14-50 and 50 amp breaker

[nymjk]

Anyone use a leaf clipper creek charger with adapter on their tesla?

Does that just save not getting your own cord out and plugging into 240 plug?

I don't think you'd have to dial down the car. The car and EVSE negotiate and set the current. The problem arises when people (like me) use a home made adapter to plug into a lower current source. Without a proper Tesla adapter, the UMC tells the car 50A is OK.

I use the Clipper Creek 30A unit that I had installed for my Fusion Energi with the provided J1772 adapter.
The correct current is set at 20A [thought it would have been 24A (80% of 30A)] charging at 12 miles per hour.
If I plug the Tesla Mobile Connector into the NEMA 14-50 plug, the current is set at 40A with a charge rate of 25 miles per hour.

 

[Brass Guy]

I use the Clipper Creek 30A unit that I had installed for my Fusion Energi with the provided J1772 adapter.
The correct current is set at 20A [thought it would have been 24A (80% of 30A)] charging at 12 miles per hour.
If I plug the Tesla Mobile Connector into the NEMA 14-50 plug, the current is set at 40A with a charge rate of 25 miles per hour.

Hmmm... The Tesla is proven at 40A, the J1772 shouldn't be the restriction, so the Clipper Creek must be setting 20A. I'm not familiar with those units. Maybe there are jumpers or something, like Tesla's Wall Connector.

Edit: The Clipper Creek is available in a 25A unit. Check the model #, because that would explain 20A.

 

[ccutrer]

I swear I've seen 3/3 NM before, but I can't find it right now (googling wire sizes is incredibly difficult!). According to http://www.southwire.com/ProductCatalog/XTEInterfaceServlet?contentKey=prodcatsheetOEM10 this particular company makes both 4/3 and 2/3. But both of those come with a 8AWG ground. So a 3/3 with 10AWG ground is definitely suspect. It's very difficult to gauge (see what I did there?!) the size of the wire from a picture. I often can't distinguish 8/3 and 6/3 unless I have both in my hand. The lugs on his breaker (likely http://www.schneider-electric.us/en...ker-120-240v-50a/?_DARGS=/prod-dataSheet.jsp# ) are rated for up to 2AWG. Of course, he should probably do a load calc to ensure he's not over upgrading the circuit to 50A (or especially if it really is 3/3 NM, and he upgrades to a HPWC with at most an 85A breaker).

As for ground/neutral, @davewill is absolutely correct. The Tesla mobile connector doesn't care, but for safety reasons the ground and neutral on a 14-50 need to be separate, in case someone comes along and plugs some other appliance into the outlet. It may seem extremely unlikely, but you can't predict the future. The electrical code is about making things either safe, or impossible to later do unsafely.

 

[TMeister]

OK, first post on the forum...
Since I just installed 50 amp service for my 14-50 plug I know something about this stuff. What you have there is 8/3 with a 10 ground. That really is an 8 in your picture showing the wire. It's different than the 3 depicting the number of conductors. Putting a 50 amp breaker on 8 AWG is really against code. But given the 80% load factor you should only draw 40 amps. If you actually pull 40 amps on 8 AWG you will heat the wire beyond it's safe level.

The correct install for 50 amp service to a 14-50 plug is the use of 6/3 cu wire with a #8 ground.

 

[Rocky_H]

Hmmm... The Tesla is proven at 40A, the J1772 shouldn't be the restriction, so the Clipper Creek must be setting 20A. I'm not familiar with those units. Maybe there are jumpers or something, like Tesla's Wall Connector.

Edit: The Clipper Creek is available in a 25A unit. Check the model #, because that would explain 20A.

I have been noticing this from Clipper Creek stations for a few years. They were really overly cautious on limiting the current below what they needed to on most of their units and are just recently starting to have it meet the 80% of the breaker allowed spec. The main reason for it was probably market conditions, since no one besides Tesla had an onboard charger higher than 6.6kW, and obviously Tesla has their own mobile and wall connectors that were better. (Oh, rare exception: new Toyota RAV4 EV uses the 10kW Tesla charger.) So Clipper Creek had units that plugged into 10-50 or 14-50 that should have been able to supply 40A but only supplied 30A. And they had ones for 10-30 and 14-30 that only supplied 20A instead of 24A. 30A from hardwired 40A circuit, etc.