As I had POSTed the evi ics-200 AVCON charging head at the Mt. View Costco would eror out with an over current if the AC current draw was over 14 amps AC.
Yesterday, I drove out to Santa Clara Costco to test that ics-200. Again it would not give more than 14 amps AC. I decided to make sure that ics-200 held at 14 amps, so I went inside Costco to kill a little time. I came up to a man that was eye-balling the GEM that was on display for $4k. As I came up, I asked, "Would you buy one? ...". He smiled at me and said, "well, I don't know ...". I said it was a good deal as there is a rebate to reduce the cost. His eyes perked up. I said if it fits your needs, its a low cost. Automakers are selling them cheap to use the loophole to get CARB ZEV credits, rather than making highway speed vehicles. He frowned. I let know know nEVs only go 20 mph, have about a 30 mile range and take 6 hours to recharge. But if all you need is to go to the store its a good deal. I asked him again, "So, would buy one?" He said, "I don't know ... ". But thanks for the info. I left him still looking at the GEM and thinking about it. I came back my Blazer and the ics-200 was holding at 14 amps AC after 15 minutes. I was about to take off to try another ics-200, when an employee hefting tonight's case of beer, stopped to talk about EVs. As soon as he said his goodbyes, another man asked the same questions. I had let both of them know of the Costco manager that had spoke in front of CARB at the LA workshop. He was the one who worked to put them all in. He had spoke to CARB of how Costco's are located at regular intervals and jsut off the highway. EV charging at Costco is good for both EV drivers and Costco. I shutdown and headed to a non public ics-200 I have permission to use in San Jose Agilent. I connected and set the PFC-50 to 30 amps. It held for 10 minutes. The source was also 208VAC and my 132VDC pack was getting 36 amps DC at 150VDC. ... Tonight, I drove over to our local EAA Electrican guru (who is helping me make my 4 gauge charging cables) about the ics-200 inconsistencies. We figured we would need about a 7 ohm load that could disappate 6kw. He had locomotive braking resistors (used by locomotives to have dynamic braking) we could hook up for jig I could carry in my Blazer. I could set it up for the five minute test and let it air cool be fore I put it back in the Blazer for the next location. Since evi is likely to blame any problems the ics-200 has on the EV driver's charger, I was talking about making a 208VAC 30amp resistive load test unit. I remember an evi rep POSTed about a year ago on the EV List that the ics-200 is rated to put out 32 amps AC. If I make a purely resistive test unit that draws 30 amps (to be on the safe side) and it fails, perhaps evi will shut up and fix the unit. Afterward, I drove up to Colma BART to find out the ics-200 handle is broken and the unit does not seem to have power. The old inductive charger near it had power. I guess I am going to have to find out who to report a broken AVCON charger to. :-zzz ===== ' ____ ~/__|o\__ '@----- @'---(= . http://geocities.com/brucedp . EV List Editor & RE newswires . (originator of the above EV ascci art) ===== __________________________________________________ Yahoo! - We Remember 9-11: A tribute to the more than 3,000 lives lost http://dir.remember.yahoo.com/tribute
