Supercharged Travels

[brianman]

Wow.. 900+ miles in a single day just for the heck of it to see new superchargers.

I probably should have listed mileage on my trip...
Most Superchargers Visited - Page 8

~1350mi in the first 18 hours.

 

[Chipper]

I am planning a trip from Los Angeles to Dallas. Anyone know of a web site that will give me a map along with locations of superchargers along the way?

Yes, your Nav screen can do this in the car. All the superchargers are listed under the Places button at top left.

 

[scaesare]

I probably should have listed mileage on my trip...
Most Superchargers Visited - Page 8

~1350mi in the first 18 hours.

Was that in getting to a specific destination, or just for the sake of visiting new superchargers?

 

[brianman]

Was that in getting to a specific destination, or just for the sake of visiting new superchargers?

Yes and yes. +6 superchargers, with Fremont being the specific final destination. (The 7th wasn't until ~25 hours later.)

 

[scaesare]

That's a lot of miles.... cool stuff.

 

[Only Trons]

@scaesare;

I am interested in learning more about the outlet tester and voltage sniffer you mentioned earlier in this thread. Can you provide info on what you purchased and how you are using it?

 

[scaesare]

@scaesare;

I am interested in learning more about the outlet tester and voltage sniffer you mentioned earlier in this thread. Can you provide info on what you purchased and how you are using it?

Sorry for the delay in response...

I bought this "pen" style proximity tester as it will work with multiple voltages, and is a "quick and dirty" way of locating live outlets:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004FXJOQO/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1



I also bought this standard 120VAC outlet (NEMA5-15) tester for troubleshooting common outlets encountered while traveling:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LZTKIU/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


So far I've used them twice while on the road: once to determine that an outlet in a hotel parking lot had indeed gone dead when the breaker tripped, and the second time to correctly identify a mis-wired outlet at a hotel that was causing my UMC to go fail to charge the car.

Hope that helps.

 

[TexasEV]

Scaesare, can you elaborate on what the circumstances would be for you to use either device? Is there a device that can determine if a 120V outlet has enough voltage and can supply enough current to charge a Model S, before trial and error of plugging in the UMC? Thanks.

 

[Only Trons]

@Scaesare;

Thanks. Now I understand what you were doing with these tools.

BTW, hope to meet you at the All Roads Lead to DC event this upcoming weekend!!

 

[scaesare]

Scaesare, can you elaborate on what the circumstances would be for you to use either device? Is there a device that can determine if a 120V outlet has enough voltage and can supply enough current to charge a Model S, before trial and error of plugging in the UMC? Thanks.

The proximity tester will simply alert you if an outlet is alive or dead, but operates in a wide enough range that you can't really determine to any useful degree if an outlet has low voltage (unless it's REALLY low, like under 48 volts). It's good for quickly eliminating your UMC is the problem by determining if an outlet is dead. It will work on all the voltages the Model S can accept.

The 120 volt outlet GFCI tester can determine several things: if an outlet is miswired, doesn't have a ground, has a GFCI breaker fault, etc... Often useful for determining why a seemingly "live" 120V outlet makes your UMC or Tesla unhappy.

To get an actual voltage reading, you could carry a small digital voltmeter. Unfortunately, there's not real way to measure "current capacity", as current has to be drawn by the load... so without putting the full load of the car (or similar) on the circuit, you can't really tell form the outlet end. You can only go by the rating of the supply equipment.

 

[TexasEV]

The proximity tester will simply alert you if an outlet is alive or dead, but operates in a wide enough range that you can't really determine to any useful degree if an outlet has low voltage (unless it's REALLY low, like under 48 volts). It's good for quickly eliminating your UMC is the problem by determining if an outlet is dead. It will work on all the voltages the Model S can accept.

The 120 volt outlet GFCI tester can determine several things: if an outlet is miswired, doesn't have a ground, has a GFCI breaker fault, etc... Often useful for determining why a seemingly "live" 120V outlet makes your UMC or Tesla unhappy.

To get an actual voltage reading, you could carry a small digital voltmeter. Unfortunately, there's not real way to measure "current capacity", as current has to be drawn by the load... so without putting the full load of the car (or similar) on the circuit, you can't really tell form the outlet end. You can only go by the rating of the supply equipment.

But wouldn't the 120v outlet GFCI tester also tell you if the outlet is dead? Seems like that would do as well as a proximity tester only you have to plug it in. Or am I missing something?

 

[scaesare]

But wouldn't the 120v outlet GFCI tester also tell you if the outlet is dead? Seems like that would do as well as a proximity tester only you have to plug it in. Or am I missing something?

It would. But the 120V is a NEMA 5-15 configuration, and the proximity tester, while not delivering as much diagnostic info as the plug-in tester, will work with a variety of outlets my UMC is likely to encounter: NEMA 14-50, 14-30, 6-50, 10-30, etc...

In other words, if I'm having problems charging at a campground with a 30amp RV outlet, the proximity tester will at least tell me in 10 seconds if the plug is dead or not.