Thanks! Good to know about the bracket.The 14-50 is more commonly found on electric vehicle chargers than the 6-50, so you're pretty well set. If you are going to use the portable charger that comes with your MME, you can just plug it in and you should be set. Since the mains pigtail on the portable charger is removable, it is recommended to utilize the wall bracket so that the weight of the charger does not accidentally disconnect the charger from the pigtail.
Thank you for this, very helpful. Would you suggest mounting the connected charger on some sort of heat dissipating plate?See attached. I installed this myself, with a little advice from my electrician.
Important things to consider.
Good luck, be careful, you are messing with 220-240 volts and it can hurt/kill you. If in doubt/concerned hire a qualified electrician.
- When your MMe is charging, it pulls a lot of juice, amperage. This is adjustable in the vehicle software. Mine is set at 40 amps max. All wiring must be done properly, with correct size wires. I used 6 gauge, for 50 ft run from breaker box to the charger. Rule of thumb is 80/20 rule. i.e. If you want a max charging rate of 40 amps than you need a 50 amp circuit set up and breaker.
- I believe the charger that comes with the vehicle is a 30 amp max unit. Some folks just use the mobile charger, they just install a plug in the garage. I decided to set up with a wall mount charger AND have the ability to use the mobile charger as a back up by installing a NEMA 1450 receptacle.
- The Ford OEM charger is fine, so far. I bought it because it integrates with the rest of the Ford system. I did not buy it because it was cheapest, it is not. The Ford charger is actually built by Webasto, a German company, not Ford and there are many other aftermarket units one can buy instead. If you buy the Ford OEM charger, pay very close attention to the "'dip switch" settings instruction. The German dip switch setting convention is "backwards" to normal thinking. I set my up mine wrong, at first, and the car was pulling 48 amps during charging and that is too much for a 50 amp breaker setup! After I figured out my error and made corrections everything now works just fine. 40 amp max charge. ( German engineers seem to think "0" is on, the rest of use think "0" means off, and if you set up the Webasto charger incorrectly, it defaults to a 48 amp charge rate. )
- After installation, you might want to occasionally check temps of the cords, circuit breaker, connections. ( See attachment) If something is getting "hot", anything over approximately 125 degrees, you may have a bad connection and that needs to be corrected or you may have an electrical failure at some point which can be very dangerous and costly. Buy an infrared thermometer from Home Depot, less than $50, check temps at least once per month. In the average home, when charging, an EV pulling 40 amps during a charging session will mostly likely be the highest electrical load device in your home at any given time. More than the AC, electric water heater, electric stove, etc. High voltage wiring connections can degrade over time, they become loose from Thermal Cycling/Fretting Corrosion. Which means, if maybe OK today, now, but start getting hot weeks/months/years later but if you check temps, and take corrective actions, you will avoid problems. I have seen high voltage, high amp load devices run OK for years, then a connection goes bad, and the connection failure becomes a "plasma ball fire" and destroys anything and everything within close proximity. Attached you will see a photo of a 220v 50 amp plug, that worked fine for 11 years, providing 220v 3 phase power @ 30 amps. One connection went bad, probably from "thermal cycling" and you can see what happened from the effects of the ensuing +1000 degree plasma ball fire.
they are supposed to install with ground plug up as a safety precaution in case something falls between the receptacle and the plug it hits the ground not the live plug.
