Battery Vehicle Society

I have a 1996 Ford Probe that I have converted to electric and I charge at work. Currently they have caravan type 16A charge points with a basic twist switch isolator and contactor. In March 2013 they will be changing to IEC62196 type 2 connection charge point sockets. I have been told different thing by different people, but I know I need to make an adapter for my car so I can hook up to the 16A connector on my car. Some say that just a resistor in the IEC 62196 plug will give me what I need, other say that a digital communication is required to switch the supply on at the charge point. I hope it is as simple as fitting a resisotr in the plug, but I have a close tolerance on my distance for charging and I must be able to get charged at work, so failure is not an option. Any advice please.

I have a Zivan NG3 charger on the car that is rated at 22A (max) for 120v charging on the battery side, and pulls less than 16A on the mains side.

Do I need digital comms to get the type 2 supply to deliver, or just a resistor in the plug?
Thanks....

You'll need to make or buy something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/J1772-Active-Ve ... 3a7cc31bc1
(the modularevpower.com site seems to be down at the moment but it has details)

To be honest I would ask your work very nicely to leave a "caravan" socket for you, if you need 100% reliability.

jameskillick wrote:Do I need digital comms to get the type 2 supply to deliver, or just a resistor in the plug?

You can force the Type 2 Charging Station to deliver power by selecting protocol State C ("charging") using a 882R resistor and a 1N4148 diode wired between the Pilot signal and ground on the IEC Type 2 connector.

See the EV simulator diagram here;

http://code.google.com/p/open-evse/wiki/EVSE_TESTING

You may also need an RFID card to enable the Charging Station if your company has been silly enough to pay thousands £'s for the new hardware

There's a chap on Tesla Motors Club selling an adapter to do this at the moment. I posted a wanted ad for exactly the same thing and got two responses.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthre ... post247790

Thanks for posting this, James. I have just installed a Commando socket at my house, but I think I will need to do the same as you in the near future, to allow me to use all the lovely public charging points appearing around the country.

Kevin Sharpe has given me several very good reasons for going to IEC62196, but it still seems absurd that my "dumb" car needs a "smart" module to allow me to use a "smart" charging point which is plugged into the "dumb" mains.

My twitter conversation with Kevin

My house needs a socket out front. @zerocarbonworld can you explain why type2 is better than dumb socket? weblink? My car uses dumb electric

19 Dec Kevin Sharpe Kevin Sharpe ‏@zerocarbonworld
@timpootle Type 2 has been adopted by most Europe including UK. single connector supports 43kW AC, 70kW DC, & V2G. lots safety features

19 Dec Tim Crumpton Tim Crumpton ‏@timpootle
@zerocarbonworld Thanks Kevin. Good reasons. What do dumb cars like Twizy do with them?

19 Dec Kevin Sharpe Kevin Sharpe ‏@zerocarbonworld
@timpootle today they have 13A solution but will migrate to Type 1 or Type 2 in next couple of years possibly with fast charge option

Here's my adapter box working. I converted it from a NEMA 14-50 outlet to a 32A Commando very easily.

I made a box similar to David's, but it cost me about £80 in parts...

Can you point us at the diagrams and parts list to make one of these, Nikki?

Wiring of J1772-2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772

Quick "botch" to J1772. EVTV has a proper circuit module you can buy for the socket.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pjiUyUY8aYM/U ... 1772-1.jpg

Mennekes connector in Europe (standardized in VDE-AR-E 2623-2-2)
http://www.mennekes.de/uploads/RTEmagic ... 02.jpg.jpg

The EU plug being 3 phase is much better than J1772 but I'm unclear if there is a technical difference in proximity/sensing pins.

I use an AVC2 module and a J1772 inlet on my converted rx8.

I simply plug the EVSE straight into the car.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/modularevpower/ ... ksid=p3686

Simple, easy to setup and doesnt cost *too* much

Cheers,

Mike