02-17-2015, 04:13 PM | #1 |
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Charge Station questions
Wondering if any i owners can help.
Looking at buying an i3 Rex for the second car, however charging dileman is creeping up. BMW want let me speak to techs installers unless I have an order. So hoping existing owners can help. The main thing I was trying to find out if there is a maximum length of cable you can have between car and charge point. Want to put the unit in the garage but to where the car i parked I would need about 8M cable Also any ideas if unit always has to be on its own circuit breaker or can it utilise situation where the garage has its own small ring main already thanks in advance
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Last edited by magic77; 02-17-2015 at 05:18 PM.. |
02-17-2015, 06:07 PM | #2 |
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I had the BMW charging station -- with 25 feet of cable -- installed by my regular electrician. No problems.
Mine has its own circuit breaker on a garage substation.
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02-17-2015, 06:10 PM | #3 |
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The longest cable I've seen on units available in the USA is 25' (and some of them are sold worldwide), which is 7.62M. Technically, a longer one could be used, but aren't very common. There is some upper limit the signals can go, but as long as the wire gauge and cable construction was engineered well, you should not get enough attenuation to cause it to fail to work if it were longer. At least a few companies make extension cables, but none of the EVSE manufacturers recommend them.
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02-18-2015, 02:43 AM | #4 |
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THats great I worked out I need about 8 meters to go between charge station and the car so looks like we should be ok
thank you
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02-21-2015, 09:59 AM | #5 | |
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If you are getting a 30 amp charging station like the BMW Bosch unit or the ClipperCreek HCS-40, then you'll need a 50amp breaker to go with it. If you don't have extra 50 amp capacity in the current circuit, then you'll need to upgrade. Also, it's better to have the charging station on its own circuit, that way you don't have to worry about combine loading from other devices and tripping the breaker. |
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02-22-2015, 12:21 AM | #6 |
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I'd noticed that the max length cable on an EVSE was 25', but just found out that, at least in the USA, it is an electrical code thing - National Electric Code (section 625) specifies 25' max. No idea if there's a similar code elsewhere or not. As the cable length increases, so does the internal resistance of the wires, so unless you go up in gauge, that can be an issue. Plus, the further the thing is from the supply, the same thing occurs. Since power = volts * amps, if you drop the voltage because of increased resistance of a longer wire, your available current goes down, and the 'lost' power turns into heat.
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