[ausev] CALLING ALL EV-ers - outlet configurations?

[Christopher Robison]

On Wed, 2007-11-28 at 08:21 -0600, Claire Sorenson wrote:
> Chris the directions that come with my charging station say that I should
> not use it without the neutral.  Maybe I should just get a different 30 amp
> charging station to use when I am away from home.

Interesting -- I was unaware of that. The neutral is needed if you want
want half of the voltage. Each of the two hot wires 120V with respect to
neutral (forming 2 120V circuits), but are 180 degrees out of phase with
respect to each other, resulting in 240V. This configuration is called
"split phase". The neutral is apparently needed by your charging unit to
power its electronics with 120V, which is unfortunate. I imagine they
could have included a simple transformer to eliminate this requirement,
and perhaps it could be externally retrofitted with such to allow you to
use a cheaper 3-wire extension cord when necessary. There may however be
reasons this was not done.

On the plus side, depending on the length of your charger's input and
output cables, you may be able to plug right in. However, in reality I
would assume that you will have no trouble at all with the trip, so I
doubt any of this is necessary. You could almost certainly leave your
charger at home.

-- 
Christopher Robison
chris at ohmbre.org
http://ohmbre.org          <-- 1999 Isuzu Hombre + Z2K + Warp13!