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Charging camper on EV charging ports

the_tux

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Joined
Feb 17, 2020
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Hi,
I've seen discussions on other forums and there seem to be some additional electronics in the chargers that communicate with the car and prevent any other use. Any Tesla supercharger obviously won't work.

But what's the story with those standard 230V AC public charging ports in Europe? Is there any way I can get this working? My wife said that apparently in China it's pretty common to charge motorhomes on EV chargers.

Thanks
 
As long as you can connect the proper gear, no issue. Find out what is supplied by the source you identify and see to it that your machine can accept for passthrough or conversion to what is needed to feed the charger.

Ac power ports are easy if at common national power form. Your onboard charger will take care of it when plugged in.

Dc charging ports will likely require a converter to step down from 400Vdc-ish to whatever your battery voltage is, an intermediate charge controller. Not sure protocols for operation wil easily allow plug and play, spoofing the machine may be required.

Might check evtv.me for spoofery and gadgets.
 
I'm in the process of doing this -- I'll post a new topic thread somewhere in the forum about my progress within the next hour or so.
 
So far as I know, "Level 1" is dumb 120V 15A charging. Level 2 & 3 negotiate power.
So connecting to the level 1 pins may work.
 
That'd be great, but Level 1 is extremely difficult to find. For this to really be practical, Level 2 is the only way to go. See my new post -- https://diysolarforum.com/threads/a...argers-to-charge-van-rv-lithium-system.13445/

Agreed. Nobody with an EV is going to want to connect to a Public Level 1 charging pedestal. Even at home I'm Level 2.

The "dumb" Level 2 pedestals are being phased out. The university that I work at replaced the initial 6 dumb ones and upgraded them to smart ones and also added 6 more smart pedestals. I can't imagine there is a large RV consumer community that is looking to charge their RV from an EV pedestal. Maybe the folks that are converting their ICE vehicles to EV are a target, but how big would that be?

If I pulled up to a charge station to charge my EV and found a big ass motorhome in the way and charging, I would first of all be impressed that someone hacked that together. Then I would be pissed that I couldn't charge my car.
 
Yup, I would definitely want to defer to someone who needs to charge their EV. Understand that the pedestals I'd be using are in groups of 3-4 -- at least the ones I've seen -- and I rarely see even ONE of those 3-4 occupied. What I would NOT do is use the the last remaining pedestal in a grouping of otherwise fully occupied pedestals. Plus, my needs only require 45 minutes or so of charging.
 
How accessible are the pedestals going to be to a motorhome? I haven't charged at a large variety of pedestals. The ones at work, there is no way you're getting to them since they're in a parking garage. But just about every Walgreens around here has a single pedestal that has no overhead obstructions. How long is your motorhome?

I would troll the ICE-to-EV conversion forums. I bet the folks there have figured this out a long time ago.
 
How accessible are the pedestals going to be to a motorhome? I haven't charged at a large variety of pedestals. The ones at work, there is no way you're getting to them since they're in a parking garage. But just about every Walgreens around here has a single pedestal that has no overhead obstructions. How long is your motorhome?

I would troll the ICE-to-EV conversion forums. I bet the folks there have figured this out a long time ago.
Take a look at the ChargePoint app. There are tons of options out there, at least in the areas where I am -- I hover between the greater Denver area and the greater Philly area. Perhaps you are further away from a major metro area.
 
Got it working!!! I can now charge via EV charging stations using the j1772 protocol!
 
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