Post pictures of your home charging setup

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.

Publius

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 27, 2012
Messages
141
Location
Rochester, NY
I'm moving soon and my new house will have a garage (right now my charge station is outside under a massive oak tree), so I though I would jump on MNL and look at pictures of how people have hooked up their homes to meet all their charging needs, but much to my surprise, I couldn't find a thread dedicated to pictures of home charging. How did you arrange your indoor/outdoor charging setup? Inspire me.
 
Like I said, I'm moving but here is where I charge now. The charge station is just screwed to the side of the house. Simple and boring.

 
This is my primary setup.

BLINKINSTALL2.jpg


PlugsLabeled_zps26ef4450.jpg
 
I installed a 240 Volt L6-20 outlet with a refurbished electric meter* in my garage, for use with EVSE Upgrade:



Rather than put the cable on my garage floor, which accumulates a lot of dirt from my dirt road in snow country, and where it would be a tripping hazard, I routed it across the ceiling with bicycle hooks to the front of the LEAF:



Handy to have it out of the way.


* For information about installing a refurb electric meter see the blog post by DaveinOlyWA:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/blog.php?u=291&b=92" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It is an easy DIY project for any reasonably handy person.
 
My setup was pretty simple; just had an electrician pull 6 gauge wire from the outside panel, through the crawl space, and poke it through the garage wall. Mounted the EVSE and I was all set.

JkjfSODl.jpg
MJdS3w3l.jpg
 
We have two in our home. We have the Aerovironment 240V unit in the center of the garage. We can charge either car with this one. I also have the Voltec 120V unit mounted on one side of the garage that can charge the Volt if the 240V unit is busy. (in fact, it is in use in this photo, thus the reason you don't see the J1772 connector) I did install a dedicated 20-amp outlet for the Voltec unit at the exact height that would be useful. I also left enough slack inside the breaker panel that I can convert it to a 240V 20-amp outlet at some point in the future.

915517FB-0F23-476C-92DE-392AA4854DB9-39394-00000B858281B9D0_zps6e8c291c.jpg


62434115-8543-485D-A30F-07A20178737D-39394-00000B8579DC3CE4_zps1b425136.jpg
 
The thing that complicated our install was the fully-loaded panel. Load calcs wouldn't allow another circuit. fortunately there was a second service for the AC at 60Amps and the AC only using a 40A branch. This allowed an addition of a 20A breaker there which made the 16A Leviton a great choice and still charges the 2012 as fast as it will go.

Was glad to go with an electrician on this one. Permitted and city-inspected.

file.php
 
I don't think this site does anything to strip geotagging information from posted pictures, so if you don't want the world to know where your charger is, you'd want to turn that feature off on your phone/camera
 
Nothing fancy, but at least a 30' run to junction box -- just 2 months shy of 2 years since it was installed -- Schneider EVlink (first gen)

IMG_0361.JPG


IMG_0362.JPG


Less of this tight a feet now that 'down-sized' from this minivan to a mid-size SUV (picked up another 1 1/2 feet between cars); hope to use this same charger (at alternate times) with EV #2 (smart EV we know fits, but possibly a Fiat 500e or even a BMW i3)

IMG_0404A.JPG


4 cars, 3 drivers; hopefully 2 to be EV's soon ...

IMG_0403A.JPG
 
No snickering, please. We renters make do with what is available - or not available, like no 240 volts in the garage.

charge1.jpg


The piece of yellow Romex at the bottom of the quick 240 goes to a 14-50 for the Tesla.

charge2.jpg


charge3.jpg


For faster charging of the Tesla, this 50 Amp extension cord comes from a home brew 14-50 splitter behind the kitchen stove.
The overturned blue tub has so far hidden it from the apartment management and maintenance people.

charge4.jpg
 
Nubo said:
The thing that complicated our install was the fully-loaded panel. Load calcs wouldn't allow another circuit. fortunately there was a second service for the AC at 60Amps and the AC only using a 40A branch. This allowed an addition of a 20A breaker there which made the 16A Leviton a great choice and still charges the 2012 as fast as it will go.

Was glad to go with an electrician on this one. Permitted and city-inspected.

file.php

Nubo, I like that you added some color to your cord. One of the things that I'm trying to figure out the best placement of the charger in the garage to maximize access but also avoid creating a tripping hazard. Did you use electrical tape?
 
Here's ours (a Schnieder EVLink). When we got ours, it included a coupon good for a free decal of our choice - just select an image from their collection or upload one of your own. It came out pretty well!

Bonus points if you recognize the character.

WP_000395.jpg
 
khoover said:
Here's ours (a Schnieder EVLink). When we got ours, it included a coupon good for a free decal of our choice - just select an image from their collection or upload one of your own. It came out pretty well!

Bonus points if you recognize the character.

WP_000395.jpg

That's awesome. Elec man from megaman.
 
Publius said:
Nubo, I like that you added some color to your cord. One of the things that I'm trying to figure out the best placement of the charger in the garage to maximize access but also avoid creating a tripping hazard. Did you use electrical tape?

Yeah, just a roll of yellow vinyl electrical tape from Home Depot. Attention-getting. I think it stimulates that ancient part of our brain that yells "SNAKE"!! :)

It's held up fine, but the cable never gets dragged much. If you need something with abrasion resistance, there is real "cable wrap":

http://products.mmnewman.com/item/174-spirally-cut-cable-wrap-and-abrasion-protect-2/174-spirally-cut-cable-wrap-and-abrasion-protector/ht-3-4-c-or-dg-25?&plpver=10&origin=advsrch&by=prod&filter=0&categid=1061&prodid=1048" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
Back
Top