Here's one for ya ?

[Iroc34a]

So it seems it should be OK. For ceiling mount. And if not using for extended periods to shut it of. Did I miss something?

Sponsored

 

[TaxmanHog]

So it seems it should be OK. For ceiling mount. And if not using for extended periods to shut it of. Did I miss something?

I missed that you're using the Lectron EVSE with convenient on/off switching, there's that illustrious tunnel vision and unfamiliarity with other products biting my ass again.

While many of us don't have a switch, but I do have an emergency cut-off switch right next to my FCSP, I just flipped it off this morning and will turn it back on next Saturday evening for the weekly charge.

 

[Iroc34a]

I missed that you're using the Lectron EVSE with convenient on/off switching, there's that illustrious tunnel vision and unfamiliarity with other products biting my ass again.

While many of us don't have a switch, but I do have an emergency cut-off switch right next to my FCSP, I just flipped it off this morning and will turn it back on next Saturday evening for the weekly charge.

Just turned it off this morning. Stood on the running board and I can reach it. I didn't understand Lectron saying " wall mount for ease of service " not much to service. Temp gage on the V box was showing 126° F during charging last night. It is hot outside 98° ,truck was run pretty hard too. From what I understand that Internal temp is normal up to 165°
I hardwired it off of my 100amp service panel in the garage to a 60amp breaker using 4awg wire. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as over Temps go. Short run of 22 feet. Seems good to me .

 

[GoodSam]

if not using for extended periods to shut it of. Did I miss something?

Keeping it off during lightning storms (of if one has an unstable power supply) might be another reason to be able to switch a unit off easily when not needed. @Ford Motor Company would be wise to advise customers of the various hazards of powering electric vehicles, using good, if not superior equipment. Bet they could make a buck recommending "Ford Certified" components (kickbacks from those companies).

 

[Iroc34a]

Keeping it off during lightning storms (of if one has an unstable power supply) might be another reason to be able to switch a unit off easily when not needed. @Ford Motor Company would be wise to advise customers of the various hazards of powering electric vehicles, using good, if not superior equipment. Bet they could make a buck recommending "Ford Certified" components (kickbacks from those companies).

Definitely good advise.

 

[chl]

Keeping it off during lightning storms (of if one has an unstable power supply) might be another reason to be able to switch a unit off easily when not needed. @Ford Motor Company would be wise to advise customers of the various hazards of powering electric vehicles, using good, if not superior equipment. Bet they could make a buck recommending "Ford Certified" components (kickbacks from those companies).

Most if not all EVSE's have surge protection, which will help with small transients - not a large one though, like a direct or really close by lightning strike.

Another thought though is don't charge the vehicle during an electrical storm or when brown-outs might occur.

When I first got my 2012 Leaf in Dec 2011, I had already installed a GE Watt Station (a 30A/32A L2 depending on which document you read).

Some time later Nissan and GE found there was a possible issue that could damage the on-board charger if one was charging during an electrical storm or other situation where a transient low voltage or black out on the supply from the utility might occur:

Nissan and GE have completed their investigation into the instances of Nissan LEAFs experiencing on-board charging (OBC) issues when using certain EV chargers. Nissan has traced the root cause of the issue to the LEAFs OBC software that can allow damage to occur to its OBC components while using certain chargers and in certain instances, such as when a brief under voltage or blackout condition occurs. Nissan is working to address this issue as quickly as possible, and in the meantime is advising customers to avoid charging during times when brownouts or momentary power dips may be likely, such as during electrical storms or high power usage on the grid.

That was only an issue if the transient occured during charging.

As for protecting the EVSE during electrical storms, since there is no 'on/off' switch on the FCSP, a breaker disconnect might be appropriate if you don't think the internal surge suppression is adequate for your location.

Of course if you get a direct lightning strike, not much you can do to protect your equipment.
I had two incidents, one bolt hit a tree in the back yard and another, about a week later, hit a roof fan. Both were too much for my surge suppressors to block and computer components were fried.

The first one apparently found the telephone line and fried the modem cards in multiple PCs. YEs this was the old days when PC had modem cards. The second one traveled down the electrical wire from the roof fan to the breaker box, fused the breaker it was on into a closed state, jumped to another nearby circuit and fried an electrical outlet on that circuit into which my printer server PC was plugged via a surge suppressor the internal components of which it literally melted, and also found the network card in that server PC and proceeded to fry all the network cards in 5 PCs of my home network (coax type network).

Just lucky no fire was started - the wire to the outlet it fried had melted insulation.

After the second incident I had a whole house surge suppressor installed by the power company, which included an insurance clause, and involved pounding 2 extra ground rods into the earth and a suppressor on the meter box. And of course I also always unplug my PC and attached devices when there is an electrical storm.

I also cut off the Central A/C and pop the breaker on the hot tub - the A/C has a fuse in the disconnect box outside the house which I replaced several times when there was a nearby lightning strike and the AC was running. The hot tub has a fuse too, but it is inside the control panel, which is hard to get to - have to take off a side panel to get to the control panel and it is an odd size fuse.

I no longer have the roof fans, when I replace the roof I had ridge vents cut in.

And, naturally, after getting the whole house surge protection, there hasn't been a nearby lightning strike that I am aware of anyway - it is one of Murphy's Laws I suppose.

The Lectron V-box has a temp gauge - not many, if any, other EVSE's do. But why do you need that?

An EVSE should/must have a thermal overload/over-current shut-off anyway - seems like a piece of information I'd rather not be bothered with, I am not going to be sitting there for maybe hours watching my vehicle charge to see what temp the EVSE gets to.

If the ceiling mounting causes overheating, the EVSE will shut down.
And if that happenes, move it to the wall, or provide better heat dissipation (a ceiling fan?) in the room so it won't be an issue in the future.

 

[DeeW]

Yes, good point.

SWD double pole ones will cost more though than non-SWD.

- or wire a separate switch to the wall somewhere like a 3-pole light switch arrangement maybe?

It’s not hard or expensive to install a high voltage/amp shut off switch between the charger and the breaker. Just need a junction box on the wall to put it in, which is also cheap, and you’re good to go.

 

[Iroc34a]

Good Idea. I can actually reach the on/button on the EVSE by standing on the running board. Guess I'll just do that. So far no issues. Thanks

 

[Nikola 369]

Most if not all EVSE's have surge protection, which will help with small transients - not a large one though, like a direct or really close by lightning strike.

Another thought though is don't charge the vehicle during an electrical storm or when brown-outs might occur.

When I first got my 2012 Leaf in Dec 2011, I had already installed a GE Watt Station (a 30A/32A L2 depending on which document you read).

Some time later Nissan and GE found there was a possible issue that could damage the on-board charger if one was charging during an electrical storm or other situation where a transient low voltage or black out on the supply from the utility might occur:

Nissan and GE have completed their investigation into the instances of Nissan LEAFs experiencing on-board charging (OBC) issues when using certain EV chargers. Nissan has traced the root cause of the issue to the LEAFs OBC software that can allow damage to occur to its OBC components while using certain chargers and in certain instances, such as when a brief under voltage or blackout condition occurs. Nissan is working to address this issue as quickly as possible, and in the meantime is advising customers to avoid charging during times when brownouts or momentary power dips may be likely, such as during electrical storms or high power usage on the grid.

That was only an issue if the transient occured during charging.

As for protecting the EVSE during electrical storms, since there is no 'on/off' switch on the FCSP, a breaker disconnect might be appropriate if you don't think the internal surge suppression is adequate for your location.

Of course if you get a direct lightning strike, not much you can do to protect your equipment.
I had two incidents, one bolt hit a tree in the back yard and another, about a week later, hit a roof fan. Both were too much for my surge suppressors to block and computer components were fried.

The first one apparently found the telephone line and fried the modem cards in multiple PCs. YEs this was the old days when PC had modem cards. The second one traveled down the electrical wire from the roof fan to the breaker box, fused the breaker it was on into a closed state, jumped to another nearby circuit and fried an electrical outlet on that circuit into which my printer server PC was plugged via a surge suppressor the internal components of which it literally melted, and also found the network card in that server PC and proceeded to fry all the network cards in 5 PCs of my home network (coax type network).

Just lucky no fire was started - the wire to the outlet it fried had melted insulation.

After the second incident I had a whole house surge suppressor installed by the power company, which included an insurance clause, and involved pounding 2 extra ground rods into the earth and a suppressor on the meter box. And of course I also always unplug my PC and attached devices when there is an electrical storm.

I also cut off the Central A/C and pop the breaker on the hot tub - the A/C has a fuse in the disconnect box outside the house which I replaced several times when there was a nearby lightning strike and the AC was running. The hot tub has a fuse too, but it is inside the control panel, which is hard to get to - have to take off a side panel to get to the control panel and it is an odd size fuse.

I no longer have the roof fans, when I replace the roof I had ridge vents cut in.

And, naturally, after getting the whole house surge protection, there hasn't been a nearby lightning strike that I am aware of anyway - it is one of Murphy's Laws I suppose.

The Lectron V-box has a temp gauge - not many, if any, other EVSE's do. But why do you need that?

An EVSE should/must have a thermal overload/over-current shut-off anyway - seems like a piece of information I'd rather not be bothered with, I am not going to be sitting there for maybe hours watching my vehicle charge to see what temp the EVSE gets to.

If the ceiling mounting causes overheating, the EVSE will shut down.
And if that happenes, move it to the wall, or provide better heat dissipation (a ceiling fan?) in the room so it won't be an issue in the future.

Think of your past situation with frying your computers……….did the electrician that repaired and install surge protection go on to bond the phone line ground to the electrical system ground? I realize computers don‘t use modems anymore, but if the phone line is still in use and it wasn’t correctly bonded, then what ever is on it likely to take a hit next. Also, some people choose to keep an old style hardline phone for power outages, imagine talking on that phone when lightning strikes? As a former electrician,cant say how many service calls I did for this very reason. Grounding and bonding solves about 90% of these types of problems, this leaves little for surge protection to work on

 

[chl]

Think of your past situation with frying your computers……….did the electrician that repaired and install surge protection go on to bond the phone line ground to the electrical system ground? I realize computers don‘t use modems anymore, but if the phone line is still in use and it wasn’t correctly bonded, then what ever is on it likely to take a hit next. Also, some people choose to keep an old style hardline phone for power outages, imagine talking on that phone when lightning strikes? As a former electrician,cant say how many service calls I did for this very reason. Grounding and bonding solves about 90% of these types of problems, this leaves little for surge protection to work on

Yes, in a way, but the phone line ground was already grounded to the house ground.
When the house ground was beefed up with extra ground rods that affected the phone ground as well.

As I recall he also added another cold water ground wire connection from the panel to the water line in the basement, in case the old one had become more resistant to current flow with age/corrosion.

When that strike hit I should have said I presumed the lightning surge went through the phone line because that one fried just the modems - no phones were damaged though.

I am not 100% sure if it was direct phone line connection, or a DSL on the phone line or if we had Cox cable internet at that time, pretty sure it was dial up without DSL, I don't recall any DSL or cable modem at that time being damaged.

Now our land line phone system is fiber FiOS to the house, the fiber cable does have a ground wire and metal sheathing so it can be located with metal detection, which I believe is grounded at the entry box on the side of the house with one or more ground rods - not sure if it is tied into the house electrical system ground though.

We still have a land line - I insist on that, although now with the phone also being on fiber, requiring house power, I have it on battery back-up and a generator circuit if generator power is needed - the land line is not getting the voltage from the phone company any more so power outages would still be an issue otherwise.

So when there is a cell outage, we still have telephone for emergencies with the land line.

I have a masters in Computers and Electrical Engineering '89, worked in patents for 20 years, but I picked up a bit of electrical wiring etc. knowledge over the years from reading the code books and talking to electricians, etc.

I also worked at an electrical supply company for a few years before full-time college.
When my mom passed away and it came time to sell a townhouse she owned, I discovered it had been wired with Al in the 1970's. At least one of the outlets had some melted insulation and obvious signs of an overheated plastic cover.

I had an electrician come in with that special device that attaches a copper pigtail to the Al and did all the outlets, switches and fixtures, as well as the connections in the breaker panel, in the house before putting it up for sale.

No way I would sell a house to a young family with something like that unremedied!
My luck it had to be sold when the housing bubble burst during the financial crisis for a lot less than before the meltdown.

Such is life.

PS: I always avoid talking on the phone during electrical storms, along with unplugging computers and everything attached to them, popping the hot tub breaker, turning off the A/C etc. and stay away from windows - lightning can travel through glass!

Sponsored