Have Tesla will travel kit

[ai4px]

We're about to go on a road trip where there is no supercharger. So I made a "have Tesla will travel" kit... a NEMA 14-50 mounted in a single gang box with a some 10 gauge romex and a pair of eaton 20amp breakers. Don't yet know what brand our friend's panel box is, but I'll either install the breakers I had laying around my house, or I'll steal the wires off their clothes dryer for the night. Easy Peasy. The panel box just happens to be in their garage and I may just leave my little setup there for future use.

 

[Barry]

And when home, you can use it for your Henry 10K amp
73

 

[thecloud]

When I needed to plug into a dryer outlet at a destination location, the biggest challenge was parking close enough to reach it. If it's in a garage and you have to park outside, you'll need an extension cord.

To be safe when using your mobile connector's 14-50 adapter (with or without an extension cord), you have to remember to turn down the amps in the car to 24A (or less), since that's the maximum continuous load you can put on a 30A outlet. Ideally you would want to use a Tesla 14-30 adapter instead of the 14-50, so the power draw is automatically limited to 24A.

I ended up building a similar box, but with a NEMA 14-30 receptacle instead of a 14-50. The primary benefit is that I can just plug the mobile connector with 14-30 adapter into it, and not have to worry about it ever drawing more than 24A from the outlet.

 

[ewoodrick]

We're about to go on a road trip where there is no supercharger. So I made a "have Tesla will travel" kit... a NEMA 14-50 mounted in a single gang box with a some 10 gauge romex and a pair of eaton 20amp breakers. Don't yet know what brand our friend's panel box is, but I'll either install the breakers I had laying around my house, or I'll steal the wires off their clothes dryer for the night. Easy Peasy. The panel box just happens to be in their garage and I may just leave my little setup there for future use.

If the panel is surface mounted, you may have issues.

But unless you plan on doing a lot of driving at your destination, 120v charging can be quite sufficient. I'd recommend a heavy 120v 10 gauge 50ft extension

 

[ai4px]

When I needed to plug into a dryer outlet at a destination location, the biggest challenge was parking close enough to reach it. If it's in a garage and you have to park outside, you'll need an extension cord.

That ended up being the issue. The home owner had a workbench in their garage that prenvented the MS from fitting inside completely. The cable on our UMC was long enough to reach the car to plug in, but not allow the door to lower. He wasn't comfortable leaving the garage door open all night (an alien concept for my rural house), so we couldn't charge all night. I got up early the next morning an plugged in for a couple of hours as we said our goodbyes. I left the 240v outlet in the wall so my wife can later visit them and simply plug in. They were good with it.

Lessons learned... find out what the most popular panel box brands are in your area... for us its GE and Cutler Hammer BR type breakers... buy them proactively... A 30amp double breaker is $9. We had to stop at the local Home Depot to pick one up on the way in. Make sure you have 10-15 feet of cable or a suitable 240v extension cable. It's super easy to take the cover off a panelbox and either plug into an unused slot or pop out a clothes dryer breaker temporarily.

Next time, I'll make sure my travel kit includes a 15' 240 extension cable. It'd be really slick to find one of the round zipper bags the gen 1 UMC uses to keep that extension cord coiled up in.