It is my hopes that this thread will serve as an informative discussion of how I installed my own Level 2 Charger.
As a very important disclaimer, nobody would ever recommend that you work with electricity unless you have a full 100% understanding of how it works, and most importantly that touching live wires can cause death or serious injury. In light of that, use a licensed electrician to install your Level 2 charger. One more thing, I'm not a professional so don't take the practices I use here as elusion to doing it correctly.
1. Permitting
- I live in the City of Phoenix; therefore, my first step in this whole process was to apply for building permit, more specifically. "Minor Electrical Work". For the City of Phoenix, this type of permit can be applied for online without any electrical plans at this website. The cost for this permit was $250.
- The City of Phoenix defines Minor Electrical Work as "The addition of of one or two new electrical branch circuits not to exceed 60 amps at 120/240 volts, single phase." For this application, I am installing one 50-amp branch circuit which is the recommended circuit rating for a NEMA 14-50 plug which can supply 40 amps/240v to your Tesla. More on this later. See Tesla's Mobile Connector information page here.
2. Materials
All of this stuff can be ordered from Home Depot/Lowes/Amazon. Links are included to give you a reference.
- Corded Mobile Connector ($520 US) - Dedicated for garage. I plan on moving in the next couples years and having a universal NEMA 14-50 outlet would be more valuable to non-Tesla fan boys such as ourselves
- Cable Organizer ($25 US) - Tesla's OEM cable organizer that allows you to neatly hang the cord on the wall
- NEMA 14-50 Outlets - Qty:2 ($17.98 US) - I have a two car garage so all the outlet related items will have a quantity of 2.
- NEMA 14-50 Outlet Wallplate - Qty:2 ($14.78 US) - I believe these may be cheaper at Home Depot. However, getting it delivered to my door is just as nice.
- 2 Gang Outlet Box - Qty:2 ($12.18 US)
- 50 amp Breaker ($9.47 US) - There are multiple main service load center types that take different types of breakers. Make sure you buy the same breakers as you currently have in your service panel. There could be a lot discussed on breaker interchangeability.
- Heat Shrink Tubing - ($7.97 US) - Used for connections in conjunction with electrical tape when splitting the circuit.
- Clamp Connector - ($15.96 US) - These are used at the junction box that splits the line going from the breaker panel to the NEMA 14-50 outlets.
- 6" x 8" inch junction box - ($17.68 US) - Junction box for splitting the line going from the breaker box to the two NEMA 14-50 outlets. This box may seem big but I am using some pretty heavy gauge wire so it was nice to have the room.
- Electrical Tape - ($4.26 US)
- 6-gauge wire - ($160 US) - 75 feet for my installation needs.
- Split Bolts - Qty: 6 ($33.76 US) - Used to splice the 6 gauge wire in the junction box. You could also use a copper wire clamp for this connection.
3. Tools
4. Electric Service Panel
- This is the most dangerous part of the install. The first thing I always do prior to accessing the innards of the panel is to open the main disconnect to the panel. After I open the panel, I check for voltage with my non-contact voltage tester. Anytime my hands ever go near this panel, I always check for voltage, even if I checked it two minutes earlier. As a rule of thumb for myself, anytime I touch a wire, I always check for voltage. Well enough with the disclaimer, here are some pictures of the panel with the breaker installed
- With the 75 foot roll of 6 gauge wire, I started in my attic. Directly above my service panel in the attic, there were wires coming up between the inner drywall and the stucco outer wall. Since this wire is so thick, I simply straightened it and blindly routed it from the attic down to the service panel. As you can see from the photos (more specifically photo 4), there wasn't much room in the service panel openning to receive the 6 gauge wire I shoved down from the attic. To make it a little easier, I cut a 6" x 6" hole in the drywall directly opposite of the service entrance openning and I was able to easily receive the 6 gauge wire from inside the house then push the wire outside towards the service entrance openning. I pulled a couple feet of wire through the service entrance wire openning and followed the same wire routing method that the service panel already had.
- To connect the wires to the circuit breaker, I stripped approximately 1/2" of insulation from the wire thus exposing the copper wires. Then insert the bare copper ends into the circuit breaker (photo 3) and tighten until its really snug. (There is a torque spec for this, but this is what we call good ol american cowboying). It doesn't matter which wire goes into each hole as long as they are the black or red wires....
- For the white wire and bare ground wire, I just connected them to the ground rails in the panel. I have read that the neutral and ground bars should be separate but the person who wired this before me did not split them out and the City inspector didn't seem to care either.
- Since I now had a new breaker, I had to knock out two of the tabs on the cover panel and label the breaker.
- From here, we are done with the service panel connections. I opened the breaker to the wires I just installed, put the cover on the service panel, then shut the main disconnect to the panel so that my girlfriend could make me dinner.
- As always, I ensured the wires did not have voltage by checking with my non-contact voltage tester after I opened the breaker.
5. Attic
- Because I'm using non-metallic sheathed wire (NM-B), I simply rolled the wire to the junction box in the attic.
- In the picture below, the wire on the left is coming from the breaker/service panel. The other wire on the bottom of the junction box and the one on the right are going to the two NEMA 14-50 outlets in the garage.
- To setup the junction box, I secured it to a sturdy piece of wood and attached 3
clamp connectors
to accept the 6 gauge wire.
- For the wires going into the junction box, I routed the wire through the clamp connectors and left approximately 12" of wire to play with in the junction box.
- To attach the three 6 gauge wires, I had to use two split bolts, one piece of heat shrink tubing, and lots of electrical tape. I did this for all three 6 gauge wires, 120v red, 120v black, and neutral white. For the green ground wires, I used a twist connector and electrical tape. The ground wire was also attached to the junction box.
- Now, I routed the rest of the electrical wire from the junction box to the two NEMA-14-50 outlets in the garage by going down in between the walls.
6. Garage / NEMA 14-50 Plugs
- To cut the holes for the NEMA 14-50 outlets, I used the "2 gang outlet boxes" as a template then used the drywall saw to cut a neat rectangle in the drywall.
- The 6 gauge wire were routed through the back of the "2 gang outlet boxes" and the "2 gang outlet boxes" were secured to the wall.
- Using the instructions on the box, I attached the wires (red, black, white, bare copper) to the NEMA 14-50 outlets and tightened the wire.
- The NEMA 14-50 outlets were then secured to the "2 gang outlet boxes" and the wallplate was attached.
- I also had some label plates manufactured to let any future homeowners know that they can't exceed 9.6kW of charging load at once between both outlets. That's what the breaker is for as well i guess..
- After my install, I had to make an all-day appointment with the city inspector so that he could spend 5 minutes looking at the installation and justify the $250 permit fee..
I hit my 10,000 character limit on this forum!!!
Thanks!!!!. Please keep your hate mail to a minimum and let me know if there anything you would like to be expanded on
