Camping Charging question

[morningstar]

I'm not a camper, but my daughter has begged me to take her camping so we can get out of the house while still social distancing ourselves from others. We picked a place and reserved a spot that has a 15amp hookup. The only adapter I have for plugging my car in is the 5-15 that came with it. I'm assuming that will work with a 15amp hookup, but I don't really know. I've been calling the campground to ask, but no one ever answers the phone so I'm hoping someone on here can enlighten me as there's not enough time before my trip to order and receive a 15-50. Plus, from what I'm reading in some other camping posts, it sounds like there's some other TT-30 adapter that is more useful at campgrounds.

I understand the 5-15 will only give me a trickle of power, but I think I can arrive at the campground with at least 50% power. I'm just trying to not lose any and maybe gain a bit over the couple of days it will just be parked there so that I can make it back to the nearest supercharger. ABRP shows I will use about 40% of my battery between the supercharger and the campground so hopefully it won't matter, but I had to guess at how much weight and headwind, etc. to put into the trip planner and I have no idea about elevation gain.

I really want to do this trip in my Tesla and not use an ICE car just because it's the first trip I've taken to a remote area. But I am pretty risk averse. What say you all, will I be able to plug into a 15amp hookup with just my 5-15 adapter?

 

[SSedan]

5-15 is standard outlet and you will get like 4-5miles per hour. You have no problems. You might even consider dialing down to 10amps just because campground wiring might be marginal.

 

[dhrivnak]

I have charged frequently at campgrounds and have not had a problem charging at at least 12 amps. Many actually are on a NEMA 5-20 so I can charge at 16 amps. You can easily gain 50+ miles a day.

 

[morningstar]

Great! Thanks!

 

[SigNC]

5-15 is standard outlet and you will get like 4-5miles per hour. You have no problems. You might even consider dialing down to 10amps just because campground wiring might be marginal.

While this is true if you are letting your car sit without sentry or overheat protection but if you are running the AC in camp mode you will not even break even with a 5-15 running at 12 amp. Just something to keep in mind if you plan on running the AC while sleeping your car. If you are gone throughout the day it will gain range while you aren't messing with it though, especially if you disable sentry and overheat protection as noted.

 

[smatthew]

Don't forget you need the NEMA 5-20 adapter to get that extra speed if the campground has it. Might be worthwhile to drop by a service center and pick one up.

Home Depot sells an adapter that will let you use the 14-50 adapter with a TT-30 outlet, but you have to manually lower the amperage in the car to prevent blowing a breaker.

I would not recommend an EVSEAdapters TT-30 adapter at the time unless you have plenty of time to wait. I ordered a TT30 on 6/26. On 7/2 (6 days later) they slapped a shipping label on it. They still haven't bothered to take it to the post office though. Guess their 4th of July plans got in the way. Im supposed to leave Wednesday morning, and really need that adapter to charge at my campsite. Guess I'll be making a trip to Home Depot for their substandard adapter.
I really despise companies that just sit on your order for a week if you don't pay for "express shipping". Funny that they charged my credit card immediately and waited to ship.

 

[SSedan]

While this is true if you are letting your car sit without sentry or overheat protection but if you are running the AC in camp mode you will not even break even with a 5-15 running at 12 amp. Just something to keep in mind if you plan on running the AC while sleeping your car. If you are gone throughout the day it will gain range while you aren't messing with it though, especially if you disable sentry and overheat protection as noted.

Good point.

 

[morningstar]

Don't forget you need the NEMA 5-20 adapter to get that extra speed if the campground has it

The trickle speed will be fine since the car won't be driven again for a couple days. I just wanted to be sure the 5-15 will be able to plug into the outlet of a 15amp campground hookup.

I really despise companies that just sit on your order for a week if you don't pay for "express shipping". Funny that they charged my credit card immediately and waited to ship.

I hear you. If you're gonna package it up and put a label on it, then take it to the post office in a reasonable amount of time. You're probably right about the holiday interrupting them doing that.

 

[morningstar]

While this is true if you are letting your car sit without sentry or overheat protection but if you are running the AC in camp mode you will not even break even with a 5-15 running at 12 amp.

I did think this! LOL I reserved a cabin that has A/C so I won't need to use my car for that. Not as cheap as sleeping in the car, but worth it for the peace of mind that I won't be using up power faster than I can replace it.

 

[SSedan]

Can we get the title changed to glamping?

 

[wws]

In RV lingo:

"15 amp" = 5-15 (standard 120V 15 amp receptacle)
"20 amp" = 5-20 (120V 20 amp receptacle with a sideways "T" shaped slot. Can also accept 5-15 plug.)
"30 amp" = TT-30 ("Travel Trailer" 120V, 30 amp)
"50 amp" = 14-50 (120/240V 50 amp receptacle)

The 5-15 adapter is what came with your car. You should get about 5 mph of charging with it. You can get 5-20 and 14-50 adapters from the Tesla store. The 5-20 will give about 7 mph, and the 14-50 nearly 30 mph charging speed.

With TT-30, you can get about 11 mph charging speed. Unfortunately Tesla doesn't offer a TT-30 adapter. I have one of the evseadapters TT-30 adapters and it works great. They shipped it almost immediately after I ordered it - but that was over a year ago. Perhaps they needed to make a new batch of them in order to ship @smatthews adapter? I'd bet it is one of their most popular adapters. Note that off the shelf TT-30 -> 14-50 adapters designed for RV usage are wired wrong for EV charging.

 

[morningstar]

That was really helpful info wws! Thanks!

 

[smatthew]

In a pinch you can get a Camco 55245 TT30 plug replacement, a Camco 55353 14-50 cord end receptacle, and a foot of 6/3 SOOW wire from Home Depot and make your own adapter that will work with the Tesla NEMA 14-50 plug. Just make sure you label the adapter "FOR EV USE ONLY" and set the charging to 24 amps before you begin to charge. Amazon will deliver the Camco parts in 2 days. OR, most Camping World stores have them in stock.

Some info at: CarCharging.us

Looks like I won't miss my camping trip this Wednesday after all.

 

[JBT66]

Just camped with mine on a 15 amp. AC running in Camp mode set to 68 and still gained about 20 miles of range over night. I do wish the screen would eventually sleep. The camp fire is cool but for actual sleeping in the car it would be great to turn it off.

 

[Piwacet]

Just FYI I've charged my model 3 with 120V, 15 amp input and it was no problem. This was in the Sierras during July, with daytime temps in the 90's and evening temps considerably cooler. cabin overheat protection was on. I don't recall how fast it charged but I likely got close to 3-4 miles/hour.

I don't recall all the outlet types but what wws said rings a bell. At some point I did stock up on various input and converter plugs just so I wouldn't have to worry about what plug type was available.

Have fun!

 

[Piwacet]

Also, regarding TT-30, I use this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TO1D48/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's not ideal in that it takes a circuit that can deliver 30 amps and allows you to plug in your 5-15 plug and therefor only draw 12 amps (the max continuous current for a 15 amp rated circuit). But it does work. It would seem better if you get one of the adapters that allows you to fully utilize the 30 amp circuit.

 

[wws]

Also, regarding TT-30, I use this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TO1D48/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's not ideal in that it takes a circuit that can deliver 30 amps and allows you to plug in your 5-15 plug and therefor only draw 12 amps (the max continuous current for a 15 amp rated circuit). But it does work. It would seem better if you get one of the adapters that allows you to fully utilize the 30 amp circuit.

That is a useful adapter. It has a 5-20 receptacle on it, so for a little faster charging you could plug the Tesla 5-20 UMC adapter into it as well. I actually have the one-piece version of it which is also made by Conntek.

I have a little TT-30 road trip kit that I keep in a duffel bag. It consists of a 25' Camco TT-30 extension cord, and several off-the-shelf adapters such as the above to allow it to plug into 5-15 and 5-20 receptacles on one end, and use the Tesla 5-15 and 5-20 UMC adapters on the other end. I also made a few homemade adapters to non-Standardly allow it to plug into 240V 6-15/6-20 and 14-30/14-50 receptacles. The 14-30/14-50 adapter has the neutral blade removed so it can be plugged into either a 14-30 or 14-50 receptacle. Obviously when plugged into a 14-50, it would still be limited to 24 amps by the TT-30 UMC adapter.

Unfortunately with my road tripping being placed on hold, I haven't been able to use any of it this year. I did use some of it a few times last year though. Had the car plugged into campsite 14-50s, and used the TT-30 extension cord with the TT-30P->5-15R adapter to power my laptop.

If Tesla were to poll me on which one additional UMC adapter they should make, my suggestion would be TT-30...