Charging from Airco Heliwelder?

[rjpryan]

Any chance I could charge my Model S from this crazy thing? Will be visiting relatives for the holidays out-of-state who apparently have this in their garage. Looks like it may be the only high-voltage power source, and it is physically hardwired into the power system for the house.

The "reverse polarity" switch terrifies me. Has anyone tried using something like this?

 

[Thumper]

Short answer, NO ! It does produce DC current, but it is way too low voltage and there is no safety handshaking. Don't even think about it any more!

 

[rjpryan]

It does look like it has an AC mode...

 

[FlasherZ]

No.

 

[Veggen]

Sounds like a great idea...
... if you want to weld your charging circuits. :scared:

 

[Gizmotoy]

The thing certainly has settings that will technically work (AC 230V, 40A), but I have no idea how you select those output options or what the actual output plug looks like. That thing looks terrifying!

I think you need to use J1772 to go above 40A, so that's not going to work. 230V/40A is pretty decent, but the risk of setting something incorrectly seems pretty high to me.

 

[mspohr]

The output of this is either 40v AC or 30v DC... not going to work.
However, the input is 208/240/480 volts AC so if you could find where it is plugged in and plug your car into that plug (you'd need to check to see what the plug is and make sure it's not a 480 volt circuit) then you could charge.

 

[rjpryan]

Thanks for the replies. Sadly, it's hard wired into the electrical system for the house, and I don't want to deal with that. I guess it's 120V charging for me! Good thing I have a few days to fill up...

 

[tga]

Looks like that beast can pull over 100A on the AC line (see "Primary", above the power switch; below the breaker, right side). No wonder it's hardwired. No plug for you!