Not necessarily; for RV buddy it's a single product to add to cart -
I had trouble with even $2k quote electricians getting back to me. One of them looked at my panel load and said per calculations he cannot add a 2nd 14-50 in the future(200amp panel) if need to be, so I'd be limited to a single outlet he can add with all of the re-work of panel. That got me thinking in the direction of the dryer buddy, which lets you share 14-30 between the dryer and another outlet that you can use for EV (with extension cord) - for the future expansion.
Once I read up more on that site, I noticed they also have RV buddy/range buddy products that split 14-50 into two outlets.
There are 3 versions of these splitters:
1. Cheapest, just a Y splitter - if you accidentally use both outlets, then breaker in your electrical panel trips. Some people warn of risk of fire, so I probably wouldn't go with this one.
2. Manual switch on the box, so you ensure manually which outlet now gets the power.
3. Auto plus, which automatically detects if "primary" outlet starts drawing power and if so, disconnects the "secondary" outlet at the 3.5amp level. I.e. for a moment you may be drawing 43.5amps, which is ok for 50amp outlet for "under 3 hours", from what I gathered. However, I have a 40amp breaker on my 14-50 outlet, which currently serves 40amp sauna. I have 50amp wire, so no risk of overload, but I think breaker might trip with the auto option.
So, as a short term solution, I bought 75 feet extension cord for 14-50: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B079JBWR6W?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title
That should get me covered when the car comes in about a week. The cable is pretty thick. I had it attached to the joists of unfinished basement(would be the same thing if an electrician had to feed the wire into garage), drilled a hole into garage and have ~15feet of the cord available in the garage, which I haven't yet decided where to attach.
I think couple of months later before I start using sauna I will buy manual RV buddy for $330
RV Buddy Plus #1 Custom 50A 2-way switcher, 3.5' 14-50 plug cable to two 14-50 outlets, with kWh meter
The pictures are messed up for that item, but you can see the approx picture with the switch here
Upgrade pak from Dryer Buddy™ on order (waiting for build) to Dryer Buddy™ Plus
So, the buddy and extension cord will get me functional for 2 appliances on a single 14-50 outlet w/o the need to unplug/plug in dif. appliances(which is a risk of wear on the outlet - seems they don't last long) for less than $700. Maybe I could replace the breaker from 40amp to 50amp and get the AUTO version of the buddy.
The buddy product seems to make sense; since electricians don't want to add another high power curcuit in the future, I will do the same with the dryer outlet when it's time for another EV and split 14-30 into two 14-30s (few people don't recommend to split 14-30 into 14-30 and 14-50, since EV will think you have 50amp available on the curcuit, which you don't and may overload if your limit set on the car is somehow reset).
So, I think I will have this 40amp option right now from my outlet ~60 feet away from garage and later another 24amp connection I will add the same way, which will be cheaper; My dryer is on 2nd floor, so I'll drop extension cord into the basement and feed into garage through the same hole, will probably be shorter extension cord and thinner - 30amp vs 50amp. This 2nd connection is my only option that electricians won't do for me.
I guess maybe I could split 14-50 inside the garage, so that each EV only gets half the power, but with buddies(RV and dryer) I'll have 2 separate circuits. No electrician needed
I don't know, but it seems to me that the UMC is trying to measure the available current. When it starts out charging, it's always at a low amperage, and then it slowly raises up. Now, I haven't paid too much attention since the initial charge or two, so I can't confirm that it always does it, but it just kind of seems like it does.
That's probably because I don't see anyone needing to split from a 14-50. If someone already had a 14-50, they would have what they needed to charge the car. What is being discussed was needing to alternate use back and forth between an electric clothes dryer they still want to use and charging the car. So the clothes dryer outlet is either a 14-30 or 10-30, and I don't see the relevance of the 14-50 Y splitters you are linking to.
So, if the resistor in the adaptor used on UMC is basically what downgrades the amps pulled from the circuit, then it seems your other wiring don't matter even if it supports 40 amps on each end of the splitter as long as you have the right female adaptors to plug in into.
Noted.
That's not true, I think a lot of people are considering such a split, those who are getting a 2nd and 3rd EV (not my case). I thought that's what @drawfour was asking about.
1 car, yes. I'm mostly contemplating setups for more than 1.
Adding the charging capacity based on dryer curcuit is a valid choice/option. However, your dryer may be far away and you need long extension cord. In this case, splitting existing 14-50 in the garage could be cheaper - just the splitter and no extension cord. Plus no work related to feeding/securing the cord.
Agree, but I'm talking about limiting the 14-50 circuit, not the dryer curcuit.
Yeah, this is actually a stock item, don't even need to ask for anything extra. It's 14-50 --> 14-50 + 10-30 and you can have 6-20 add-on with above URL and have it wired to the 14-50 end.
So you have a real problem, but there is a proper solution to that, and what you are suggesting with these kludge-y splitters and such is a really bad way to address it. I do get the thing of a small capacity home service. My house has 125A total, so I could go adding a bunch of 60 or 100 amp circuits for extra EVs.
I understand words "proper" and "compliant". However, for some of us that translates into thousands of extra dollars not counting HPWC costs.
3) I did not understand your sentence about "best charging rates". I don't have the car yet, so not sure how speading the load over different circuits affects the rates.
Arg. I accidentally mis-typed that. That was supposed to say "couldn't" go adding... That makes quite a difference.
It sounds like you're not hearing me because I don't see where you get an idea that this can cost "thousands" of dollars. Upgrading the main service of your house is what costs that. My points are specifically to avoid doing that, which is what you're going for. I am talking about this very thing, of using the existing capacity of a 50A circuit someone already has at the garage properly, without having to do expensive upgrades. There is no "thousands" of dollars.
Somewhat cheaper, I'll grant you. Doing a real Clipper Creek 30A and 20A EVSEs would be $379 + $565 = $944. An RV Buddy Plus Auto (or the like) would be $362. So sure, it's a way to save $582 or thereabouts. Except you would also have to buy two adapters from Tesla to those other outlet types, so $582 - $70 for $512. So we're down to discussing the important of savings of 1% of the price of the car.
I sincerely hope you're kidding about drawing 64 amps from a 50 amp circuit.
You're talking about splitting things out for multiple cars to a 20A and a 30A outlet type and plugging in the appropriate Tesla adapters into those outlets to limit their current draw to the correct 16A or 24A levels. OK, that's fine, but that means that each car can only draw 16A or 24A, even if the other car is done charging and not drawing anything. So it's stuck with around half of the available capacity being unusable a lot of the time. A dynamic load sharing setup can keep the full 40A in use all the time, shifting it around from car A or car B or split between both, to get more total energy into the cars over the 8-10 hours of nighttime you have. And when you're trying to charge two cars from one 50A circuit, getting the most charging out of it by load sharing is likely to be important. There is some cost tradeoff doing this because dynamic load sharing EVSEs are more expensive than just outlets, but this is a specific advantage that some people might need for charge refilling speed.
Well, I guess you did not see my first post in the thread. The first estimate I got was about $2.5k for adding 14-50 and about $4.5k for adding 100amp line for HPWC(s). Part of the cost is that I needed panel re-worked and new subpanel, which immediately adds ~$1,200 in our area.
I never said this. The quote was:
I came to the conclusion that all this dynamic extra and squezzing out the last drop of juice is not that important.
To be fair, I keep forgetting - UMC v2 will reduce 40amps to 32amps, while HPWC can give you full 40.
This works fine if your multiple cars are all Teslas. If they are not (say a Bolt or a Leaf), then you can't use the HPWC load sharing. That's why I went with NEMA 14-50. If my wife gets an EV, it will either be a plugin hybrid (Prius Prime), or a Leaf/Bolt, and unlikely to be a Tesla. So I wanted an outlet that can also be used for that. So I would want some kind of a smart splitter to let me set either my Tesla or her car as the primary, and the secondary one can just pull when the primary is not in use.
I did. Here's what it said:
No, that's not a given. Why do so many people have that assumption? I'm going to be changing out my 14-50 outlet for a wall connector on the same 50A circuit pretty soon. Wall connectors can be on many different circuit levels; they don't require a high amp circuit. And sharing for multiple vehicles is one of the obvious advantages they have to get the best use out of a lower power circuit.
