BK11SBY
Member
It looks great, I never fully uncoil my charger lead so 5.5m seems perfect for me. Also the white glass cover looks pretty nice. Just have to wait and see i've it makes it to the U.K.
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New Tesla Wall Charger with Wifi
- Thread starter Vidyutyaan
- Start date
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
I'm not convinced there is really a "one size fits all" when it comes to tethered charge point cable length. All the time I was building our house I parked nose-in towards the charge point (I had a Prius PHEV at the time) and used a 10m long cable, as that was needed to reach the charge port on the rear driver's side. As soon as we started living in the house I started reversing in, to give room in the other leg of the drive for my wife to park. For the Prius PHEV I would only have needed a 2m cable then, same for the BMW i3 I replaced it with (also has the charge port on the rear driver's side).
For the Model 3 I'm using the 4.5m cable I fitted when I swapped the Prius for the i3, and that just about reaches across the back of the car OK, but an extra half a metre would be useful.
Having too long a cable is as much of a nuisance as having a cable that's a bit short, as it ideally needs to be fully uncoiled (for safety reasons) when in use, which might mean having cable strewn all over the drive. It also means having to coil up cable that may well be pretty mucky having been laid on the ground for a time.
For the Model 3 I'm using the 4.5m cable I fitted when I swapped the Prius for the i3, and that just about reaches across the back of the car OK, but an extra half a metre would be useful.
Having too long a cable is as much of a nuisance as having a cable that's a bit short, as it ideally needs to be fully uncoiled (for safety reasons) when in use, which might mean having cable strewn all over the drive. It also means having to coil up cable that may well be pretty mucky having been laid on the ground for a time.
Agreed, any fixed length will inevitably suit some people, but having only one option for cable length just makes it more likely that for the majority of people it will be inconveniently long, or simply too short.
The old 2.5/7.5 choice still seems better to me, if my only option at the time had been 5.5m I wouldn't have bought it...
Yes, I dutifully wound up my charge cable after charging the first few times ... then one day I looked around my fairly unkempt parking "area" and thought .. nah, I'll just lob it in the corner in a heap!! (still latch it back into the charge point socket of course) My justification is that the cable gets fewer coiling/uncoiling stresses ... and it saves time and I keep my hands clean!
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
I find that my cable always ends up with a lot of twists in it after a while. I've concluded that I must unconsciously twist it in the same direction all the time. I periodically have to carefully lay it out and get rid of all the twists, promising myself at the same time that I will take care not to twist it up in future...
Funnily enough mine remains quite well behaved. Isn't it curious how some cables (in general, not just charging cables) seem doomed to always be heading towards a "twist"? If somebody hasn't done a PhD based on this issue they should start one now! Seriously though, I should think some of the longstanding rope and cable manufacturers have the real story pretty well understood.
Doesn't the Anderson charge point have a retracting mechanism?
I found an abandoned portable garden hose reel that I have repurposed to wind a heavy duty extension cable (30 metres of 2.5mm cored arctic) ... it has been "life changing"!! Those portable reels are still quite a handful when used for garden hoses but for cables they are fantastic. After use I can coil up the extension in no time whereas before it was an awkward messy job that you could rarely manage to end up with a neat coil.
I suppose I could mount something like this
Wall Mounted Hose Reel
The trick would be to thread the plug through somehow.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
Needs some heavy duty slip rings for the conductors, though.
Could be done, just needs a 4 way high current slip ring assembly. I'd guess these things must be available, as I'm sure I've seen something similar used in an industrial environment. You would still need to full uncoil the cable every time, though, as there's the potential to over heat part of the cable if it's left coiled up during charging. Same problem as exists with coiled extension leads, and why they always have a warning label on them saying they must be fully uncoiled when in use.
Could be done, just needs a 4 way high current slip ring assembly. I'd guess these things must be available, as I'm sure I've seen something similar used in an industrial environment. You would still need to full uncoil the cable every time, though, as there's the potential to over heat part of the cable if it's left coiled up during charging. Same problem as exists with coiled extension leads, and why they always have a warning label on them saying they must be fully uncoiled when in use.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
The maximum is set by the car on board charger, which for UK models is 32 A single phase or 16 A three phase, so the maximum capacity of the charge point has no effect, as long as it's greater than the maximum that the car charger needs.
Thanks, good to know. Is a hardware thing rather than an imposed software limit?
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
I'm pretty sure it's a hardware limit, set by the capacity of the onboard charger(s). The charge point is just a (fairly) dumb power cable, the AC battery charger(s) are located in the car and determine the maximum charge rate on AC.
MrBadger
Badger out
I hope its got the same rs485 connection for load sharing. Was thinking on getting a second unit to share the circuit.
Page 10 shows an rs-485 port still on this one.
installation guide https://www.tesla.com/sites/default...ng/Gen3_WallConnector_Installation_Manual.pdf (load sharing is not enabled at all yet, will come with a future firmware update it seems - see p23)
general support page Installing a Wall Connector
If we get this gen3 over here, it won't be this one - this is 48amps single phase only. we're likely to get a 3 phase capable version
installation guide https://www.tesla.com/sites/default...ng/Gen3_WallConnector_Installation_Manual.pdf (load sharing is not enabled at all yet, will come with a future firmware update it seems - see p23)
general support page Installing a Wall Connector
If we get this gen3 over here, it won't be this one - this is 48amps single phase only. we're likely to get a 3 phase capable version
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