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jjeff said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
Chuy1530 said:
The dryer is electric but it plugs into a normal 120V plug.

There are two 30A breakers in the breaker box. I suppose I could flip them and see if it turns off my AC... But the best way for me to know for sure is going to be to go borrow the multimeter.

The good news is I’m having to leave my car unplugged some days just to keep it from getting fully charged since I like to use the e-pedal and regenerative breaking.

interesting. Last time I saw one of those was in a college dorm room. Have never seen one in a house before.
Yes a 120v electric dryer would take FOREVER to dry anything. Subtracting the motor to spin the clothes would leave you with what, 1200w? left to heat the clothes, less than a modern hairdryer :eek:
OP, truthfully the best way to see what's what is to do as you thought, flip the breakers and see what goes off, while you could use a VOM the true test is to see what goes off. There isn't anyway your electric dryer could have a 240v part and then a separate plug for 120v that feeds everything other than the dryer heating element? I've never heard of that but then I've never seen a 120v electric dryer, sounds like Dave may have though.

I have seen them although not recently. They do greatly embellish on their claimed drying time but all dryers dry based on air movement, not heat so guessing it simply has a larger fan to go with its smaller heating element. Either way, a load of jeans? Probably not recommended. :lol:
 
Chuy1530 said:
The dryer is electric but it plugs into a normal 120V plug.

There are two 30A breakers in the breaker box. I suppose I could flip them and see if it turns off my AC... But the best way for me to know for sure is going to be to go borrow the multimeter.

The good news is I’m having to leave my car unplugged some days just to keep it from getting fully charged since I like to use the e-pedal and regenerative breaking.

Jeff and Dave brought up some good points. If you don't have a multimeter, are you concluding it's 120v because it's a nema 5-15 receptacle? If so, you should know that the connector can actually be used for 240v circuits as well (commonly found in old server rooms).

It's only rated for 15A though, so it might've been a DIY conversion?
 
I used to have a 240V washer that used a 3-prong plug. I'm not sure exactly which one it was but there are several that look very similar to regular 120V outlets but have one or both conducting terminals 'sideways' or in the shape of an L. I could imagine a DYIer using a regular receptacle and plug in place of one of those.
 
So I’ve confirmed the old dryer circuit in the garage was cannibalized to run the AC. There’s no power running to the plug and flipping the 30A breakers did make my AC go off. This was definitely some DIY stuff by my landlord (who also happens to be my wife’s grandfather.)

I didn’t think to check and see what the actual voltage running to the dryer is, since I know 120V dryers exist and the plug looks like a normal three prong. I should be able to look up the specs of the dryer when I get home and solve that one. If it does turn out to be a 240V, would I be able to find an EVSE or whatever isn’t a charger that plugs into a three prong wall outlet but also takes the higher voltage? Or could I just plug my existing one into it and see some sort of benefit?

I know very little about electrical work and passed e-theory by the skin of my teeth a decade ago haha.

Edit: also, I still love the car. We use it for all of our local travel so my wife has used it a lot too. She isn’t going to learn the e-pedal since her car doesn’t have one but I’m driving with it forever. I’m having no problem keeping it charged with the trickle charger although the option for level 2 would be nice to have, even if I don’t have to use it much.

I do think they phoned it in a bit on the dash options. I know we have options for like 20 different screens, but it sure seems like they could’ve put some work into some better consolidated screens. It’s a minor nit pick though.
 
I didn’t think to check and see what the actual voltage running to the dryer is, since I know 120V dryers exist and the plug looks like a normal three prong. I should be able to look up the specs of the dryer when I get home and solve that one. If it does turn out to be a 240V, would I be able to find an EVSE or whatever isn’t a charger that plugs into a three prong wall outlet but also takes the higher voltage? Or could I just plug my existing one into it and see some sort of benefit?

Since you don't need L-2 charging I suggest that you put a pin in this idea and wait until you can run a new circuit. If by some chance you have a 120 volt, 20 amp circuit available with nothing more than a light on it, you can get a 16A 120V EVSE that will charge somewhat (25%) faster than the 12A Nissan unit.
 
Chuy1530 said:
....I didn’t think to check and see what the actual voltage running to the dryer is, since I know 120V dryers exist and the plug looks like a normal three prong. I should be able to look up the specs of the dryer when I get home and solve that one. If it does turn out to be a 240V, would I be able to find an EVSE or whatever isn’t a charger that plugs into a three prong wall outlet but also takes the higher voltage? Or could I just plug my existing one into it and see some sort of benefit?
If it looks like a normal 120v plug, two vertical slots with a round ground plug at the bottom, it will be a 120v 15a outlet. If the outlet's left larger slot also has a horizontal slot bisecting it, it will be a 20a 120v outlet. If the outlet has a horizontal right slot, it will be 240v.
A couple of pages down on the right of this link shows an illustration of the various 120v/240v outlets. Not saying someone couldn't use the incorrect power for a given outlet but if they did it would be extremely dangerous for someone who doesn't know it's wired wrong and I can't believe anyone doing such a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector
And yes, you can purchase or make outlet adapters to convert to other outlet types, Amazon or a RV dealer like ParkWorld is a good source but as L2 EVSEs don't use the neutral wire you have to be careful which one you purchase, best to make sure it says something about good for EVs or know what your getting.
 
Chuy1530 said:
So I’ve confirmed the old dryer circuit in the garage was cannibalized to run the AC. There’s no power running to the plug and flipping the 30A breakers did make my AC go off. This was definitely some DIY stuff by my landlord (who also happens to be my wife’s grandfather.)

I didn’t think to check and see what the actual voltage running to the dryer is, since I know 120V dryers exist and the plug looks like a normal three prong. I should be able to look up the specs of the dryer when I get home and solve that one. If it does turn out to be a 240V, would I be able to find an EVSE or whatever isn’t a charger that plugs into a three prong wall outlet but also takes the higher voltage? Or could I just plug my existing one into it and see some sort of benefit?

I know very little about electrical work and passed e-theory by the skin of my teeth a decade ago haha.

Edit: also, I still love the car. We use it for all of our local travel so my wife has used it a lot too. She isn’t going to learn the e-pedal since her car doesn’t have one but I’m driving with it forever. I’m having no problem keeping it charged with the trickle charger although the option for level 2 would be nice to have, even if I don’t have to use it much.

I do think they phoned it in a bit on the dash options. I know we have options for like 20 different screens, but it sure seems like they could’ve put some work into some better consolidated screens. It’s a minor nit pick though.

If you find out it's actually 240v, then there's plenty of low-current L2 evse's out there like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Morec-Portable-220V-240V-Electric-Compatible/dp/B07HH4LJD2?ref_=ast_sto_dp
 
Chuy1530 said:
I didn’t think to check and see what the actual voltage running to the dryer is, since I know 120V dryers exist and the plug looks like a normal three prong. I should be able to look up the specs of the dryer when I get home and solve that one. If it does turn out to be a 240V, would I be able to find an EVSE or whatever isn’t a charger that plugs into a three prong wall outlet but also takes the higher voltage? Or could I just plug my existing one into it and see some sort of benefit?
Are you thinking about going back and forth between A/C use and EV charging on the same outlet ?

That is a *bad* idea. As in risk of fire bad.
 
I didn’t know that was a problem. It seemed like a lot of people were just unplugging their dryer to charge their car and then switching it back after. Is that really a concern?

Either way, it isn’t something I’m doing, but I thought it was pretty common practice to use a plug (even a 120) for the car sometimes and other things other times.
 
Chuy1530 said:
Either way, it isn’t something I’m doing, but I thought it was pretty common practice to use a plug (even a 120) for the car sometimes and other things other times.
The problem has two angles:

1. is the risk of a spark unless the circuit is de-energized

2. is the wear on the outlet. People have this terrible habit of wiggling plugs to pull them out, leading to poor contact over time. In the home where currents are usually a few Amps it is not ideal but rarely dangerous. 30 Amps is a different animal altogether.

The right approach to electrical safety is to presume that people will do stupid ****. Don't set them up for failure at 30 Amps.
 
It all depends on the receptacle, since that is what usually wears out first. There are different quality levels of parts out there so it's hard to generalize too much but according to the article listed below, for UL approval a standard receptacle is tested after a few hundred insertion cycles, so that might be indication of the design specs used for them. Common sense dictates that any receptacle will eventually wear out but whether that is after 101 cycles or 100,000 cycles is impossible to say. However, if some engineer wants to spend an extra $0.02 to make the receptacle last 100,000 cycles vs 1000 cycles the idea will probably be shot down by the accounting dept.

https://iaeimagazine.org/features/a-journey-back-to-basics-with-receptacles/
 
That makes sense. I’ve got an engineering background so I get what you’re saying about it not being designed to cycle forever. The 120 I’m using is only used for this and I don’t unplug the EVSE from the wall luckily.
 
Chuy1530 said:
I didn’t know that was a problem. It seemed like a lot of people were just unplugging their dryer to charge their car and then switching it back after. Is that really a concern?

Either way, it isn’t something I’m doing, but I thought it was pretty common practice to use a plug (even a 120) for the car sometimes and other things other times.

Its a bad idea. The outlet will wear out and eventually cause high resistance leading to failure or arcing. In the US alone, it happens a million times a day w/o problems but also happens a few times a day resulting in fire.

A Y adapter is $60 and means never unplugging anything.
 
It’s moot for me anyway since I’ve confirmed my dryer just plugs into a normal outlet and I’m using a dedicated 120 for my EVSE, but I would think the amp draw from having a Y hooked to your EVSE and dryer would be a concern too.
 
Chuy1530 said:
It’s moot for me anyway since I’ve confirmed my dryer just plugs into a normal outlet and I’m using a dedicated 120 for my EVSE, but I would think the amp draw from having a Y hooked to your EVSE and dryer would be a concern too.

LOL!!! They ARE NOT TO BE USED CONCURRENTLY!
 
Ah, now convince my wife to remember to follow that rule! I can’t even get her to not run the dishwasher when I’m in the shower...
 
I took possession of my 2018 Leaf at the end of 2020.

The plan had been to FIRST have a local electrician extend the 230V 30A circuit from the laundry area of the garage to a point over the garage door, THEN buy a United Chargers Grizzl-E (with the DIP switch factory set to max out at the 24A rate), and THEN take delivery on the car.

But my sagging old rust-bucket of a 1998 Camry was failing fast, and before the electrician could get to me, I had to take it out of service and get a rental by mid-December. And (although I didn't know it yet) the Edison rebate program was set to end at the end of the year.

So the new power socket didn't get installed until Christmas Eve. I put in the order for the Grizzl-E as soon as I had a power socket, but it took 2 weeks to arrive.

I showed up at the Nissan dealership where the neighbors' kid is a service writer, looking for a 2017 with a CD player. They had a 2018 with a CD (something I didn't think even existed!) in inventory, and it was even in my preferred color.

I took delivery on it while still waiting for the Grizzl-E, and spent a week charging it in Level 1 mode, with the portable charging unit.

The Grizzl-E looked good on paper, and it's even better in real life: the plug-hook is a separate piece, so I can run the cable out to the driveway with the unit mounted inside the garage; no front-panel controls to accidentally bump; no smartphone interface that could be hacked. A monument to the KISS principle.

It's nice to drive something with some pick-up, for a change. But there's still that puzzling pop-up that shows up on the display screen for a few seconds at power-up, just after the splash-screen.

I will note that this actually isn't the first electric vehicle I've driven. Just the first that didn't cut ice. (The 550 was Zamboni's first production electric model, powered by two big Exide Loadhog forklift batteries. If the batteries were over about a year old, a charge was good for one ice cut. And neither of the two I drove had nearly as fancy a paint job as the one shown on the link)
 
We just took possession of a 2021 Nissan Leaf SV Plus with the larger 62Kwh battery. We are loving it! We returned the 2018 40Kwh SV which was up on its lease..

The 200+ mile range makes it a decent day tripper in a 400 mile radius....certainly expands the day tripping horizon from the smaller 40/30/24Kwh batteries...

This is our 4th Nissan Leaf in the family. We started leasing from 2013 model (24Kwh), then had a 2016 (30Kwh), then a 2018 (40Kwh) and now a 2021 (62Kwh)...our local dealership has been leasing us the SV models at the same price point from 2013, so when they offer to simply swap out the lease end with a new larger battery, the offer is irresistible..each time...

The leases have averaged us about $350/month for 15,000 miles/year with $0 down, either through state subsidies, or direct $0 down offer from dealer...

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97c6b016-914e-454c-a60a-e9d7a79791e0


Makes me a loyal Nissan customer, I guess :cool:
 
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