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Tesla Outdoor Curbside Charging Station almost ready for Model S

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Artsci, this is an ingenious solution. I am in a similar situation with my townhouse co-op board, they are willing for me to put in a charging recepticle, but are coming up with concerns of liability if someone (ie, kids) have any possible access to a 30amp outlet (which is what I can run from my townhouse). I would love to put in a nice bollard like the one you have, but am not handy enough to make one myself and utility bollards are very expensive.

So my idea was just to put in a lockable outlet cover that would be locked whether the UMC was plugged in or not. I think they will go for this. My only question is whether the UMC outlet plug will fit inside the cover. I am not receiving my Model S until May/June and don't have a good idea of the size of the UMC outlet plug end. Would the cover fit the UMC plug with NEMA 14-30 adapter?
View attachment 19252

I think this is a good solution. Where will the outlet cover be placed?

FYI the depth of the plug from the surface of the receptacle to the back of the cord after the right angle bend is 4.25". This is the depth between the receptacle surface and the cover back that you'll need. If that's not enough you can probably heat the cover to the point where the plastic softens and make it deeper.

Here's a photo of the UMC.

Tesla%20S%20Mobile%20Connector.jpg
 
I think this is a good solution. Where will the outlet cover be placed?

FYI the depth of the plug from the surface of the receptacle to the back of the cord after the right angle bend is 4.25". This is the depth between the receptacle surface and the cover back that you'll need. If that's not enough you can probably heat the cover to the point where the plastic softens and make it deeper.

Here's a photo of the UMC.

Tesla%20S%20Mobile%20Connector.jpg

the outlet is planned to be on a short pole in front of the parking space. That area is just covered with dirt/fertilizer and shrubs. I did find an oulet cover with 4.5" depth, so that should work.
 
My excitement over the prospect of one day owning a Model S has been stifled by the realisation that I may not have anywhere feasible to charge my vehicle.

For context, I live in London. Like most urban cities, garages are far and few in between. Most have to park their vehicle in their driveway, or more commonly, on either an off-on street parking. What complicates matters even more is that there is a stunning lack of EV charging stations for these parking options.

Fortunately, I have off-street parking, which loosely means a separated area away from the main roads/streets that is reserved for residents to park. It is possible to get an EV charger installed, like artsci has done, but the problem I face is how do I secure a private parking slot in this area? I don't want to install a charger and then find someone taking that spot.

I'll update you guys when I have more information as to this particular problem, but suffice to say, it would be nice for Tesla to acknowledge those who live without a garage.
 
My excitement over the prospect of one day owning a Model S has been stifled by the realisation that I may not have anywhere feasible to charge my vehicle.

For context, I live in London. Like most urban cities, garages are far and few in between. Most have to park their vehicle in their driveway, or more commonly, on either an off-on street parking. What complicates matters even more is that there is a stunning lack of EV charging stations for these parking options.

Fortunately, I have off-street parking, which loosely means a separated area away from the main roads/streets that is reserved for residents to park. It is possible to get an EV charger installed, like artsci has done, but the problem I face is how do I secure a private parking slot in this area? I don't want to install a charger and then find someone taking that spot.

I'll update you guys when I have more information as to this particular problem, but suffice to say, it would be nice for Tesla to acknowledge those who live without a garage.

The amount of charging you need is very related to your daily driving. If you drive 20 miles or so a day, and your car will be parked for 8 hours at home or work, you'll be fine with just 120v, because you get 3 miles * 8 hours = 24 miles range. You wouldn't need anything more than the most basic charging availability, if your range was that low.

If you drive say 30 miles a day, you could get buy with only a little more charging time. A quick search on recargo.com for London England showed many sites to charge.

A ev might not work for people have no charging at all, but if you can always do at least 120 v and you don't drive much, you'll be okay. I drive about 20 miles round trip to work, and I decided I may never need to upgrade my 120v garage outlet - its just enough range for me to always recover that day's driving.
 
The amount of charging you need is very related to your daily driving. If you drive 20 miles or so a day, and your car will be parked for 8 hours at home or work, you'll be fine with just 120v, because you get 3 miles * 8 hours = 24 miles range. You wouldn't need anything more than the most basic charging availability, if your range was that low.

If you drive say 30 miles a day, you could get buy with only a little more charging time. A quick search on recargo.com for London England showed many sites to charge.

A ev might not work for people have no charging at all, but if you can always do at least 120 v and you don't drive much, you'll be okay. I drive about 20 miles round trip to work, and I decided I may never need to upgrade my 120v garage outlet - its just enough range for me to always recover that day's driving.

Seattle, Shino is in London, over their, all outlets are 240V, most commonly 13A.
He needs to find a place nearby his house to charge, plain and simple.
 
I had my outdoor charging outlet installed a month ago and has been working great. The wires run underground from our parking space to our townhouse (as required by our CO-OP).

I could not find an outlet cover that would close completely with the UMC plugged in so I got a wire lock that at least keeps the cover partially closed so no one can pull out the UMC or reach the outlet.
y3adehyz.jpg
 
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Started work today on a new curbside charging station. My goal is to make it smaller, lower in weight, and more modern in appearance. Plus I have an offer pending for the the first one pictured and discussed in this thread.

The new one will be made with a carbon fiber tube and dome top. It will be about 6 inches in diameter opposed to 9 inches for the current one. It will weigh about half as much, which will make it even easier to carry around. It will not have a door. Instead the dome top will be hinged or removable for access to the UMC. Hard to explain without photos or drawings but the cable will exit for charging through a slot under the dome top. It will be completely waterproof (in heavy rain the current door leaks some water).

If all goes well I'm thinking of making these in small volume for other owners. With the Model 3 coming on line there may be sufficient demand for a curbside charging station.

As this goes together I'll post photos of each major step of the work.
 
Wow!

ArtSci

Excellent. The local electrician I've been working with has had a similar idea but has been trying to build this utilizing a pre-configured assembly. Most don't appear to accommodate (in a locked-down system )the size of the mobile connector when connected to the 15-40 adaptor. It would appear to need 6-8" of space. Have you measured the space requirements in your unit? 4" PVC doesn't appear to be sufficiently wide to work.

Your idea of a 4" PVC assembly sounds perfect. Love to benefit from your efforts if you have any drawings that you are willing to share along with the various components that you used in the assembly.

Living in an urban area (Philadelphia) makes this a perfect solution since we need to be less than 48" high, lockable, with a indoor shut off switch to comply with local ordinances.

Let me know if you object.

Thanks in advance.

Brett

See post #26 in this thread. It has a full drawing and parts descriptions. The ID of the carbon tube on my new version will be 6" which is large enough for the UMC and cables. 4" PVC is probably too small. PVC is also pretty heavy.

I've designed this for portability. Using the Hubbell pin and sleeve plug it just plugs into ground level when it's used for charging and is removed when charging is completed and stored by the side of the house under a very large bush. In four years of use I've never had any security issues.
 
The first step on road to development of the new outdoor curbside carbon fiber charging station was to reset the Hubble pin and sleeve receptacle in concrete (to eliminate slack and get the assembly plumb vertical -- it leaned a tad), and to paint it black so it will be a closer match to the carbon fiber tube. Of course, I added a bit of Tesla decoration to the receptacle cap.

DSC_7835.JPG


DSC_7836.JPG
 
Work is proceeding apace Should have the carbon fiber tube and all of the necessary parts by the end of the week. The new portable charging station should be assembled next week. To further reduce weight I'm having the charger side of the UMC cable shortened to 5 feet (all I need to reach the charge port when the station is plugged into the ground receptacle) by Quick Charge Power. Below is the Hubbell hardware with the 14-50 receptacle wired in that makes all of this work.

IMG_17421.JPG
 
Started work today on a new curbside charging station. My goal is to make it smaller, lower in weight, and more modern in appearance. Plus I have an offer pending for the the first one pictured and discussed in this thread.

The new one will be made with a carbon fiber tube and dome top. It will be about 6 inches in diameter opposed to 9 inches for the current one. It will weigh about half as much, which will make it even easier to carry around. It will not have a door. Instead the dome top will be hinged or removable for access to the UMC. Hard to explain without photos or drawings but the cable will exit for charging through a slot under the dome top. It will be completely waterproof (in heavy rain the current door leaks some water).

If all goes well I'm thinking of making these in small volume for other owners. With the Model 3 coming on line there may be sufficient demand for a curbside charging station.

As this goes together I'll post photos of each major step of the work.

This is great work! I'm interested in your idea of making a few in small volume. I live relatively near by (Alexandria, VA) so would definitely be up for picking up one in person. Are you still thinking about making some of these or did it get to be too involved? Also do you have any pictures of the new version? I've been following this thread since reserving a Model 3 2+ years ago and I'm getting close to delivery. Even if you aren't open to making them for others, thanks for sharing the photos and concept so that others can enjoy the benefits of charging and needing to live in a single family home.
 
This is great work! I'm interested in your idea of making a few in small volume. I live relatively near by (Alexandria, VA) so would definitely be up for picking up one in person. Are you still thinking about making some of these or did it get to be too involved? Also do you have any pictures of the new version? I've been following this thread since reserving a Model 3 2+ years ago and I'm getting close to delivery. Even if you aren't open to making them for others, thanks for sharing the photos and concept so that others can enjoy the benefits of charging and needing to live in a single family home.

I am curious where you will be locating this. I live in a townhouse in Reston and the sidewalk is adjacent to the curb with no grass in between. I would need to located it on the sidewalk, the curb or in the street. Not sure if there is any precedence for this situation. My current car is the Prius (left).
Tesla charging .jpg


Thanks, Norm
 
do you have assigned spots? is your house in front of the spaces if they are? i think it would be less of an HOA hassle to put it on your property with the longer cord. to get HOA approval to put it through the publicly accessible sidewalk would be a lot more effort and less likely to get approved.
 
do you have assigned spots? is your house in front of the spaces if they are? i think it would be less of an HOA hassle to put it on your property with the longer cord. to get HOA approval to put it through the publicly accessible sidewalk would be a lot more effort and less likely to get approved.

My Prius is in one of my assigned spots. I am concerned about the liability of having a cable across the sidewalk -- particularly at night. I think that Reston HOA would be willing to work with me if I could present a reasonable solution. More and more residents will be getting electric cars, so the HOA will have to deal with it eventually.
 
If you get approval, you could install a Tesla Wall Connector like the one shown in the picture below, and have it located on the sidewalk (also with a safety pole in front). As a second option, you could install a ChargePoint station or thirdly, go with a small NEMA 240 V 6-20 outlet that would allow you to connect a Tesla Gen 2 Mobile Connector with the 240 V, 20 A Tesla adapter (see also the links below). The 6-20 outlet should allow you to add about 10 miles of range per hour, depending on what Tesla you get. If you go with this option, you could put the outlet just below the curb immediately below the sidewalk, where the concrete meets the asphalt. This way you don't have any wires going across the sidewalk and causing safety issues.

Tesla Wall Connector.jpg


NEMA 6-20 outlet links:

Leviton 15W48 20 Amp Watertight Connector, 250V, 6-20R, Yellow

Leviton 20 Amp Industrial Grade Heavy Duty Self Grounding Single Outlet, White-5461-W - The Home Depot
 
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If you get approval, you could install a Tesla Wall Connector like the one shown in the picture below, and have it located on the sidewalk (also with a safety pole in front). As a second option, you could install a ChargePoint station or thirdly, go with a small NEMA 240 V 6-20 outlet that would allow you to connect a Tesla Gen 2 Mobile Connector with the 240 V, 20 A Tesla adapter (see also the links below). The 6-20 outlet should allow you to add about 10 miles of range per hour, depending on what Tesla you get.

View attachment 323759

NEMA 6-20 outlet links:

Leviton 15W48 20 Amp Watertight Connector, 250V, 6-20R, Yellow

Leviton 20 Amp Industrial Grade Heavy Duty Self Grounding Single Outlet, White-5461-W - The Home Depot

I really like artsci's removable pole solution. I was hoping that someone had done an installation similar to my situation. Here is the link to his solution -- it is very nicely done and he is working on a next generation model that is even nicer.

Tesla Outdoor Curbside Charging Station almost ready for Model S

Next generation: carbon fiber version
New Carbon Fiber Portable Curbside Charging Station