[icediggity1]

So my Condo won't allow me to put a 220v plug and this 120v plug some orange one I'm assuming it came with the car that i have takes like 16 hours to charge. Does anyone know of a charger or does one exist that still uses a regular outlet (120V) that will fully charge the car in less then 16 hours ???

 

[Harleyguy]

To increase speed you need 220 no other sorry . I suggest you speak to them and find a way to install 220 charger .

 

[ct-fiskerbuzz]

The 120 volt charger is capable of taking only (can one say "only" here? :angel about 13 hours for a full charge, but to do that, you have to really get 120 volts at the plug. If you have a device that will measure the capacity at the plug (you need to do this while drawing current from it), see if the voltage is low enough to be out of spec (off by more than 5%, or in this case, below 114 volts). If so, that should be enough to convince the Condo authorities to fix the problem.

It's much better to just get a 240 volt outlet there. There's no difficulty involved: it's an ordinary electric-dryer outlet.

I'll add that the author of the link below recommends investigating even a 3% voltage drop as a fire hazard.

http://www.psihq.com/iread/faqvolt.htm

 

[steven]

does one exist that still uses a regular outlet (120V) that will fully charge the car in less then 16 hours ???

I wonder if this would work on a 110v outlet if you have enough amps on the breaker.

http://www.world-import.com/tc-200a-u-d.htm

 

[marswill]

200 Watts isn't nearly enough. You would need at least 4KW which most 115V outlets can't provide.

 

[Fabulist]

I wonder if this would work on a 110v outlet if you have enough amps on the breaker.

http://www.world-import.com/tc-200a-u-d.htm

If you have access to two 110V outlets that are on two separate circuits, you may be able to use a device like this one to draw something close to the 3300 Watts you can get from a 240V level II EVSE. I have never used one of these, so I cannot comment on it one way or another, other than to say that it exists and may be a solution.

 

[marswill]

The two outlets need to be on opposite phases of the 110V. If they are on the same phase, even though on separate circuits, it won't work. Otherwise it should be fine.

 

[ct-fiskerbuzz]

As Marswill noted they have to be on opposite phases ... here's an image, grabbed off this site, showing how the 120/240 volt stuff works in ordinary house setups:

What you would do in this case is connect a wire to the correct half of Plug A and the correct half of Plug B (as shown in the diagram) so that you get the 240 volts. If you use the wrong half of one plug, you get 120 volts, and if you use the wrong half of both, you get zero volts. Basically, you have to span the entire secondary winding, rather than one or the other center-tapped halves.

You'd still be pulling a continuous 13.75 amps on this setup, so with the 20% de-rate rule for house wiring you need two 120-volt "17.1875 amp" circuits (which really means 20 amp circuits like those used for kitchen wiring). Typically that means hiring an electrician (most garage circuits are just 15 amp) so you might as well just have a dryer outlet installed and be done with it.

 

[Fabulist]

As Marswill noted they have to be on opposite phases ... here's an image, grabbed off this site, showing how the 120/240 volt stuff works in ordinary house setups:

What you would do in this case is connect a wire to the correct half of Plug A and the correct half of Plug B (as shown in the diagram) so that you get the 240 volts. If you use the wrong half of one plug, you get 120 volts, and if you use the wrong half of both, you get zero volts. Basically, you have to span the entire secondary winding, rather than one or the other center-tapped halves.

You'd still be pulling a continuous 13.75 amps on this setup, so with the 20% de-rate rule for house wiring you need two 120-volt "17.1875 amp" circuits (which really means 20 amp circuits like those used for kitchen wiring). Typically that means hiring an electrician (most garage circuits are just 15 amp) so you might as well just have a dryer outlet installed and be done with it.

That's correct, unless for some reason you cannot install a dryer plug, for example if you are renting or if you are travelling and have to take whatever electrical infrastructure is available. You can always go with the Level I charge from a standard plug, but if you can get access to two suitable plugs, you can charge faster.

With the Karma, this is not as much an issue as it is with BEV cars, particularly on long trips. Again, I am not advocating for this system, it's just a nice option to have.

 

[Fabulist]

The two outlets need to be on opposite phases of the 110V. If they are on the same phase, even though on separate circuits, it won't work. Otherwise it should be fine.

Correct. I forgot to mention that. Apparently the device tells you when you have two plugs with the correct phase connected, so it becomes a matter of trial and error. Here is a video of a Leaf owner actually using one of these: