Charging at home on 120V

[kccrush]

Hi everyone, I just got my Spark 2 days ago and had a great time driving it around the SF Bay Area today. The only issue is how to charge it at home on a 120V? I don't know how to charge it and then not lose the charge when I remove the cord from my car? At the Charge Stations I was told you need to wave your key card in front of the machine before removing the cord from the car in order to retain the charge...but how do I do this on a 120V at home?

My office lets us use some sockets to charge at work, and so I need to figure this out soon so I can charge tomorrow when I'm at work.

Also, every time I use the 12 level (instead of the 8 level) to charge from a wall, I seem to blow a fuse. Does this mean I should always use the 8 level?

thank you very much for your input.

Nikki

 

[iletric]

You seriously need to invest in L2 charging if you have a house wall to hang it on. Up your tires to 39 psi and you should have over 90-mile range for the day. Your car is ready overnight (7 hrs) at night-time rate.

And yes, if you're blowing a fuse on 12 and not 8 the fuse is too low of a number to handle the 12 draw. You're looking at a very slow charging of about 4-5 miles an hour at best.

 

[SanDiego]

The only issue is how to charge it at home on a 120V? I don't know how to charge it and then not lose the charge when I remove the cord from my car?

You don't lose any charge when you unplug the 120V charger from the car. Just unplug it, close the flap, stash the charger in the car & go.

You do want to get a240V charger installed at home. Chevy will pay $500 towards a Bosch charger (they'll sell you a Volt charger for $450 + shipping, or a 30 amp charger for $593 + shipping). They'll send an electrician to your house, who will give you an estimate inflated by Bosch, or you just tell them to ship you the charger & find your own electrician. http://www.pluginnow.com/discount

 

[kccrush]

Ok - thank you for that information. Just one more question - do I need to press anything inside the car before charging to prepare it to be charged? Like press the leaf?

Thanks again!

 

[Electricbowtie]

First off, congrats on he new Spark EV! The car is ready to take a charge anytime you need it, so plug it in whenever you want to. A few things to consider though are whether you have your electricity provider setup t charge you for peak, midpeak and off peak hours. If so, you can program the car for those time slots so the car only charges at the cheapest rates. See the manual for that. Also, the car defaults to only charge at 8A everytime you park it, which is pretty slow (3.7 miles of range per hour). If you want to charge faster on 110v at home, you can hit the leaf and select change charge level and set it to 12A to get around (5.8 miles per hour charging). Makes a BIG difference overnight.

 

[scotte]

Just one more question - do I need to press anything inside the car before charging to prepare it to be charged? Like press the leaf?

Nope, just plug it in. And just unplug it when it's done (or you are done even if the car isn't). The status light on the dash will tell you if it's charging or not, as will the in-car displays and the OnStar mobile app...

The ChargePoint card is only for using ChargePoint stations. For those, yes you need to use the card to start and stop charging sessions. But that's only for ChargePoint, not home charging with any EVSE.

 

[nozferatu]

No one addressed his issue of him blowing a fuse everytime he selects the 12AMP charging value...any ideas?

 

[cwerdna]

No one addressed his issue of him blowing a fuse everytime he selects the 12AMP charging value...any ideas?

This thread's ancient so I've paid no attention. Folks here have incorrectly used the term "charger" instead of EVSE.

Well, blowing fuses points to the circuit not being able to handle a continuous 12+ amp load. It's not clear the rating of the circuit nor if the circuit is shared w/something else. OP needs to get back to us on this. To support a 12 amp load, assuming it's not shared w/anything, they should have a 15 amp circuit.

Many EV/PHEV makers "require"/recommend that when charging at 120 volts, you have a at least a dedicated 15 amp circuit that's not shared w/anything else, as many (most?) charge at 12 amps @ 120 volts. Leaf w/its stock L1 120 volt EVSE can only pull 12 amps and can't be turned down.

At my place, the outlet in the garage I sometimes use to charge my Leaf is a 20 amp circuit that AFAIK is shared only by some lights (~80 watts or so). If you had a fridge or freezer on the same circuit, I wouldn't be surprised if the startup current is high enough to trip breakers/blow fuses.

Other considerations are not having dangerous aluminum wire (see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=10887) or having dangerous Zinsco or Federal Pacific panels (see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=283829#p283829). There have been many threads at MNL about bad panels from the above two companies.

 

[Theo]

Just to add some notes from my experience on the fuse-blowing issue and charging with 120V at home that Nikki seems to have.
- The stock EVSE says "don't use an extension cord" all over it, however I have never found this to be a problem and actually provides a lot of flexibility in terms of plugging in.
- In some cases, I've plugged in at home @ 12 amps, where the outlet was shared with half the house's worth of lights and wall sockets without issues.
- In other cases, I've plugged in in a garage @ 12 amps, only to have the fuse blow when someone turned a computer connected to the same circuit on! Changed to a different outlet in same garage that happened to be on a different circuit/fuse and didn't have any problems. Dropping to 8 amps also helped.
- I've also noticed that sometimes the EVSE just would not like a particular wall socket. Haven't figured out why this could be yet, maybe a drop in voltage in the electrical circuit? Had to do some trial&error with an extension cord to find an outlet that would end up working.

Bottom line, if you own your home then the best thing would be to set up a 240V/L2 station for your charging needs. The next best thing would be to get a hold of the electrical wiring diagram for your entire home so that you can find out which outlets are shared with what appliances/lights and connected to which fuses.

 

[davewill]

... - I've also noticed that sometimes the EVSE just would not like a particular wall socket. Haven't figured out why this could be yet, maybe a drop in voltage in the electrical circuit? Had to do some trial&error with an extension cord to find an outlet that would end up working. ...

Could be a badly wired outlet, or one with a poor connection. It would work fine with some appliances, but the EVSE checks the ground, which a lot of devices would ignore. It also pulls a lot more current than most appliances, which would cause a poor connection to get hot and/or cause a droop in voltage.

If it were my house, I would open up that outlet and check it before someone depended on it for something that caused a failure (or a fire).

 

[cwerdna]

Just to add some notes from my experience on the fuse-blowing issue and charging with 120V at home that Nikki seems to have.
- The stock EVSE says "don't use an extension cord" all over it, however I have never found this to be a problem and actually provides a lot of flexibility in terms of plugging in.
- In some cases, I've plugged in at home @ 12 amps, where the outlet was shared with half the house's worth of lights and wall sockets without issues.
- In other cases, I've plugged in in a garage @ 12 amps, only to have the fuse blow when someone turned a computer connected to the same circuit on! Changed to a different outlet in same garage that happened to be on a different circuit/fuse and didn't have any problems. Dropping to 8 amps also helped.
- I've also noticed that sometimes the EVSE just would not like a particular wall socket. Haven't figured out why this could be yet, maybe a drop in voltage in the electrical circuit? Had to do some trial&error with an extension cord to find an outlet that would end up working.

As for no extension cord, there are numerous reasons, such as the cord and/or its plugs overheating and causing a fire. My '13 Leaf's L1 EVSE supposedly has temp monitoring at the 120 volt plug side. Using an extension cord means it can't monitor the plug at the wall anymore. (BTW, Ingineer is the talented EE behind evseupgrade.com.)

I believe you likely have a very short cord at the 120 volt plug (not J1772) end. There are reasons why the cord is so short (not that I like them). Been discussed at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=94939#p94939 and http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=247694#p247694.

As for fuse blowing when a computer was turned on, well, yeah, there was likely a very large startup load.

Re: the last point, if the outlet had a GFCI or there was a GFCI on the same circuit (protecting the other outlets), there EVSE could be tripping it. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=87367.