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SplitVolt Review/Charging Option

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What's up, everyone! I took delivery of my 2021 Model 3 SR+ about 3 weeks ago now and I am in love with it. Now that I've finally gotten the time to review some things, I wanted to highlight how great of a product the SplitVolt charger is.


The SplitVolt essentially is a main 230V power supply that plugs into your dryer outlet at home. It then has two plugs on the SplitVolt box, one to plug your dryer cable into, one to charge your Tesla on. It's level 2 charging so I get about 24-26m/hr of charge. This charging option has been terrific for me and I did not need to do any additional electric work at the house. The only thing I needed for this was our dryer outlet at home. The SplitVolt after tax is just under $400 and is a great option if you do not want to spend the additional money on full electrical install!

In addition, the SplitVolt does have a smart switch to toggle between your dryer and EV charger. Example: If I was charging my car, but needed to dry a load of clothes I could toss the clothes in the dryer, start the dryer and it would stop the charge of my Tesla. Once the load was done it would resume charging my Tesla.

Hope this helps those of you trying to find a charging solution at home!!
 
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Good to see that there are more of these products out there and people are liking them. I've been seeing ads for this Splitvolt on Facebook some, so I knew of it, but hadn't heard much from someone who was using it. This is the same product as the Dryer Buddy Plus AUTO, which has been around for a long time, and we recommend on this forum from time to time. That is now $364, so I see they are still staying in a pretty close price range. Competition is a good thing for these.

 
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Good to see that there are more of these products out there and people are liking them. I've been seeing ads for this Splitvolt on Facebook some, so I knew of it, but hadn't heard much from someone who was using it. This is the same product as the Dryer Buddy Plus AUTO, which has been around for a long time, and we recommend on this forum from time to time. That is now $364, so I see they are still staying in a pretty close price range. Competition is a good thing for these.

I totally agree.. A buddy of mine told me about SplitVolt and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy of a solution this was for me. The idea of not having to run any additional electrical is great for people that might not be able to run electrical due to renting/apartment/etc
 
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There is one important difference between the SplitVolt and Dryer buddy - DryerBuddy does not have an internal safety breaker or any way to ensure that you will not dangerously overload the circuits in your house. Maximum safe EV charging rate is 24 A on a 30 amp circuit. Splitvolt has an internal circuit breaker that will not allow a user to exceed 24amps so it can't over-stress your wiring or trip your household breaker. There is nothing in the DryerBuddy unit that keeps you from going all the way up to 30amps which is well beyond the NEC safe rate for you wiring.
 
There is one important difference between the SplitVolt and Dryer buddy - DryerBuddy does not have an internal safety breaker or any way to ensure that you will not dangerously overload the circuits in your house. Maximum safe EV charging rate is 24 A on a 30 amp circuit. Splitvolt has an internal circuit breaker that will not allow a user to exceed 24amps so it can't over-stress your wiring or trip your household breaker. There is nothing in the DryerBuddy unit that keeps you from going all the way up to 30amps which is well beyond the NEC safe rate for you wiring.
A terrific point that I forgot to mention! I set my Tesla to charge at 24A at home so no issue for me, but this is a VERY key feature as well!
 
There is one important difference between the SplitVolt and Dryer buddy - DryerBuddy does not have an internal safety breaker or any way to ensure that you will not dangerously overload the circuits in your house. Maximum safe EV charging rate is 24 A on a 30 amp circuit. Splitvolt has an internal circuit breaker that will not allow a user to exceed 24amps so it can't over-stress your wiring or trip your household breaker. There is nothing in the DryerBuddy unit that keeps you from going all the way up to 30amps which is well beyond the NEC safe rate for you wiring.
Dryer Buddy does not need a breaker. It has the same plug in and out, preserving the NEC rating restrictions. The reason Splitvolt needs it is because it can have differing plug configurations. It can have 30 in and "50" out, confusing the mobile connector. This wouldn't happen with Dryer Buddy.
 
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Dryer Buddy does not need a breaker. It has the same plug in and out, preserving the NEC rating restrictions. The reason Splitvolt needs it is because it can have differing plug configurations. It can have 30 in and "50" out, confusing the mobile connector. This wouldn't happen with Dryer Buddy.
What the hell?! Every single thing you said here is entirely backward and false. Did you perhaps get the names of the two products reversed? This is one of the biggest things that has upset me about the Dryer Buddy line of products and made me have to warn people against them. MOST of the Dryer Buddy devices do that dangerous thing of making wrong outlet types available that could overdraw the circuit. I will ONLY recommend one specific type of Dryer Buddy that isn't dangerously configured like that. Only get the Plus AUTO version, and only get one that properly uses two 30A outlets on a 30A circuit, rather than the ones that provide a 50A.

It took about 30 seconds to find a product page for a Dryer Buddy that plugs into a 10-30 outlet and then provides one 10-30 (fine) and a 14-50 (dangerous).

 
What the hell?! Every single thing you said here is entirely backward and false. Did you perhaps get the names of the two products reversed? This is one of the biggest things that has upset me about the Dryer Buddy line of products and made me have to warn people against them. MOST of the Dryer Buddy devices do that dangerous thing of making wrong outlet types available that could overdraw the circuit. I will ONLY recommend one specific type of Dryer Buddy that isn't dangerously configured like that. Only get the Plus AUTO version, and only get one that properly uses two 30A outlets on a 30A circuit, rather than the ones that provide a 50A.

It took about 30 seconds to find a product page for a Dryer Buddy that plugs into a 10-30 outlet and then provides one 10-30 (fine) and a 14-50 (dangerous).

Apologies, when I looked it up, the first hit was a matched outlet. I (falsely) assumed that was the only product they offered. Then you are correct.

I wouldn't recommend any of them personally. I feel none of these follow any guidelines for safety.
 
I'm thinking of using a splitvolt seeing we don't have room for another circuit on our panel, and our laundry room is right on the other side of the garage. How are people wiring it up where you have to go through the wall to the garage?
 
I'm thinking of using a splitvolt seeing we don't have room for another circuit on our panel, and our laundry room is right on the other side of the garage. How are people wiring it up where you have to go through the wall to the garage?
If you really can't add an extra circuit, what people could sometimes do is interrupt the line going to the dryer and put in a box with an A/B type of toggle switch. Then you could have that switch go to two different circuits: one for the dryer or one for the car charging. Only one can be active at a time, so that would still act as one dedicated 30A circuit.
 
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I'm thinking of using a splitvolt seeing we don't have room for another circuit on our panel, and our laundry room is right on the other side of the garage. How are people wiring it up where you have to go through the wall to the garage?
I'm looking at the Power Tunnel, which I came across elsewhere on this forum: Power Tunnel™ 240 volt through wall extension
 
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That Power Tunnel is clever but you still need an electrician to spend a few hours installing those boxes in/on your walls and wiring it all up. And then you have to fiddle with the plugs every time.

Another code-compliant option (if you're having the electrician mounting boxes there anyway) is to divert the dryer wiring into a load center. You can feed this load center with your existing 30A circuit yet still branch it out to a pair of 30 A circuits, one for the dryer and one for the car. This way you can keep everything plugged in all the time and just try not to run both at the same time.

The load center plus two 30A breakers will cost less than $50, is exactly the same amount of effort to install as that Power Tunnel, and keeps your laundry room free of clutter and weird cords. Yeah, you might screw up and trip a breaker every once in a while, but it's better than screwing up and electrocuting yourself every once in a while messing with that unwieldly dryer cord.
 
That Power Tunnel is clever but you still need an electrician to spend a few hours installing those boxes in/on your walls and wiring it all up. And then you have to fiddle with the plugs every time.

Another code-compliant option (if you're having the electrician mounting boxes there anyway) is to divert the dryer wiring into a load center. You can feed this load center with your existing 30A circuit yet still branch it out to a pair of 30 A circuits, one for the dryer and one for the car. This way you can keep everything plugged in all the time and just try not to run both at the same time.

The load center plus two 30A breakers will cost less than $50, is exactly the same amount of effort to install as that Power Tunnel, and keeps your laundry room free of clutter and weird cords. Yeah, you might screw up and trip a breaker every once in a while, but it's better than screwing up and electrocuting yourself every once in a while messing with that unwieldly dryer cord.
Combining this with a Dryer Buddy Plus AUTO eliminates the need to mess with the dryer cord or worry about tripping any breakers, unlike the load center option. No need for an electrician to install the power tunnel that I can see as you're just installing a plugged pass-through and not working on an actual house circuit. This results in a 14-30 outlet in my garage where I can plug in an extra MC with the adapter and be all set.
 
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Crazy how much they are charging for that Power Tunnel™ 240 volt through wall extension. I went online and it was about $190 for a 10-30 outlet setup. Then I went to home depot and priced out the same stuff that came to about $100.
Hey everyone. I’m waiting for my est delivery in May. Wouldn’t The Splitvolt splitter be a better option than the load center option. I’m extremely green in this world of ev charging so please excuse my ignorance.
 
I'm looking at solutions to share the dryer outlet as an alternative to new panel/service in my old house. Even if I went this expensive route, it seems like something similar to this splitter might save more money in the future over Tesla wall connectors, because it can be used to switch between two cars rather than between dryer and car.

I don't understand the high priority set on the importance of the internal breaker; in fact, I'm not even sure if this is desirable, as it adds another point of failure. It seems to me that its only purpose is to protect the device itself, which evidently can't handle more current, not to protect the house wiring. The main breaker should be sufficient to protect the house wiring, and plugging directly into a dryer outlet is no different than plugging into this device as far as the wiring is concerned. If other devices come with an outlet that is higher capacity than the plug, then it should have something to limit the output current to match the input plug, but I personally think this configuration should not be allowed.

I have the same situation as a previous poster where my garage is next to the laundry room. My Tesla cable would almost reach the dryer plug. I thought I could run a fairly short extension cord through the wall, making a hole through the wall which could be pretty well hidden. I could possibly even cut a small section of pipe (PVC?), split to get it around the cable, where it goes through the wall to help stabilize it. It's just wallboard, so it wouldn't burn if the wire got hot for some reason.

My only worry is that this device might switch from the dryer during a pause in the cycle, like for a wrinkle-guard feature on our electronic dryer. Then the dryer would probably stop and reset. It would be ideal to have a fairly long (or programmable) delay before it switches back to the EV output, possibly with an override if I wanted to immediately start charging. I'm not sure if the Tesla will even try to charge if there's no power at the outlet; is this the case?
Apologies, when I looked it up, the first hit was a matched outlet. I (falsely) assumed that was the only product they offered. Then you are correct.

I wouldn't recommend any of them personally. I feel none of these follow any guidelines for safety.
I think you make a good point; none of these devices should allow an output plug with more capacity than the input without limiting the output current. But if the input and output plugs match, there should not be any safety concerns for the house wiring, only for the device itself. Why do you think this device is unsafe if it limits current to less than the capacity of the input plug?
 
My only worry is that this device might switch from the dryer during a pause in the cycle, like for a wrinkle-guard feature on our electronic dryer. Then the dryer would probably stop and reset. It would be ideal to have a fairly long (or programmable) delay before it switches back to the EV output, possibly with an override if I wanted to immediately
I don't think it ever turns the dryer plug off. The way they seem to work is to detect significant current flow to the dryer and kill the car plug. In your scenario, it might turn the car on for a bit, then kill it again (and it might not if they have the sense to build a delay in).
 
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I don't think it ever turns the dryer plug off. The way they seem to work is to detect significant current flow to the dryer and kill the car plug. In your scenario, it might turn the car on for a bit, then kill it again (and it might not if they have the sense to build a delay in).
Thanks, sounds like they may be smarter than I thought. I'm still considering my options, and considering that we don't use the dryer very much in favor of a clothesline, I might go for a simple outlet with a manual switch for the dryer, which is only about 20 feet from where the switch would be.