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Tesla Wall Charger or Nema 14-50?
- Thread starter nawar29
- Start date
If you’re parking outside by your garage, I suggest installing the Wall Connector outside.
Here, this may be able to save everyone a bit of time and give you more information:
High Power Wall Charger (HPWC) vs NEMA 14-50 Direct Plug
HPWC vs NEMA 14-50 for outdoor home charger?
NEMA 14-50 plug or wall charger?
Tesla Wall charger v. Plain old NEMA 14-50
Wall Connector Benefits (if any) over Std NEMA 14-50
Tesla Wall Charger or Nema 14-50?
Wall Connector vs Mobile charger
Tesla is all about cutting out the middleman, right?
High Power Wall Charger (HPWC) vs NEMA 14-50 Direct Plug
HPWC vs NEMA 14-50 for outdoor home charger?
NEMA 14-50 plug or wall charger?
Tesla Wall charger v. Plain old NEMA 14-50
Wall Connector Benefits (if any) over Std NEMA 14-50
Tesla Wall Charger or Nema 14-50?
Wall Connector vs Mobile charger
Tesla is all about cutting out the middleman, right?
fallen888
Participant
How about both! I have added a 14-50 to my Tesla Wall Charger and it works flawlessly. Now I have a Tesla charger I can move from place to place (I rent a townhouse and didn't want it installed "hard wire" but the landlord let me add a 14-50 socket to the garage)
Check it out....
Tesla Wall Connector Installation
Check it out....
Tesla Wall Connector Installation
Which means you have a Gen 1 UMC, so it’s irrelevant to the current discusssion. The UMC being provided now, the Gen 2 UMC, draws a max of 32A from a 14-50 outlet.
Tesla also sells a 14-50 only connector - which will charge at up to 40A from a 14-50 outlet - which is what we are currently using for our X 100D.
We have our referral HPWC in a box - and are considering installing to where we have the 14-50 outlet. Would prefer to add a 14-50 plug onto the HPWC, to simplify installation/de-installation.
Though since the only advantage of an HPWC vs. a 14-50 connector is that the HPWC looks cooler, not sure we'll want to spend any $$$ to get it connected to the available 50A power on that side of the garage...
We have our referral HPWC in a box - and are considering installing to where we have the 14-50 outlet. Would prefer to add a 14-50 plug onto the HPWC, to simplify installation/de-installation.
Though since the only advantage of an HPWC vs. a 14-50 connector is that the HPWC looks cooler, not sure we'll want to spend any $$$ to get it connected to the available 50A power on that side of the garage...
eprosenx
Active Member
Please please please go read this thread (specifically this one post):
Upgrading from NEMA 14-50 50amps to HPWC 60amps
My interpretation of electrical code is solidly that putting a pigtail on a Wall Connector to plug it in violates NEC in at least a couple ways. (ignoring manufacturers instructions, and also having a pigtail longer than 12 inches to name a couple).
Putting a pigtail on a Wall Connector creates another point of connection (the plug into the receptacle) which I probe to issues and unlike the UMC, you would not have the thermal sensor safety feature in the plug.
The Wall Connector is intended to be hard wired. I don’t think a pigtail is a good idea. The guy in the thread above could have burned his house down due to an electrician not wiring his 14-50 receptacle correctly. The UMC can (and did actuallly) catch the issue when charging st 32a before he moved up to 40a on the pigtailed Wall Connector. The receptacle got a *lot* hotter then but there was nothing to detect it.
davidc18
Active Member
Installed a juicebox Pro40 to charge our i3. Works great for the Tesla. You can order it with the 14-50 connector or as hard wired. Can be installed outside.
eprosenx
Active Member
Nice picture! Thanks for sharing.
So note that it has a 12 inch cord which I think makes it code compliant.
It obviously is intended to be installed that way per the instructions so that is also allowed.
I am curious if you can tell what brand of pigtail and cable gland is being used?
While I still don’t think it is compliant to put a pigtail like that on the Tesla Wall Connector it might be handy to know which one the Juice Box Uses as it likely would have gone through some validation by their engineers in case someone rally wanted to do it stil.
AndreSF
Member
Can you give more info on your potential setup? Is the potential charging spot in a completely exposed and publically accessible place, more private? Wall connector seem to make sense more for outdoors setup, but there are options for securing your UMC on the exterior as well.
davewill
Active Member
The pigtail is just not that big a deal and it's quite common on other EVSEs. This is mine using a 6-50. It's not even certain that it's against code to add one to a wall connector. @FlasherZ analyzed this thoroughly in the charging FAQ. He even talked to engineers at Tesla. If he thinks it's all right, that's good enough for me.
P.S. That's also a 40a circuit on a 50a outlet.
P.S. That's also a 40a circuit on a 50a outlet.
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I installed a NEMA 14-50 with 50A breaker, just use the charger that comes with it for my daily 60 mile commute, and ramp it down if 12A to help battery longevity. Charges me to 80% overnight easily (as I limit it to). Honestly don’t see the need to charge at 50A+, 32 is quick enough
You do not help battery longevity by reducing the charge to 12A. You do waste a lot of electricity that way, though, and run the charging cuircut in the car much longer than you would if you charged the way the car was designed.
roblab
Active Member
Seems like a lot of people are concerned with how long it might take to charge the car.
At night, I'm asleep. I don't care. The car is always full every morning, and I use the 14-50 that came with the car. Why buy anything else? Waste of money.
At night, I'm asleep. I don't care. The car is always full every morning, and I use the 14-50 that came with the car. Why buy anything else? Waste of money.
eprosenx
Active Member
It depends on your driving habits and needs.
Some people also have limited windows to charge due to time of use pricing.
But for me, I want to be able to commute to work on a Friday, come home, plug in for an hour while I load the car and eat dinner and then have the car topped back off in order to take a trip out of town.
I am a boyscout and I like being prepared for anything. I always want the UMC in the car with me so I was going to buy a second one at a minimum. The cost delta to the Wall Connector was not much, and I did all the work myself to install it.
So it is a matter of personal choice for everyone. There is no single right answer.
What is your basis for this? I’m not an electrical engineer, but volts are equivalent to pressure and amps are equivalent to flow. I’ll have more parasitic losses but what does that cost me, $.20/day? Who cares? If charging too fast is necessarily a bad thing, just like filling a bucket with a fire hose is a bad idea, why wouldn’t filling the bucket with a slow drip be better and just let some of it spill over? Seems analogous but I honestly don’t know.
The basis of this is that you're talking about the difference between 7kW and 3kW of power levels. The car routinely takes 115kW at a Supercharger, more than 16X more powerful than that. All of these home charging rates are so agonizingly slow that it's meaningless to the battery longevity.
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