next day).

If a normal day requires about 15-20 kWh to replenish from the day's driving, the charger #2 will probably work for 90% of the time. We'll plug the EV up and go into the house with the knowledge that the solar system will cut power to the charger in the night if it has to preserve the home solar batteries to make sure the home will be powered through the night for free (when the home battery SOC gets to 75%). Maybe if we go 3 or 4 days in a row with rain (read: no solar power) the charger #2 might not charge the EV for a while and we'll decide to charge it with charger #1 (knowing that some or all of the power will come from the grid and increase our power bill).

If my estimates on the solar upgrade and EV charging are as accurate as my estimates for the original solar system I had installed a year ago -- we're talking about over 90% of all power consumed for both charging the EV and running my two-story, all-electric home being free from solar.

But part of that math is because charger #2 is a 240V/32A charger and pulls a hair less than 8 kW. My solar inverters will be able to convert DC to AC at 18 kW continuous power. With the EV charging on green power I'll still have 10 kW left to power appliances in my house (i.e. my dryer on high pulls 6 kW).

NEC 625.40 requires that branch circuits serving EVSEs have only one outlet. Each unit must have its own branch circuit and circuit breaker, even if together they would not exceed the rating of one circuit.

 

[RockwallRick]

Good to know. I was going to order from Amazon.

I got mine from Amazon. It was set to 40a, that is the default from the factory.

 

[dfcliff]

NEC 625.40 requires that branch circuits serving EVSEs have only one outlet. Each unit must have its own branch circuit and circuit breaker, even if together they would not exceed the rating of one circuit.

NEC 625.42 allows for load sharing and specifically mentions EVSEs.

 

[TonyaE]

I got mine from Amazon. It was set to 40a, that is the default from the factory.

I need 32. Is it easy to adjust?

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