480v DC from two 240v AC sources

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Cruising

Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2013
Messages
9
Has anyone done this?
I already have the 240v adapter from 120v sources on different legs,
but has anyone found a way to use two 240v chargers, plugged into a form of adapter/ AC-to-DC converter?

Thanks
 
Sorry, but that sounds crazy. There are no ""two separate legs" of 240v home alternating current to combine to double the voltage. Now if you had three-phase power into your home, you would be using two legs of the three to get 208V, and could increase the voltage by using all three.

Besides, the external charger not only needs to convert AC to DC but it also has to dynamically adjust the voltage to accord with the requirements from the car's battery controller. I'm not sure that it makes much difference in its internal size, weight, cooling requirements, and general complexity what AC voltage it starts with.

Ray
 
Thanks Ray.
I was thinking more an L2 public charger, where if two were available, getting out of there twice as fast with the use of an adpter & step converter device of some creation.

Kyle
 
That public charging station is an EVSE, not a charger. The charger is built into the car. The EVSE is essentially just a sophisticated safety switch. It does nothing to the voltage, or the phase, and it certainly doesn't convert AC to DC. Whatever comes out of your wall is exactly what goes into the car. Hooking two of them up together would not change the voltage or the current in any way, but it would undoubtedly terminally confuse the communication between the charger in the car and the EVSE.

Ray
 
So, realistically speaking. There is no way to throw money at a mobile option to take with me, where only Level 2 charge points, exist - thereby, granting me a fast charging option?
 
Cruising said:
So, realistically speaking. There is no way to throw money at a mobile option to take with me, where only Level 2 charge points, exist - thereby, granting me a fast charging option?

1) Unlimited budget? Sure. I use two combined J1772s to make 40-60 amps, but no current LEAF can use more than 30.

2) Add multiple onboard chargers with each having its own dedicated J1772 inlet (see Brusa thread)

3) Build portable CHAdeMO charger to pull from 50-100 amp circuits at up to 24kW (see dedicated thread)
 
Making 480V three-phase out of 240V single phase is easy!

Couple a 240V motor to a 480V/3PH alternator, add in appropriate overcurrent protection, and you're good to go.

That's not nearly as crazy as it sounds and it's actually done quite often. There's no power related advantage to it, though - in fact you lose quite a bit of power in the conversions. It's only done when three-phase power is required but simply not available.
=Smidge=
 
Sorry Smidge - are you saying the current L2 port is used AND a separate mini 240v motor is installed somewhere on-board?
 
40, 12V cigarette lighter plugs in series with long cords will solve the problem.
 
Genius, EVDriver - cant tell if your being facetious or are solving all of our problems at once.
Sure it'd get you 480, but how would you ever get from the two L2 chargers? :lol:
 
planet4ever said:
That public charging station is an EVSE, not a charger. The charger is built into the car. The EVSE is essentially just a sophisticated safety switch. It does nothing to the voltage, or the phase, and it certainly doesn't convert AC to DC. Whatever comes out of your wall is exactly what goes into the car. Hooking two of them up together would not change the voltage or the current in any way, but it would undoubtedly terminally confuse the communication between the charger in the car and the EVSE.

Ray
And, to help the OP, http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=262630#p262630" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is a diagram posted by planet4ever.

Besides needing to convert the AC to DC, in order to plug-in to the CHAdeMO port and successfully charge would require the connector and being able to "speak" CHAdeMO's protocol and pass whatever tests the car does before starting and during the charge.
 
^ A variation on that, could you put 40 car batteries in series, and have 40 12v chargers... or perhaps a smaller number, like 10 chargers and some switching mechanism.
 
Similar issues as was discussed previously in the topic "How difficult would it be to build a J1772->CHAdeMO adapter?":
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=13416#p306137" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Note that single phase service is what most people have at their home, and it is usually only designed for 200 amps.
A 50 KW Eaton DCQC delivers 120 amps DC when it starts charging a LEAF with a battery below around 6/12 bars. And it is a really big box with five 10 kW inverter rack mounted modules, as shown in the picture in the link in the referenced thread.
With enough $ anything is possible, but trying to do DCQC from single phase 200 amp 240V AC service is completely impractical.
 
planet4ever said:
Sorry, but that sounds crazy. There are no ""two separate legs" of 240v home alternating current to combine to double the voltage. Now if you had three-phase power into your home, you would be using two legs of the three to get 208V, and could increase the voltage by using all three.

Besides, the external charger not only needs to convert AC to DC but it also has to dynamically adjust the voltage to accord with the requirements from the car's battery controller. I'm not sure that it makes much difference in its internal size, weight, cooling requirements, and general complexity what AC voltage it starts with.

Ray

use a converter like the current fast chargers do. all power comes from something and A/C is the ONLY way it comes from the Power company so it has to be turned into DC at the destination
 
Back
Top