Something (was Nothing)

[Lopton]

disregard this post <- bonus point for the first mod to delete this thread as I can't figure out how to delete it

[MikeD]

As "J.R. Ewing" once notably said, "Once you lose your integrity, the rest is a piece of cake!".

I would strongly suggest that while you are at it, that you post how one could upgrade an ungrounded 2-prong 120v outlet to a grounded 3-prong 120v outlet by adding a properly grounded 12AWG green ground wire (or at least suggest having an electrician make the alteration at reasonable cost -- they need the work these days!). It is not an "emergency" if your work-around is used multiple times at an outlet that you have the ability to upgrade to one having a proper equipment ground.

[Lopton]

MikeD,

Yea you're probably right, I deleted my previous post, don't need someone getting hurt on my conscious

-Matt

[MikeD]

Lopton: I'm not an electrician, but I aspire to particularly learn about residential wiring safety issues (because of NEC code changes over time, poor wiring installs encountered, etc). I only have a copy of NEC 2008 (not 2011), but cannot find your reference there. Can you please elaborate on the point you were trying to make?

I was under the impression that one could safely (i.e. following current NEC code) add a grounding wire to a particular outlet by running a green grounding wire from that upgraded 3-prong outlet back to the circuit breaker service panel's ground (without going to the considerable expense of rewiring an entire house which only has ungrounded 2-prong outlets).

I am assuming the Ground Fault protection is added via the Level 1 EVSE used. What am I not correctly understanding?

[Lopton]

Instead of paying the cost to add a ground wire to a circuit, you can instead add GFCI outlets or circuit breakers to bring it up to code.

The Ground Fault outlets or circuit breakers measure the current flowing through the black wire and the white wire, if they do not equal each other then that means current is flowing through something else and it trips the circuit. This makes a two wire circuit very safe to use and this is allowed by code.

Adding a green ground wire is a great idea in theory, but practice is that it involves ripping out drywall and boring through walls. Unless your house has an open area underneath and/or above it with easy to access wiring, it can be very expensive to add ground wires. But in a house with a concrete slab and cathedral ceilings there is no access to anything.

The EVSE way of "protecting" you is by not allowing you charge without a ground. I think that is a little overkill...

-Matt
PS: you only need the first outlet in the "chain" of outlets to be a GFCI, it provides protection to all subsequent outlets if properly wired.

[Jimmydreams]

Only on MNL could a thread with the title of and content being "nothing" turn into a technical discussion of electrical wiring in only 2 posts!!!

[MikeD]

I should have said that I am only suggesting adding an "equipment ground" (as it is usually referred to) to an outlet only if it is feasible to do so.

It is always possible for the GFCI circuitry of the EVSE equipment to fail, and in that case the EVSE's equipment ground adds protection against shock due to a direct short of the hot wire(s) to the EVSE's exposed metal case (as in that case the equipment ground to that case should cause the circuit breaker to trip instead being a shock hazard to a user who touches that case).

[blorg]

On one of my other forums someone started a thread titled "Ignore this post". I think it's our longest running thread so far, been around for several years and is umpteen pages long...

[sdbonez]

<Deleted>

[DarkStar]

Just wanted to contribute a post of nothing:

Nothing

That is all.