LEAFfan
Well-known member
LTLFTcomposite said:
Um, no. Mine and a lot of others are powered by the sun. Can you say PVs?
charging on generator
- Thread starter thew
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Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:
Um, no. Mine and a lot of others are powered by the sun. Can you say PVs?
TomT
Well-known member
In terms of MPG, maybe. In terms of emissions, definitely not.
jkirkebo said:
TomT
Well-known member
Actually, unless you are totally off the grid and battery based, you ARE locked to a generator and using one...
LEAFfan said:
jkirkebo
Well-known member
TomT said:
Well, the generator is a petrol one, inverter based, Honda GX390 motor, running at 55% load. The Touran is a diesel without particulate filter. So it really depends on which type of emissions one care about. For sure there will be more particulates (soot) and CO2 with the Touran.
This is temporary anyway, until we get more fast chargers, closer to my location. They are coming.
Coffee_Slurry
Well-known member
Be carefully connecting that generator (EU2000i) Neutral to Ground to appease the EVSE.
My understanding is that the generator's inverter puts out two out-of-phase waves on the Neutral and Hot.
That is 60V AC RMS on each, out of phase to make 120v power.
The typical residential outlet is "split phase" with Neutral grounded at the panel, and 120v on the Hot. (or 240v between two phases, of course).
If you connect Neutral to Ground on the generator, the entire generator frame will carry 60V AC relative to earth ground. I don't know if the EU2000i insulates this well, or if 'ground' is exposed. Likewise for the car, which would now also be hot versus earth ground.
Can anyone confirm?
This seems like a significant hazard if it's true.
My understanding is that the generator's inverter puts out two out-of-phase waves on the Neutral and Hot.
That is 60V AC RMS on each, out of phase to make 120v power.
The typical residential outlet is "split phase" with Neutral grounded at the panel, and 120v on the Hot. (or 240v between two phases, of course).
If you connect Neutral to Ground on the generator, the entire generator frame will carry 60V AC relative to earth ground. I don't know if the EU2000i insulates this well, or if 'ground' is exposed. Likewise for the car, which would now also be hot versus earth ground.
Can anyone confirm?
This seems like a significant hazard if it's true.
Ingineer
Well-known member
There is no current path. Your assertion that there is 60V AC "relative" to earth ground would require an earth ground somewhere. You would have to drive a ground rod and connect it to the generator DC side to effect this. The generator works by generating 3-phase AC in an alternator and rectifying it with a 6 diode bridge, then the resulting DC is filto use in a high frequency H-bridge used to generate 60hz sine wave via PWM. The "center" or average of the generator windings is indeed at +/- 60v, but since it's not connected to anything and it's isolated, there is no potential. In the event of an alternator winding insulation failure short to chassis, there would be current flow if you had neutral to chassis bond connected, and the generator would overload. If you didn't have a ground connection bonded, you'd be blissfully unaware of the fault, so one might argue it's actually safer to make the bond.GroundLoop said:
I can confirm that the AC output on the EU2000i is isolated from it's ground screw and frame ground. Bonding either AC leg to generator ground will present no problems, as the new "reference" is then the generator frame and the car body itself. There will be no current flow to/from earth ground, as there is no connection to it.
Funny that we are discussing a non-existent ground loop and that's your forum handle! =)
-Phil
hill
Well-known member
It's been over 2 months, since this generator thread was touched. Mean while, I began to wonder something after our last camping trip back in October. I observed a couple motor homes that had daisy chained a couple 3k generator/inverters together. so they could run more stuff, simultaneously (microwave, hair dryer, heaters). That made me wonder ... using Phil's modified J1772 portable charge cord, could one run two 120v generator sources back into a quick 220 appliance so that you could Leaf-charge quicker?
keydiver
Well-known member
Only if they are designed to be phase locked together. Some of the solar inverters are designed that way, but I have never seen 120 volt generators capable of locking their 60 Hz 180* out of phase with another generator to make 240 VAC. Maybe inverter-type generators, like the Honda highend line, but not anything otherwise.
jkirkebo
Well-known member
I can at least verify that the Leaf (with EVSEupgrade EVSE or european 10A EVSE) charges beautifully from a 230V european Honda EU65is. The generator had no problems charging the Leaf and my cabin batteries at the same time, for a total of 5.3kW continously over some hours. I did have to turn off eco throttle when charging both at the same time, with just the Leaf it worked with eco throttle on too.
LTLFTcomposite
Well-known member
Hopefully someone like ingineer would weigh in on this, but I think there are two types of generators, ones that run at a constant RPM (3600? or 1800 for diesels?) to produce the 60hz frequency, and others that use the magic of inverters to allow the engine to run at variable speeds. I have a honda 5000w like construction workers use that falls into the former category, while the EU2000 and 3000 most of you are talking about is the inverter type. Don't the constant RPM generators put out a regular sine wave as they are like miniature power plants, while the inverter types only approximate a sine wave?
jkirkebo
Well-known member
LTLFTcomposite said:
No, the constant RPM types produce a more or less "dirty" sine wave, depending on how "cheap" they are. The cheaper ones will have problems running some types of equipment.
The inverter ones, like my Honda EU65is, produce a very clean, near perfect sine wave. At least the expensive Honda ones does, what the cheap Kipor puts out I do not know. Supposedly the Honda puts out cleaner and better sinewaves than you get from the utility.
garygid
Well-known member
Given a schematic to a good full-sinewave inverter, it should be relatively
easy to determine if its internal clock can be synchronized to an external clock.
easy to determine if its internal clock can be synchronized to an external clock.
Ingineer
Well-known member
I have a device that will allow hooking two Honda EU2000i's up together to allow charging at 240V / 12A. Unfortunately the 2000's don't quite appear to have enough "oomph" to run the full 240V 16A rate.
A single EU2000i will charge the Leaf at 120V 12A fine.
There are no problems with the waveform, nor will it hurt the Leaf's on-board charger or the EVSE.
-Phil
A single EU2000i will charge the Leaf at 120V 12A fine.
There are no problems with the waveform, nor will it hurt the Leaf's on-board charger or the EVSE.
-Phil
DarkStar
Well-known member
Are you running the EU2000i units in series or using a transformer? I thought they could only be paralleled. :?Ingineer said:
garygid
Well-known member
Apparently Ingineer made a synchronizer so that the two inverters would run in phase (or 180 degrees out of phase).
Might be correct?
Might be correct?
Ingineer
Well-known member
Yes, it "tricks" the second genny into running 180 degrees out using the built-in paralleling mechanism.
-Phil
-Phil
DarkStar
Well-known member
I've been looking at picking up an EU2000i so I'm extremely curious what the trick is. I know that the built in inverters will automatically adjust when using the parallel cables, but only provide 120 volts...Ingineer said:
I gotta know what the "trick" is!
Just to bump this up the list, I also posted this question in the Engineering section. I got the Honda generator and need to modify the plugs to be able to charge the Leaf. I have learned that I need to connect the neutral and ground prongs for the EVSE GFCI check. However, it was mentioned that I need to connect via a 100,000 ohm resistor. Is this true?
Ingineer
Well-known member
MarkBC said:
The easy way to make this work is take a screw-on plug (NEMA 5-15P) and install two 1/2 watt 100k ohm resistors. One from neutral (silver screw) to ground (green), and the other from hot (gold screw) to ground (green). Then simply plug this into one outlet on the generator, and your EVSE into the other. This will safely pass the ground detect on the Nissan (and our upgraded) EVSE, while not being a hazard in any other way.
-Phil
jkirkebo
Well-known member
If anyone needs a generator just for Leaf charging (and have a lot of money to spend...) they could just order an european EU30iS. This will deliver 230V 50Hz which the Leaf happily accepts.
Then get the EVSEupgrade EVSE, but without the 16A option. It will then deliver 12A@230V, which is 2760 watts. The EU30iS is supposed to be able to pump out 2800 watts continously.
Then get the EVSEupgrade EVSE, but without the 16A option. It will then deliver 12A@230V, which is 2760 watts. The EU30iS is supposed to be able to pump out 2800 watts continously.
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