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Roadster Conversion to J1772 Charging

Discussion in 'Roadster 2008-2012' started by tomsax, Jan 5, 2011.

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  1. Kevin Sharpe

    Kevin Sharpe Active Member

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    any progress you can tell us about Tom?
     
  2. tomsax

    tomsax Member

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    As long as I had to have the cable rebuilt for the problem with the pins, I wanted to also do a new revision of the bracket plate.

    We were supposed to get a 3-D printer at the end of December, so I've been waiting for that. That got delayed, so I've been stalling on solving the pin problem. We finally got most of the kit for the printer yesterday (we're early adopters for a friend who is starting a business selling kits for the printer he designed, a RepRap variant that's relatively easy to build and produces very nice output).

    I'm swamped with other projects until the end of the month. After that I expect this project will start moving again.

    We are getting a lot of public J1772 charging stations in the Seattle area and also in areas where I travel and stay overnight, so conversion is becoming more appealing. Is that happening in other areas as well?
     
  3. dhrivnak

    dhrivnak Active Member

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    Yes in Tennessee there are now hundreds of J-1772 options in city garages, Cracker Barrel , Nissan dealers etc. But I have yet to see my first Roadster plug. But this is not a big deal with my adapter plug.
     
  4. mpt

    mpt Electrics are back

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    In the North East, they're popping up everywhere; I'm back to considering the J1772 again. Thanks to the ActiveE I have a J1772 EVSE in my garage and am feeling the urge to standardize.
     
  5. dsm363

    dsm363 Roadster + Sig Model S

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    Yeah. A Central Market (grocery store) in the area just installed 4 ChargePoint chargers and they're showing up a movie theaters as well. Of course they don't have signs and ICE cars park there.
     
  6. Lloyd

    Lloyd Well-Known Member

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    I had this signage made for my office.

    photo 2.jpg
     
  7. strider

    strider Active Member

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    Definitely here in the Bay Area. Lots of L2 J1772 around. I've only needed to charge outside of my own garage once but why not convert the Roadster and my UMC just in case I need it someday (different job, longer commute, etc). Also, J1772 plugs are lighter weight than the Roadster one so less chance of knocking myself out if I drop it while unhooking it from the ceiling in my garage :p
     
  8. tomsax

    tomsax Member

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    I'm finally back to making some progress on this long-running project. I have an improved bracket that both fits better and is much sturdier than previous prototypes. Now, I need to go back to the cable guys and get another prototype cable made.

    With an eye toward getting a production run going, who is interested in getting a cable to upgrade their v1.5 Roadster to J1772?

    There are a number of variables, but I expect the cost of the cable+board+bracket+hardware to be around $450, give or take.

    If you're interested, send me a private message with your name, email address and answers to these questions:

    1. Are you interested in being a beta tester and trying one of the first few, or would you prefer to wait until others have tested it out?

    2. Are you willing to take a dremel to your car's inlet mounting cup to cut out a notch to accomodate the J1772 connector (or pay someone to do so)?

    3. What existing charging equipment will you need to convert from a Tesla plug to J1772?

    Again, please send me this info via private message, not just posting to this thread. I don't want deposits or anything, I just want to get an idea of how many cables I'll need to have made. (Costs go down a little with more orders.)
     
  9. hjr

    hjr #1291

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    IMHO give up on it and buy Henry Sharpe's adapter which is simple, and small. J1772 plugs cannot handle 70A so why limit yourself to that lousy standard? Spend the time hacking a better head unit than Alpine's!
     
  10. Lloyd

    Lloyd Well-Known Member

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    Your statement is not true. J1772 plugs can and do handle 70 amps plus.
     
  11. hjr

    hjr #1291

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    They can handle it but J1772 was not designed for 70A. You won't get killed, but its not optimal or recommended.
     
  12. DrComputer

    DrComputer Active Member

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    Not true. The J1772 standard can handle up to 75A. ClipperCreek offers a 75A J1772 upgrade kit for existing Tesla HPCs.
     
  13. Lloyd

    Lloyd Well-Known Member

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    #153 Lloyd, Sep 13, 2012
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2012
    From Wiki: The CARB regulation of 2001 mandated the usage of SAE J1772-2001 beginning with the 2006 model year. Later requirements asked for higher currents to be used than the Avcon connector could provide. This process led to the proposal of a new round connector design by Yazaki which allows for an increased power delivery of up to 19.2 kW delivered via single phase 120–240 V AC at up to 80 amperes. In 2008 the CARB published a draft amendment to section 1962.2 Title 13 that mandated the usage of the oncoming SAE J1772 standard beginning with the 2010 model year.[5]

    J1772 also has attained UL certification for connectors to 75 amps. Other connectors have not attained this . Does Henry Sharpes adapter you refer to have UL certification at ANY LEVEL??
     
  14. Doug_G

    Doug_G Lead Moderator

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    Dude... not only do fully certified 70A J1772s exist, I haveone sitting in my office waiting to be installed!
     
  15. wycolo

    wycolo Active Member

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    > fully certified 70A J1772s exist [Doug_G]

    Ok, it would appear that J1772 capability exists in the eye of the beholder, i.e. look at the one in your hand:

    a. My Clipper Creek CS-40 EVSE (a 30Amp device) has a Yazaki "30Amp" plug.

    b. My CAN from HCSharp (second batch) has a "70Amp" ITT socket on one end. The other end is a Tesla
    plug which presumably is good for 90Amps, the Roadster standard, but no writing visible as it is covered
    by the CAN housing.
    --
     
  16. hcsharp

    hcsharp Active Member

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    I wanted to wait before responding to this. While the J1772 standard technically allows up to 80A, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to use it for that. I've done a fair amount of testing with it up to 70A. Based on my own direct test results, I can tell you that the pins get fairly warm, not hot, at 70A under ideal conditions. The pins/sleeves in the Tesla connector do not get warm because they are substantially larger and have a correspondingly much larger contact surface area. This is an automotive application which generally means it's a good idea to oversize things. The contacts can get dirty and/or worn out. When that happens it becomes very easy for them to get hot, not just warm, because the small pins are already at the limit of what they can handle under ideal conditions. This information is not based on any wiki articles. It's based on direct, first hand test results.

    The first SAE J1772 standard was based on a target of 32A and the pins and sleeves were considered a little over-sized for that, as they should be for an automotive application. My understanding is that when it was later scaled up to 80A the SAE discussed whether to develop a different standard that could better handle 19kW, or try to use the more popular existing round connector. (I can't find the source for that right now and don't have time to look, perhaps someone else has it.) They chose what they felt was the best compromise between these competing demands.

    Would I want to convert my car to J1772? No because J1772 is not as robust as the existing proprietary connector with much larger pins/sleeves, and for those times I need it, I have a quick and easy adapter. Where I live the most powerful charging stations all use Tesla connectors. If you convert your car to J1772, you can no longer use Tesla connectors. Those are my priorities. There are some good arguments to converting if your priorities are different. Tom for example lives where J1772 is more common, he might have other vehicles that would benefit from a common plug in his garage, and he probably doesn't charge at 70A all that often, and probably doesn't care about the few remaining public roadster connecters in the wild anymore. In his case convenience is a bigger factor.

    Disclosure: I make a little bit of money (although it's mostly a labor of love) selling short and sweet J1772 -> Roadster adapters.
     
  17. tomsax

    tomsax Member

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    Hi Henry,

    I'm certainly not trying to talk anyone into converting their car to J1772, nor to talk anyone out of buying your awesome can adapter.

    I want to convert my Roadster to J1772 so that I don't have to use an adapter in the most common charging scenarios in the travelling I do.

    Additionally, I'd like to ensure that my car complies with the full J1772 spec, specifically that no one can unplug my car in the middle of a charge and potentially cause arcing damage to the pins on my car's inlet. I'd prefer not to lock the J1772 connector to my car, denying others the opportunity to use the charger after my charge has finished. The conversion cable I'm working on includes a clever little board that Cathy designed to monitor the proximity pin and interrupt the pilot signal when the latch on the J1772 connector is opened, and does so without drawing any power from the Roadster.

    If other owners are of the same mind, then I'm happy to share my method for doing the conversion.

    To make sure everyone has the information they need to make an informed decision about how they want to deal with charging, as the deployment of new HPCs drops to zero, I'd like to correct a few things you said.

    I have no intention of giving up the ability to use Tesla HPCs. Although there are very few around, they are strategically placed and are extremely convenient for road trips I do a few times a year. I'll use the original Tesla inlet cable assembly I remove from my car to make a Tesla-to-J1772 adapter. I'm still working on the most cost effective way to do this robustly. I'll have more to say about that when I decide on a strategy, but there are several ways to do it.

    The original 32A J1772 standard was used for the old Avcon connectors. The new J1772 connectors were designed for the new standard. The ITT-Canon cable has been UL tested and certified. Clipper Creek has been using that connector for the CS-100 and most of the public HPCs in Calfornia have been converted to use the ITT-Canon 70A J1772 connector. I haven't heard a single complaint about any issue with the connector. (The CS-100 has to be derated from 75A to 70A for Roadster compatibility, but that's a Roadster bug, not an issue with the connector.)
     
  18. vfx

    vfx Well-Known Member

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    I had planned to put a J1772 in my Roadster until Henry's Can became available.
    When all the Tesla 1.0 stations out in the world are gone, (I only know of Barstow left in SoCal and the Cosmopolitanism in Vegas), having a Tesla-to-J1772 adapter made would cover future road trips that may stop at those sites and Roadster owners homes, but honestly I think the future is in having an adapter to from a Tesla 1.0 to a Tesla 2.0 plug and lastly having a 2.0 in the Roadster as the end solution.

    It has been said the Supercharger sites will have two regular chargers on site as well. I'm guessing the will not be Roadster plugs.
     
  19. mg012

    mg012 Member

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    Well, I just bought the Can from Henry and used it at two charging stations last week. One was at a Nissan dealership, which was a waste of time because their chargers are so wimpy (maybe 24 amps) and then at a ChargePoint public charger which offered 30 amps. The Can is so easy and takes up almost no room, worked perfectly, and is lockable. Thanks Henry for your impeccable design and finished product.
     
  20. jcstp

    jcstp Active Member

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