- Jun 24, 2001
- 24,195
- 856
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Setting up in a workshop after getting displaced from a tornado. Considering the placement by a window they boarded up AFTER I signed the lease, I figured this NEMA 5-20 was for higher-amp air conditioners:
NOPE! Found out the hard way that this has 220v. Luckily I only fried a work light and not my air conditioner I just installed. Yeah, this place needs lights too. No, it wasn’t hanging out like that but it was missing the wall plate and covered in webs.
The same tornado displaced my brother and and crushed my car and now we can only charge his Chevy Volt at public charge points. Sharing a car means more reason than ever to keep it charged... and then gas prices doubled from the pipeline hack... and his car takes Premium when on gas.
My brother still has his Level 2 EVSE for charging his Volt, just no place to plug it in (temporary house has no garage or driveway). There’s obviously good reason to charge at the workshop if we can get the thing plugged in, but I need a NEMA 14-30R.
My brother and an electrician friend installed the last one. That friend moved out of state and the breaker box at the workshop looks like something from World War II. I don’t think I’ll be running new wires and installing a new 220v breaker. Here is what the old install looks like:
Yes, you can see daylight streaming into the walls. Darned tornado. I decided not to pull it out of the wall just yet. Need a plan of action.
OK, so the Volt only charges up to 15A even though the EVSE is capable of more. As long as no one plugs their higher amperage vehicles into the EVSE then it should be fine to adapt it to a 20A outlet. It seems that the 220v version of a NEMA 5-20R is a 6-20R so I will swap the outlet out for that and then try to make a pigtail adapter with a 6-20P to 14-30R. I’ll then 3D print an EVSE wall mount and rig up some way to lock out unauthorized users. Don’t need some random plugging their Nissan Leaf into it even if they don’t start a fire (electricity isn’t free).
This is what was suggested to me. The alternative is to grab our 14-30R from the tornado-damaged home and run new wiring to a breaker box that looks like a death trap and is even more out of my depth.
...and before anyone says it: If I could afford an electrician right now then I’d be looking at a car instead of pricing out electric scooters. I’m literally lining up at food banks right now. Darned tornado
NOPE! Found out the hard way that this has 220v. Luckily I only fried a work light and not my air conditioner I just installed. Yeah, this place needs lights too. No, it wasn’t hanging out like that but it was missing the wall plate and covered in webs.
The same tornado displaced my brother and and crushed my car and now we can only charge his Chevy Volt at public charge points. Sharing a car means more reason than ever to keep it charged... and then gas prices doubled from the pipeline hack... and his car takes Premium when on gas.
My brother still has his Level 2 EVSE for charging his Volt, just no place to plug it in (temporary house has no garage or driveway). There’s obviously good reason to charge at the workshop if we can get the thing plugged in, but I need a NEMA 14-30R.
My brother and an electrician friend installed the last one. That friend moved out of state and the breaker box at the workshop looks like something from World War II. I don’t think I’ll be running new wires and installing a new 220v breaker. Here is what the old install looks like:
Yes, you can see daylight streaming into the walls. Darned tornado. I decided not to pull it out of the wall just yet. Need a plan of action.
OK, so the Volt only charges up to 15A even though the EVSE is capable of more. As long as no one plugs their higher amperage vehicles into the EVSE then it should be fine to adapt it to a 20A outlet. It seems that the 220v version of a NEMA 5-20R is a 6-20R so I will swap the outlet out for that and then try to make a pigtail adapter with a 6-20P to 14-30R. I’ll then 3D print an EVSE wall mount and rig up some way to lock out unauthorized users. Don’t need some random plugging their Nissan Leaf into it even if they don’t start a fire (electricity isn’t free).
This is what was suggested to me. The alternative is to grab our 14-30R from the tornado-damaged home and run new wiring to a breaker box that looks like a death trap and is even more out of my depth.
...and before anyone says it: If I could afford an electrician right now then I’d be looking at a car instead of pricing out electric scooters. I’m literally lining up at food banks right now. Darned tornado