Best EVSE for Travel

[wighty]

The adapter has to be specifically wired for an EV or it will not work with an EVSE.

Can you explain what that means? What is it doing differently?

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[cvalue13]

On two recent trips I charged on a 6-20 and a 14-30.

sorry to possibly thread drift here, but I’m wondering about details on why and where?

I’m (yet again) trying to get up to speed, and now vaguely worried I might need more/different travel cord/adapters, but not yet clear why!

thx

 

[jefro]

You only need a portable if there are no public chargers usually. A portable is used when you travel and usually stay overnight for example.

If you go to a BNB and it says they have a 14-50 outlet available for EV then you'd need an EVSE that can connect or adapters to get some evse to connect. There are quite a number of 240VAC outlets. Sites like plugshare may offer views of what outlets are in an area.

Plan the trip first then look for what you may need.

My portable is a 16A 240VAC. I know it's low but the point of it is to be an emergency that can be installed in almost any spot.

 

[vandy1981]

Can you explain what that means? What is it doing differently?

The EV version wires the tt-30p neutral to one of the hot legs on the 14-50r. The hot from the tt-30p is wired to the other hot leg on the 14-50r. The neutral on the 14-50r remains empty.

 

[FlasherZ]

Can you explain what that means? What is it doing differently?

A 14-50R to TT-30P adapter as used by an RV wires the neutral of the TT-30P to the neutral of the 14-50R, and the hot of the TT-30P to both hot legs of the 14-50R.

For an EV, this won't work, since it tries to draw power from both hots and ignores neutral; because both wires are the same, you get 0V when you try to draw across both hot legs on an RV-style adapter.

So an adapter for an EV wires the neutral from the TT-30 to 14-50 leg "A" and the hot from the TT-30 to 14-50 leg "B" (or vice-versa). That gives you 120V.

 

[beatle]

sorry to possibly thread drift here, but I’m wondering about details on why and where?

I’m (yet again) trying to get up to speed, and now vaguely worried I might need more/different travel cord/adapters, but not yet clear why!

thx

These are just the receptacles available in family members' garages. When planning a trip, I'd ask to see what kind of receptacle I might be able to use to charge the car at their house, or if I'd need to DCFC elsewhere.

 

[rolker]

It works on my truck. You need to use a tt-30p to 14-30r adapter that's made for EV charging (parkworld makes one) and an EVSE that can be set to 24 amps or less.

Did the truck pull the full 24 amps? I tried this using an OpenEVSE which powered up fine on 120V and let me select 24 amps. When I plugged in the truck, it didn't ask for more then about 10 amps. I tried when the SOC was probably around 80% and thought it was just limited by the higher SOC but when I tried again with a low SOC, I got the same result, about 10 amps.

Update:

Oops, just found a relevant thread discussing the limited current at 120V.

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/forum/threads/portable-evse-amps-over-110v-120v.11370/post-252980

 

[V8BoatBuilder]

Circling back, I purchased the AMPRoad 10-40a EVSE from Amazon and a suite of adapters. So far it works great, but haven't tested it on all settings. Very adjustable and the display gives a bunch of nice info.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09NPF2CL8/ref=sw_img_1?smid=A1NYW6ZK7HLTAD&psc=1

Make sure you buy their 5-15 to 14-50 adapter, as a normal RV style will not work. The EVSE is looking for voltage on the two LINE pins of its 14-50 adapter, and ignores the neutral pin.

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