Granny charger for emergency use only ?

[Barney]

In the brochure for the Long Range, page 24), it says :
"Estimated charging time (2.2kW 3-pin domestic) to 100% (emergency use) 26.5 hours"

Why does it say emergency use ?

 

[Maciej]

Because using regular wall sockets at full drawn speed isn't exactly recommended. Imagine leaving your blender at full power turn on for 26 hours and how good that would be for your electric sockets.

It's fine in a pinch when there is no other charger nearby but not so great as a long term solution.

Here is example of why this isn't great especially on older installations.

There is no way I would for example leave car charging over night from the regular wall socket unsupervised.

 

[Cocijo]

There’s a big debate on this. Many owners entirely use the granny for charging.

 

[Kithmo]

What sort of "emergency" is it ok to wait 26.5 hours for ?
Does it mean the charger is for emergency use or charging to 100% is only to be done in an emergency ?

 

[mj224]

When I had my Citroen Zero, I used an outside socket for charging every couple of days or so.

I got through two 3 pin plugs and the eventually the socket had to be changed. And that was with modern wiring.

I guess the message is be aware of a possible problem, and certainly keep an eye on the plug and socket...

 

[Cocijo]

I think they should be more specific. If repeat charging with the granny over a long period of time is not recommended they should say that and why and what installation/sockets can make it right. Emergency is too vague - I take it as when you can’t find an alternative and are very low on battery - others may interpret differently. Not just MG but all manufacturers. Will it take an accident/fire before they are forced to?

 

[Maciej]

I think they should be more specific. If repeat charging with the granny over a long period of time is not recommended they should say that and why and what installation/sockets can make it right. Emergency is too vague - I take it as when you can’t find an alternative and are very low on battery - others may interpret differently. Not just MG but all manufacturers. Will it take an accident/fire before they are forced to?

I agree Emergency is to vague. Like can you use Granny charger in a caravan or camping because there is nowhere else to charge? I think it should be more specific than just that. But also if something is designed to run for 26h non stop then it should he made safe to run for such time. It seems kind of crazy to create a charger and then tell people not to use it

 

[Neil Fellows]

I intend to use my granny charger every night for 4hrs on the cheap energy tariff, since I found out my house is on a looped supply makes installing a 7kw troublesome. I don't do a huge amount of miles since I work from home.

I've had a few trial runs during the daytime. Its via an Amazon Smart Plug (13amp) for the scheduling and after a few hours the plug is only mildly warm. I'll keep an eye on it before I try it overnight (with a new smoke detector installed above!).

 

[Cocijo]

With that sort of consumption the cost difference using cheap tariff is about £1 a day - less the extra standing charge…

 

[Lovemyev]

Like can you use Granny charger in a caravan or camping because there is nowhere else to charge?

This subject has been discussed in another thread.
Yes - Is the quick answer, but you have to give some consideration to both when and for how long you intend to charge for !.
Check the size of the breaker covering the caravan, before commencing a charge.
If the caravan is fairly new, then the electrics will be up to new regs and offers a better chance.
Change when no other demand is in use would be better.
Quick search on the forum will bring this up.

 

[fishbee]

I have to use an extension lead to plug in the car when it's on the driveway. After a couple of months, the insulation on the external plug pins had melted from the heat. When I opened up the plug to replace it, I saw that the insulation on the brown (live) wire inside had also melted!

Still waiting for the electricity company to upgrade my main fuse so I can have a dedicated charge point.

 

[Joe McAndrew]

I intend to use my granny charger every night for 4hrs on the cheap energy tariff, since I found out my house is on a looped supply makes installing a 7kw troublesome. I don't do a huge amount of miles since I work from home.

I've had a few trial runs during the daytime. Its via an Amazon Smart Plug (13amp) for the scheduling and after a few hours the plug is only mildly warm. I'll keep an eye on it before I try it overnight (with a new smoke detector installed above!).

You will have no problems. I have installed an outside weatherproof socket and have the 3 Pin Ohme Smart Charger fitted to the wall and do exactly as you intend. The current draw will be 10 amps which is not excessive. The socket is on a spur from a 32A Ring and the feed to that socket is 2.5mm 3 core. The weakest part of the system is the 13 amp fuse in the plug of the Ohme charger followed by the 1.5mm 3 core flex on the Ohme charger. I too use the 4 hour Octopus Go window and manage to load about 9.5Kw to the car in that period. That's about 2.4Kw loading. To give you an idea and to allay the scare mongering that you are going to burn alive in your bed, most built in ovens are plug in 13A devices and operate for 2 to 3 hours cooking on most days with over a 2Kw load. In short, the socket in the plug will not normally be a source of any heat dissipation. Heat can only be generated where there is resistance to current flow. Normally in times gone by, that would be due to poor connections of cables in sockets or plugs, normally due to incorrect torque on the clamp screws or the wrong size of cable. Luckily all modern appliances come with preformed plugs and as long as your feed socket is on a 32A ring and in good condition you should be fine. My only concern, and it's only a mild one, would be the current rating on the timer plug and how resilient that is to 4 hours at 10 Amps. If it is from a reputable source then I think all should be fine.

My installation including the Ohme Charger was less than £250. I didn't qualify for the grant of course as it's not considered as a fixed installation but it's as good as and if you can survive on slower charge rates it certainly saves the hassle of additional work on the distribution panel, running 10m armoured cables or possible difficulties with earthing spikes etc.

 

[Neil Fellows]

You will have no problems. I have installed an outside weatherproof socket and have the 3 Pin Ohme Smart Charger fitted to the wall and do exactly as you intend. The current draw will be 10 amps which is not excessive. The socket is on a spur from a 32A Ring and the feed to that socket is 2.5mm 3 core. The weakest part of the system is the 13 amp fuse in the plug of the Ohme charger followed by the 1.5mm 3 core flex on the Ohme charger. I too use the 4 hour Octopus Go window and manage to load about 9.5Kw to the car in that period. That's about 2.4Kw loading. To give you an idea and to allay the scare mongering that you are going to burn alive in your bed, most built in ovens are plug in 13A devices and operate for 2 to 3 hours cooking on most days with over a 2Kw load. In short, the socket in the plug will not normally be a source of any heat dissipation. Heat can only be generated where there is resistance to current flow. Normally in times gone by, that would be due to poor connections of cables in sockets or plugs, normally due to incorrect torque on the clamp screws or the wrong size of cable. Luckily all modern appliances come with preformed plugs and as long as your feed socket is on a 32A ring and in good condition you should be fine. My only concern, and it's only a mild one, would be the current rating on the timer plug and how resilient that is to 4 hours at 10 Amps. If it is from a reputable source then I think all should be fine.

My installation including the Ohme Charger was less than £250. I didn't qualify for the grant of course as it's not considered as a fixed installation but it's as good as and if you can survive on slower charge rates it certainly saves the hassle of additional work on the distribution panel, running 10m armoured cables or possible difficulties with earthing spikes etc.

Thank you for the detailed post @Joe McAndrew, greatly appreciated.

I was indecisive regarding either the Ohme charger or sticking with the MG one on a smart plug. I did look into it but thought I'd give the smart plug option a chance first before buying the Ohme. Does the scheduling work well with the Ohme, and is it fully weatherproof?

The smart plug is an Amazon original (£25) and rated at 13 amps, I didn't want to risk a cheap one. It does get a little warm but is very, very mild.

This is connected to a 10m extension lead which is rated for EV charging, fully unwound, then finally into the MG granny.

 

[dave f]

yes too much scaremongering going on regarding the granny charger,i have a 16amp supply feeding one 2 gang socket fused down to 13amp via fused spur in my garage and it is fed via a 16amp breaker in my consumer unit,the socket should be of good quality and a snug fit when a plug is plugged into it and obviously its not a good idea to plug anything else into the free socket while charging the car,i have monitored the plug for heat while charging over an 8 hour period with no issue from heat,common sense should be applied as i seen a guy plug his car charger into a 2 gang socket in his kitchen and a kettle was plugged in the spare socket now that is asking for trouble.

 

[Joe McAndrew]

I intend to use my granny charger every night for 4hrs on the cheap energy tariff, since I found out my house is on a looped supply makes installing a 7kw troublesome. I don't do a huge amount of miles since I work from home.

I've had a few trial runs during the daytime. Its via an Amazon Smart Plug (13amp) for the scheduling and after a few hours the plug is only mildly warm. I'll keep an eye on it before I try it overnight (with a new smoke detector installed above!).

You will have no problems. I have installed an outside weatherproof socket and have the 3 Pin Ohme Smart Charger fitted to the wall and do exactly as you intend. The current draw will be 10 amps which is not excessive. The socket is on a spur from a 32A Ring and the feed to that socket is 2.5mm 3 core. The weakest part of the system is the 13 amp fuse in the pluof the Ohme charger followed by the 1.5mm 3 core flex on the Ohme charger. I too use the 4 hour Octopus Go window and manage to load about 9.5Kw to the car in that period. That's about 2.4Kw loading. To give you an idea and to allay the scare mongering that you are going to burn alive in your bed, most built in ovens are plug in 13A devices and operate for 2 to 3 hours cooking on most days with over a 2Kw load. In short, the socket in the plug will not normally be a source of any heat dissipation. Heat can only be generated where there is resistance to current flow. Normally in times gone by, that would be due to poor connections of cables in sockets or plugs, normally due to incorrect torque on the clamp screws or the wrong size of cable. Luckily all modern appliances come with preformed plugs and as long as your feed socket is on a 32A ring and in good condition you should be fine. My only concern, and it's only a mild one, would be the current rating on the timer plug and how resilient that is to 4 hours at 10 Amps. If it is from a reputable source then I think all should be fine.

My installation including the Ohme Charger was less than £250. I didn't qualify for the grant of course as it's not considered as a fixed installation but it's as good as and if you can survive on slower charge rates it certainly saves the hassle of additional work on the distribution panel, running 10m armoured cables or possible difficulties with earthing spikes etc.

Thank you for the detailed post @Joe McAndrew, greatly appreciated.

I was indecisive regarding either the Ohme charger or sticking with the MG one on a smart plug. I did look into it but thought I'd give the smart plug option a chance first before buying the Ohme. Does the scheduling work well with the Ohme, and is it fully weatherproof?

The smart plug is an Amazon original (£25) and rated at 13 amps, I didn't want to risk a cheap one. It does get a little warm but is very, very mild.

This is connected to a 10m extension lead which is rated for EV charging, fully unwound, then finally into the MG granny.

The Ohme scheduling works well with my Octopus Go and it has a built in SIM to get updated on cheap rate timings. The interface on the Phone App takes a little figuring out and as the MG5 doesn't have the built in software then the Phone App % are not true.

In short I know that my 4 hour 9.5Kw loading gives me around 19% increase in charge. I'm not a high mileage driver so I do around 3 4 hour charges per week to keep the car topped up. We are currently managing 4.6 miles per Kw, so each 9.5Kw charge restores about 50 miles range.

You can set your own charge schedule or just switch the charger on immediately all via the Phone App. There may be better but Ohme is the one I have and it's fully weatherproof so can remain outside on the wall indefinitely. My MG charger is in the car boot with a big extension cable for any journeys that may allow access to 3 pin supply.

 

[Deleted member 3150]

Uncoil the cable too as it can get warm

 

[Severnless]

@Joe McAndrew hope your Ohme is better than ours!
Only lasted 12 months, now it’s a pain to get it to connect to the app, also trips our dedicated rcbo, intermittently!
It’s about to go in the bin!!

 

[Bryan Flanagan]

Because using regular wall sockets at full drawn speed isn't exactly recommended. Imagine leaving your blender at full power turn on for 26 hours and how good that would be for your electric sockets.

It's fine in a pinch when there is no other charger nearby but not so great as a long term solution.

Here is example of why this isn't great especially on older installations.

There is no way I would for example leave car charging over night from the regular wall socket unsupervised.

It's roughly equivalent to running a two bar heater, well within the capabilities of a 10 amp household socket in New Zealand anyway. If the plug or the contacts within the socket are corroded or dirty, then you have a problem.

 

[MarkLynn]

The issue is easy to notice after an hour or so put your hand on the back of the plug, if it's hot you have a problem however if it's just warm check it in a few hours if still just warm your socket and plug are fine. Any high load on a 13amp plug will generate some heat. Caution if it's hot the plug may melt round the pins and this risks fire.

 

[smokie]

Also poor or damaged connections, or damaged or aging cabling can mean problems at places other than the plug, especially when running at high load for sustained periods.