Charging adapters

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grandizer52

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 27, 2015
Messages
131
Location
Pearl City, HI
Curious who's made or sourced adapters for a portable charger. I have a juice box 240, that has a Nema 6-50 plug, cause I plug into a welding receptacle, I made 4 adapters to plug into driers and oven 240's if I go to a friends house, or at work.
anyone else done Voodoo electric?
 
Yes I also have a Juicebox, the premium model though and I've made many plug adapters to go to the Juiceboxe's 14-50p. I can go from anything from a standard 15a 120v outlet or a 20a 240 or a 20a 240 locking or a 30a 240 locking and also a franken-y plug that goes from 2 120v outlets to provide me with 240v from 2 out of phase 120v outlets. Gotta be prepared for whatever someone has. At home I have both a 14-50r as well as a 20a 240 locking outlet which I use for my iEngineer upgraded factory EVSE.
I just built my own, either the pre-made ones were wrong for my use or too expensive.
 
Jjeff,
where do you get yours from? i bounce between home depot/city mill, and online. I had to make adapters for my welder, but added a few since getting the leaf. so when people say, hea can you weld something for me...sure can I plug my car into your oven....
 
Evoforce said:
I'd like to know where you find the best price materials to build them.
For the part I use the most, a pigtail with a 14-50r I've found Amazon to be the best. I order the L6-30p to 14-50r adapter that has about a foot of 10 gauge cable between the two ends and cut the L6-30 end off close to the plug and attach my various plugs. Amazon has a couple of such adapters for ~$15 which IMO is a pretty good price. You NEED the L6-30p pigtail(and not a 120v plug end) because it has wires hooked up to both hots of the 14-50r, other adapters(120v models) may only have 1 hot wire and both are shorted together at the outlet, that would do us NO good.The various plugs can sometimes exceed the cost of the pigtail, especially the locking L plugs which can be as much as $20 each or more. The non locking plugs are generally much cheaper. Amazon also sells a very nice 14-50p that has a build in handle, it's yellow in color and I believe ~$10.
I get most of my plugs and such at Amazon where shipping is generally free and the prices are cheaper than locally at a place like Home Depot, Menards or even Lowes. I've tried commercial houses but they are priced about the same as retail or even more. As you probably know for the most part, premade plug adapters don't really work for our situation, especially going from 120v to 240v because only for a EV would you want to hook the neutral up to to one side if the hot outlet. If you want tonight I could give you links to the couple of adapters I used the most of from Amazon, just don't have access now.
 
That would appreciated. Thank you! It was looking like I could Not even make these adapter cords for less than what I could already have purchased them completed. I had also been finding out through the sources that you mentioned, Home Depot etc that they were far too expensive for the parts.
 
This is a couple of the "dogbone" adapters I've used to convert various plugs to a 14-50r(outlet).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MHVNANO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00 currently $19.05 shipped.
It looks like this one that I've also ordered has been discontinued, I paid $16.07 shipped. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KB2971A?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
Lastly the nice 14-50p I spoke of with a handle. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PGVZ30?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

Note I updated my previous posts where I spoke of a 6-50r, that is not what I use, I've standardized on the newer 14-50r which is what Juicebox suggested. I think I was thinking of the L6-30 standard which is a newer locking standard that works nice for our 27.5a Leaf.
 
grandizer52 said:
Jjeff,
great links...curious...where is the strangest place you had to charge/////laundry mat, strangers house....municipal airport.
Truthfully I pretty much always plan my trips so I don't have to charge in an emergency, but I always carry my very flexible Juicebox EVSE and adapters just in case.
Not that it's so strange but the most worried I got about getting a charge was when I first got my Leaf and ventured past the point of no return(started with 100% but by the time I got to my destination I was less than 100% and of course had to return). I was banking on the fact that I was told by calling a somewhat local Cabela's(50+ miles one way) that they had a free RV parking lot with RV outlets. They had no clue to what kind of outlets they were but assured me they had them. I figured they'd be either 14-50(most common new 240v RV outlet) or maybe the older 120v TT30, both of which I had adapters for. Well when I got there(with a little over 40% charge which meant I HAD to charge to make it home) I found the RV parking area but NO outlets :( I looked high and low but found nowhere to plug anything in, even a plain 120v outlet. I circled the parking lot several times and finally spotted a lowly 120v outlet mounted on a decorative light pole. My cord just barely reached to the closest I could park to the pole and luckily the outlet worked. I knew that at ~12a @120v I'd have to plug in for more than a hour to get back to a point where I could make it home. Event though my EVSE went up to more than 12a I didn't want to risk the outlet being on a 15a circuit, probably not the case in a commercial establishment but I also didn't know if anything else was on the circuit and for sure I didn't want to blow a circuit mid charge.
In the mean time I shopped at the Cabelas and tried to kill some time(not hard to do at Cabelas) and about 2hrs later I got in my car and I believe the SOC said something like 55% which I figured would be bare min if I took it easy. I took some back roads where I could travel less than the 70+ mandatory freeway MPH, unless I wanted to get blown off the road. Long story short I made it back home just as the miles went to --- which is always scary. I figured since it had just went to --- I would have probably had a couple miles extra but it was closer than I care to be, I've never experienced turtle mode but figured I was close.
Most of my adapters I've never used but like anything else for emergencies, it's nice just knowing I have the option.
 
Building adapters is not always a good idea for high amp devices as the terminals often come loose if not done properly. Units with greater than 30A plugs are not designed to work with adapters but be permanent. Using a pigtial on at least one end is better. You can cut these off or use as is if they suit your needs. I use an L6-30 on one of my units for this reason.

http://evseupgrade.com/?main_page=index&cPath=7
 
I've dealt with most receptacles and plugs for both 120 and 240 volt (US household service) up to 30 amps. IME, ebay has had the best pricing on such connectors. Have not had any experience with above 30 amps. Understanding the split phase and neutral is the most challenging - which always begs the question of grounded neutral at the main panel.
 
jjeff said:
grandizer52 said:
Jjeff,
great links...curious...where is the strangest place you had to charge/////laundry mat, strangers house....municipal airport.
Truthfully I pretty much always plan my trips so I don't have to charge in an emergency, but I always carry my very flexible Juicebox EVSE and adapters just in case.
Not that it's so strange but the most worried I got about getting a charge was when I first got my Leaf and ventured past the point of no return(started with 100% but by the time I got to my destination I was less than 100% and of course had to return). I was banking on the fact that I was told by calling a somewhat local Cabela's(50+ miles one way) that they had a free RV parking lot with RV outlets. They had no clue to what kind of outlets they were but assured me they had them. I figured they'd be either 14-50(most common new 240v RV outlet) or maybe the older 120v TT30, both of which I had adapters for. Well when I got there(with a little over 40% charge which meant I HAD to charge to make it home) I found the RV parking area but NO outlets :( I looked high and low but found nowhere to plug anything in, even a plain 120v outlet. I circled the parking lot several times and finally spotted a lowly 120v outlet mounted on a decorative light pole. My cord just barely reached to the closest I could park to the pole and luckily the outlet worked. I knew that at ~12a @120v I'd have to plug in for more than a hour to get back to a point where I could make it home. Event though my EVSE went up to more than 12a I didn't want to risk the outlet being on a 15a circuit, probably not the case in a commercial establishment but I also didn't know if anything else was on the circuit and for sure I didn't want to blow a circuit mid charge.
In the mean time I shopped at the Cabelas and tried to kill some time(not hard to do at Cabelas) and about 2hrs later I got in my car and I believe the SOC said something like 55% which I figured would be bare min if I took it easy. I took some back roads where I could travel less than the 70+ mandatory freeway MPH, unless I wanted to get blown off the road. Long story short I made it back home just as the miles went to --- which is always scary. I figured since it had just went to --- I would have probably had a couple miles extra but it was closer than I care to be, I've never experienced turtle mode but figured I was close.
Most of my adapters I've never used but like anything else for emergencies, it's nice just knowing I have the option.


DOOOODE,
love the juice box, got it with a 50' cable, and sometimes bring the 50' welder extension cable, was trying an experimental ride out into a dark zone...since i have a degraded battery, so went beyond the comfy 30% remaining, went to a small airport and asked if I could plug in and charge, guy lead me to a laundry room, I only brought one adapter, and was for common dryer, boy did I get lucky, hung out in the tower and chatted with some fellow retired military types, was plugged in for 3 hours by the time we ran out of stuff to talk about...made it home, but when I was about 6 miles from home I got - -, I live in a very hilly neighborhood. remember when you first started to drive and you spent more time looking at the gas needle below 1/4...I even turned off leaf spy hoping to save a bit of KW...MADE IT
 
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