Nice and Tidy?

[Pianoman]

Has anyone ever seen advice from 7kw home charger manufacturers not to use coiled up?
I’ve never seen this and I know of a few who never fully uncoil before charging. I didn’t think it made any difference on a type 2 cable connected to a 7kw charger. It would be interesting if anyone has a user manual that advises to unwind…

I've always known about not leaving ANY coiled wire while in use. Don't know where I got it from, possibly caravanning with my parents? It's well known if you're a caravanner.

I have a friend who has had a Leaf for two or three years. He tells me that he ran it entirely on the granny charger for a year, because of snafus getting his wall box installed. He obviously didn't use a public charger in that time, as he told me just last week that he had never used a public charger at all! He couldn't even find his never-used ChargePlace Scotland card in the muddle of his desk. (Keep it in the car, Murray, srsly.) He also has an ICE car (I think the Leaf might technically be his wife's), but he said he used that so little that the battery was always going flat.

He was sighing and saying (of the granny charger), "but it takes so long!" But it all boils down to whether your car is at home long enough for you to be able to keep up with your regular driving needs. If you can leave it charging all night most nights, indeed all evening and night a lot of the time, I think you'd have to be doing a lot of mileage to run into trouble.

Murray then perked up and said "but then you live right beside the West Linton charge-point, don't you?" That's the secret weapon. If you have a rapid charger that's convenient to use (I can walk home from that charger in five minutes) then any time you find that your SoC is low and you want to get back on track, a short visit to the rapid charger will do it.

Obviously a wall box becomes attractive if you're doing a lot of mileage for the ability to use variable-tariff electricity and make it all cheaper, not to mention the convenience of faster charging. Also if you don't have an electrical supply that's safe for a granny charger. But for the relatively low-mileage user who has a safe electricity supply to where the car is parked, my feeling is that the granny charger is absolutely adequate.

My zappi charger can take a long time to charge as its set to only use spare solar. But its all free and worth waiting for.

 

[siteguru]

Should say coiled not cold! Damn spell checker! Grrr

Did you miss this button?

(Might not be so obvious if using a mobile device).

 

[Rolfe]

Should say coiled not cold! Damn spell checker! Grrr

"Edit post" is your friend.

ETA: Gazumped by Siteguru.

 

[Rolfe]

I've always known about not leaving ANY cold wire while in use. Don't know where I got it from, possibly caravaning with my parents? It's well known if you're a caravaner.

I coil the wire to my Christmas tree lights. But it's not the coil that heats up, it's the plug.

 

[Ian Key]

"Edit post" is your friend.

ETA: Gazumped by Siteguru.

You have to be quick to beat siteguru

 

[Rolfe]

 

[siteguru]

You have to be quick to beat siteguru

The joys of being recently (early) retired.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm retired too, and you still beat me to it.

 

[Alb]

Why bother with any of that when the problem magically fixes itself anyway. It's almost like there's someone hovering in the background sorting out posts with bad spelling

 

[Rolfe]

I keep noticing typos after someone has already quoted my post.

 

[Pianoman]

Did you miss this button?

View attachment 17968

(Might not be so obvious if using a mobile device).

Yes. Using mobile phone. Not seen an edit button.

 

[Pianoman]

I'm retired too, and you still beat me to it.

Me three!

 

[ukslim]

Coiling is fine, if the load is low.
Extensions on reels usually have two max loads printed on them - one for wound, a bigger one for unwound.

 

[Rolfe]

Christmas tree lights OK then?

 

[ukslim]

Christmas tree lights OK then?

Almost certainly. Especially if they're LEDs. Not if it's a string of 25 100W incandescent bulbs!

 

[Rolfe]

LEDs!

 

[tsedge]

Has anyone ever seen advice from 7kw home charger manufacturers not to use coiled up?
I’ve never seen this and I know of a few who never fully uncoil before charging. I didn’t think it made any difference on a type 2 cable connected to a 7kw charger. It would be interesting if anyone has a user manual that advises to unwind…

There is no need to uncoil a type 2 cable, they are big enough for heat not to be a problem and charge relatively quickly. It is the very long charge times at (relatively) high load that mean granny chargers and any extension cables should be uncoiled.

 

[Rolfe]

That's good to know. I have ocassionally used my type 2 cable with some of it still loosely coiled up in its bag, when the car was close to the charger. It wasn't really deliberate, I just laid the bag on the ground between the car and the charger, pulled out one connector and attached it to the charger, pulled out the other connector and attached it to the car, and left the rest where it was. I didn't notice any untoward effects.

My granny charger is only 5 metres long. Even though the 13A power point is only 1.5 metres from the car's charging port, there's really only enough cable to fall to the garage floor then rise up again to the charging port. I can't imagine any circumstance where I would even be able to put a coil in it, never mind want to. Do some granny chargers have longer cables? I totally take your point about extension leads.

 

[tsedge]

That's good to know. I have ocassionally used my type 2 cable with some of it still loosely coiled up in its bag, when the car was close to the charger. It wasn't really deliberate, I just laid the bag on the ground between the car and the charger, pulled out one connector and attached it to the charger, pulled out the other connector and attached it to the car, and left the rest where it was. I didn't notice any untoward effects.

My granny charger is only 5 metres long. Even though the 13A power point is only 1.5 metres from the car's charging port, there's really only enough cable to fall to the garage floor then rise up again to the charging port. I can't imagine any circumstance where I would even be able to put a coil in it, never mind want to. Do some granny chargers have longer cables? I totally take your point about extension leads.

You can get granny chargers and type 2 cables with a variety of cable lengths. Generally speaking the longer the cable the greater the losses and potential for heating, thicker cross section cables can handle higher loads and these also vary, though thicker invariably means more expensive.

The problem tends to be at the el cheapo end of the market: short thin cables and cheaply made grannies that don't limit current to a safe level (max 10A but 6A considerably safer), some cheap imports will carry 13A or more, then add some daisy chained extension leads to make up the length, all plugged into an already overloaded ring main and with wiring that is well past its best.

I think one of the key problems is that people think if it has a 3-pin plug on it, it can be plugged in anywhere and must be safe. Most people have no idea how few imports are checked and how many do not comply with UK regs, even when labelled.

 

[Rolfe]

I didn't really know until I read various threads on the forum. It was in the back of my mind though. One of my reasons for jumping in with both feet rather fast was that I knew I had good electrical circuits in the house with a separate one for the garage that had metal-jacketed sockets mounted directly on breeze-block walls within easy reach of the car. I thought that would probably be OK at least in the first instance. I didn't really appreciate the sort of problems I might have run into if things had been otherwise though, until I rocked up here.

I initially thought I'd be getting a wall box, after all, that's what people do, right? But I'm getting on so well with the granny charger and I'm not yet convinced that the expense of a wall box is actually going to pay off given that I do relatively low mileage, so we'll see.

As it happens the MG4s charging port is ideally placed very close to a socket in its normal garaged position, so it's all worked out really well. If I do detect heating in the plug though, I might change my mind.