Best Way To Hardwire Tesla Wall Connector with Existing Wires?

[Sophias_dad]

Thanks! I left the neutral capped off inside so it was accessible if needed. Didn’t want to leave it in the wall with the only way to retrieve being to unmount the entire charger. Is that okay what I did?

The NM Cable jacket is clamped down in the receptacle box here.

View attachment 1041971

I wanted to pull out more NM Cable so I could feed it through and put a clamp on the back of the Tesla Wall Charger…but I couldn’t get the wire to budge…so I assumed it was better to use the conduit terminal since it was the individual wires being fed through.

I did drill a hole here (instead of the preferred knockouts) to feed the wires through. I needed the bottom two holes in the preferred knockout locations to align the screws with the screw holes on the receptacle box.

View attachment 1041966View attachment 1041967

All in all do you think everything is safe and legit? I can’t see anything really that sticks out against code…but let me know your thoughts

Safe, yes. I'm not an electrician by trade, but I'd suspect that individual conductors going into the HPWC is on the hairy edge of legit. I understand the cable being clamped by the box(but on a side note I really hate that type of 'clamp', IMHO it doesn't really work and is easy to make fail), but I'm not so sure that an inspector would accept that.

Screwing through those knockouts is a little dicey. They are intentionally weaker than the surrounding material, meant to be 'knocked out'.

 

[Rocky_H]

My only complaint is there wasn’t enough slack to feed the wires around the right side of the charger how Tesla recommends…but they call it a service loop, so it doesn’t appear to be a safety concern.

Yes, there's not really anything wrong with that. It's more of a recommendation for future convenience and flexibility if you need to change or move things later, so you have some slack to work with. And if you were pulling new wire, it would be a good idea to leave that extra slack, but it's not an issue to not have it.

 

[ucmndd]

Screwing through those knockouts is a little dicey. They are intentionally weaker than the surrounding material, meant to be 'knocked out'.

A clarification that those aren't knockouts... they're just molded impressions in the plastic showing where to drill... they aren't really any weaker or less structurally sound than any other part of the housing.

 

[Sophias_dad]

A clarification that those aren't knockouts... they're just molded impressions in the plastic showing where to drill... they aren't really any weaker or less structurally sound than any other part of the housing.

Fair enough, I stand corrected.

 

[ghsnick!]

Safe, yes. I'm not an electrician by trade, but I'd suspect that individual conductors going into the HPWC is on the hairy edge of legit. I understand the cable being clamped by the box(but on a side note I really hate that type of 'clamp', IMHO it doesn't really work and is easy to make fail), but I'm not so sure that an inspector would accept that.

Screwing through those knockouts is a little dicey. They are intentionally weaker than the surrounding material, meant to be 'knocked out'.

The NM Cable (entering the box) was legit stuck. I couldn’t pull any out or in…it was very “stuck” in place.

The wires sat open in the box while there was a receptacle there, so why do you think it’s on the hairy edge of legit? The connectors used were UL rated for wires to be fed through.

3/4-in Schedule 40 Schedule 80 PVC Bushing Connector Conduit Fittings

https://www.lowes.com/pd/CANTEX-3-4-in-Bushing-Connector-Schedule-40-PVC-Compatible-Schedule-80-PVC-Compatible-Conduit-Fitting/1000321591

You really think it’s an issue or safety concern?

Yes, there's not really anything wrong with that. It's more of a recommendation for future convenience and flexibility if you need to change or move things later, so you have some slack to work with. And if you were pulling new wire, it would be a good idea to leave that extra slack, but it's not an issue to not have it.

Thanks for your feedback. Definitely if there was new wire I’d do the extra feed…in my situation I had to go direct.

A clarification that those aren't knockouts... they're just molded impressions in the plastic showing where to drill... they aren't really any weaker or less structurally sound than any other part of the housing.

This is where I saw it was okay to drill into those areas…

 

[Sophias_dad]

The NM Cable (entering the box) was legit stuck. I couldn’t pull any out or in…it was very “stuck” in place.

The wires sat open in the box while there was a receptacle there, so why do you think it’s on the hairy edge of legit? The connectors used were UL rated for wires to be fed through.

3/4-in Schedule 40 Schedule 80 PVC Bushing Connector Conduit Fittings

https://www.lowes.com/pd/CANTEX-3-4-in-Bushing-Connector-Schedule-40-PVC-Compatible-Schedule-80-PVC-Compatible-Conduit-Fitting/1000321591

You really think it’s an issue or safety concern?

Its not a safety concern at all. I'm just not sure an inspector will be happy with it.

 

[davewill]

Thanks! I left the neutral capped off inside so it was accessible if needed. Didn’t want to leave it in the wall with the only way to retrieve being to unmount the entire charger. Is that okay what I did?

That's where the neutral would have ended up if the NM cable had been long enough to be installed normally. I would have done the same thing.