Even inside a largish office building (right across from Ebay along 101) I found out that the wire runs were too long to sustain 15A in the front offices that were closest to the parking lot (and furthest away from the transformer and service panel in the back of the building). Drawing 15A caused the normal 120V outlet level (I checked with a voltmeter before plugging in) to drop to 105V at that outlet so the building wiring had a 1 Ohm resistance. My long and underrated 14 gauge 100ft extension cord added another Ohm in resistance so I ended up with only 90V at the charger. To avoid this, all I needed to do was drive to the back of the building, sneak a short extension cord under a little used emergency exit door next to the loading dock and essentially park my car next to the transformer feeding the building, so I got a healthy 120V from the outlet to start with. Of course what the installed should have done in that office was to have more distributed subpanels from which to run the wires to the front offices or use larger diameter wires, but that was not the situation I had to work with. I recently measured my current charging situation: I park next to the electrical room in the back of the building and the outlet next to the door provides approx 123V unloaded and stays close to 120V even while pulling 15A so my charging is quite fast and efficient. Several years back I attended a class at the Home Church on Winchester near Campbell, they have outlets on many light poles in their parking lot, probably intended for decorations or organised events in the parking lot, requiring power for lights, inflatables or even heating of food. Those outlets are properly wired and will keep voltage up pretty well, I am guessing they are wired with 12 gauge and on 20A circuits. No problem to charge while in class. But I did ask before plugging in. I also see many trees in downtown having an outdoor outlet right next to the tree trunk popping up from the soil, I am convinced this is for the outdoor lighting for Christmas and similar events, not for EV charging even though it is possible to plug in, it will probably be frowned upon. Haven't asked though.
Cor van de Water Chief Scientist Proxim Wireless office +1 408 383 7626 Skype: cor_van_de_water XoIP +31 87 784 1130 private: cvandewater.info http://www.proxim.com This email message (including any attachments) contains confidential and proprietary information of Proxim Wireless Corporation. If you received this message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. Any unauthorized use, disclosure, distribution, or copying of any part of this message is prohibited. -----Original Message----- From: EV [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of brucedp5 via EV Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2016 1:56 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [EVDL] Free Street Light L1 charging? [ref http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/Free-Street -Light-L1-charging-tp4681452.html ] I agree with what was posted, that to plug-in would be asking for trouble, and likely you would not get much power = not worth it. EV History: I remember way back in the early 1990's when public EVSE was non-existent, so finding an L1 outlet was gold. While I did have permission to plug into an up-high outlet I had found, I had to regularly go out and check on it as it was 'fun' for the public to walk by and jerk the extension cord (unplugging it from the up-high outlet). You have to keep in mind Oil and Auto were paying huge amounts of money back then to splash the paper media with anti-EV copy (Internet wasn't much to speak of back then & not many were on it to mean anything). So, a lot of EV-hate was put in the minds of the public back then. Not-so-funny how the Internet has been sanitized to remove all such spew from back then (bad-deeds covered up). On another occasion back then, I had just received my S-10 Blazer EV back from the multiple on-board charger updates I paid for. I parked along Saratoga-CA's downtown streets on a cold drizzly-wet late afternoon to plug in to try the new chargers out. The city had left their street tree-lighting outlets on during the day (its affluent tax base were oblivious to wa$te). While I was right that no one really knew what I was doing plugging into the L1 receptacles at the base of each street tree, see http://www.tripimize.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/IMG_2262.jpg I found that those outlets must have been wired with long runs of 16 gauge as I was lucky to get even 5A out of them. I also ran the risk of putting more than one charger on the same breaker (which could have tripped breakers). I disconnected and coiled up my extension cords once I had proven I could plug into multiple outlets and charge. I also had found out those street outlets were not good for charging as they were only good for what they were intended: strings of tiny lights up in the street trees to get/keep her in the mood, etc. Along those streets were expensive shops and over-priced restaurants for visiting over-paid geek-engineers to come and blow money. As I was about to leave, I remember seeing such a guy (wearing BCGs) who was just arriving, likely for a date. I had seen his type all too often at the then booming Silicon Valley Hi-Tech companies. Though he might have been a valuable mental-asset at work, it was a wonder if he could walk and chew gum at the same time ... (Ahh, Vive L'Amour). For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ {brucedp.150m.com} ... http://www.dictionary.com/browse/coke-bottle-glasses BCGs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GI_glasses -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/Free-Street -Light-L1-charging-tp4681452p4681464.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
