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Supercharger - San Jose, CA - Cherry Avenue (LIVE 21 Dec 2018, 24 Urban stalls)
- Thread starter jimmcq
- Start date
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- Tags
- California supercharger
There is no way to know because the final steps are not up to Tesla, they are up to final inspections and the local electric utility.
comec0rrect
Member
Still, that was fast. Just over 1 month from when it was first located.
First post August 31 Supercharger - South San Jose (Location found, construction started Aug 2018)
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Waiting4M3
Active Member
Yep, no transformer, but the placeholder is there, with poles surrounding it. Looking over at other sites (such as San Ramon), from this point on it took another month for transformer to come in and station to open. Also noticed that 12 out of the 24 spots are 30min general parking, the remaining 12 are Tesla only, and one of those is a handicapped parking spot.
Ulmo
Active Member
They put those bucks on top of those inverters! Awesome! I like! Not the greatest weight distribution, but everything else about it seems right.
Waiting4M3
Active Member
That charger location doesn't have a lot of room, I'm guessing that's why the bucks are riding on top.
Waiting4M3
Active Member
I went by today, didn't see obvious wiring connection to the bucks. There was a PG&E person working in the central panel (not sure of lingo), so I didn't get too close.
A lot of "future" pins had their dates changed recently on the Supercharger map. Given the San Jose (South) pin changed to Target opening in 2018, and the Almaden pin changed to Target opening in 2019, this is probably the San Jose (South) one?
Ulmo
Active Member
Workers are here as I write at 6:13PM in the evening wiring the cabinets. I see one of the two workers is taping colors to black wire: orange, yellow, and white. With my eyesight, perhaps the orange is actually an orangish brown. From the position of the work and the shape of the cover, I’m wondering if they’re wiring top mount bucks.
My iPhone 6+ on Verizon gives me 1 of 4 bars at hand height, and 2 of 4 bars at sunvisor height.
As I drove out, I did a slow drive and eyeball-counted 24 stalls. By memory, one was marked blue and a few were forward pull in. I did not do a thorough mapping to see if any are good for trailer parking while charging considering angles, clearances, and fire lanes.
I did take a good look at their work with the cabinets, and indeed, these SuperCharger cabinets have top mounted bucks on them. To me this makes it more obviously probable they were wiring the bucks. I’m wondering if bucks are one of the many solutions Tesla had to come up with to fix the prior slow SuperCharger problems, in this case to handle voltage dips (which might go under what the inverter needed to deliver enough voltage for batteries), and I wonder if the bucks are dynamic or just buck up high and let the inverters drop low to car battery level. Or, maybe bucking and inverting low is the most efficient way every time. The utility nominally delivers 480VAC, and the cars nominally require something close to that in DC, so I can see where if the utility voltage drops enough, some inverter designs that just drop volts to a DC output (without adding them in series via more involved means (eh, some diodes and energy storing capacitors charged time division multiplex each subbank in isolation and all or more banks discharged while in series — if you don’t think you need this format, maybe the bucks are cheaper?)) would fail to deliver at full power without the bucks. That seems very simplistic, so I wonder if I’m oversimplifying.
I cropped one pic of the workers to show vertical wires hanging up as they are in process of wiring:
I’m going to try to wait long enough for the sun to go down and workers leave so I can sneak over and see if the PG&E transformer is installed.
My iPhone 6+ on Verizon gives me 1 of 4 bars at hand height, and 2 of 4 bars at sunvisor height.
As I drove out, I did a slow drive and eyeball-counted 24 stalls. By memory, one was marked blue and a few were forward pull in. I did not do a thorough mapping to see if any are good for trailer parking while charging considering angles, clearances, and fire lanes.
I did take a good look at their work with the cabinets, and indeed, these SuperCharger cabinets have top mounted bucks on them. To me this makes it more obviously probable they were wiring the bucks. I’m wondering if bucks are one of the many solutions Tesla had to come up with to fix the prior slow SuperCharger problems, in this case to handle voltage dips (which might go under what the inverter needed to deliver enough voltage for batteries), and I wonder if the bucks are dynamic or just buck up high and let the inverters drop low to car battery level. Or, maybe bucking and inverting low is the most efficient way every time. The utility nominally delivers 480VAC, and the cars nominally require something close to that in DC, so I can see where if the utility voltage drops enough, some inverter designs that just drop volts to a DC output (without adding them in series via more involved means (eh, some diodes and energy storing capacitors charged time division multiplex each subbank in isolation and all or more banks discharged while in series — if you don’t think you need this format, maybe the bucks are cheaper?)) would fail to deliver at full power without the bucks. That seems very simplistic, so I wonder if I’m oversimplifying.
I cropped one pic of the workers to show vertical wires hanging up as they are in process of wiring:
I’m going to try to wait long enough for the sun to go down and workers leave so I can sneak over and see if the PG&E transformer is installed.
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Ulmo
Active Member
A bunch of loud pickups, jeep and convertable showed up. Hangout area? This is a popular Big Towing Car (pickup, jeep, SUV) and Convertible hangout, since most the shopping establishments are spiffy and the main store right there is a boat store (yes, you heard me right: a landlocked boat store in the middle of a huge urban area with no large lakes, with every boat they sell fitted with a stinky toxic loud engine). If anybody has a runner to go move their Tesla once fully charged and an effective guard to stop no-arrest car breakins, this will be a great stopover for Tesla charging.
Finally got close: “Main disconnect 5138 Cherry Avenue”:
Transformer pad:
5138 Cherry Ave is somewhere around this far-away vacant lot between rubio’s, Nail Spa, Starbucks, & Noodles & Company, according to Waze:
I saw no obvious switch room; only this transformer at that far away address;
Also, this Governor Brown et al Special:
Finally got close: “Main disconnect 5138 Cherry Avenue”:
Transformer pad:
5138 Cherry Ave is somewhere around this far-away vacant lot between rubio’s, Nail Spa, Starbucks, & Noodles & Company, according to Waze:
I saw no obvious switch room; only this transformer at that far away address;
Also, this Governor Brown et al Special:
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FlatSix911
Porsche 918 Hybrid
Ulmo
Active Member
Me too. I forgot to look. Someone with a tall selfie stick could easily do it when no one is looking. I wonder if they just popped a hole in the top of the inverter cabinet and ran a short chase(s), even nipple(s), to a similar hole in the bottom of the buck, and ran both sets of wires through the inverter cabinet to where they needed to go.
Turbo3
Member
Transformer installed and picture of how the buck/boost transformers are connected to controller.
That is hilarious how they put the buck/boost on top of the Supercharger cabinet and put that huge conduit with two elbows on it. However, it is space efficient and doesn't use much extra cable. They had previously racked these up and put them inline between the distribution cabinets and the Supercharger cabinets.
