Don't know anymore details, I'm in Oregon and I saw this happened in "Newport
Oregon" which is directly on the Oregon Coast. I think thesechargers are
within spitting distance of the ocean.
Lot's of rain/salt/wind here especially . Tough environment for outside
electrical connections especially probably aluminum ones. Also (and I speak
fromexperience), URD (underground rated) has a much thicker heavier insulation
on it, and it's difficult to get that insulation off WITHOUT
accidentally"nicking" the aluminum wires which are much more brittle than
copper and mechanically weakens them alot. I'm fairly careful, but I've
screwed upand seen a connection I thought was good turn out that half the
strands broke later.
One thing that seemed to help was to use one of those little "close cutter pipe
cutters" to take off the insulation.
underground Aluminum feeder wire is MUCH cheaper for high amperage connections
so it's everywhere.
-- If we don't halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be
done for us by nature, brutally and without pity - and will leave a ravaged
world. Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry W. Kendall
On Friday, December 2, 2022 at 11:03:56 AM PST, Lee Hart via EV
<[email protected]> wrote:
Peter Eckhoff via EV wrote:
> I found this link yesterday (Sandy Munro's channel):
> https://youtu.be/tDp9PhPJhUI
>
> It shows what can happen with a Level 2 installation and voices
> concerns for the need for better standards of home installations of
> EVSEs.
It's a good video showing what can go wrong. But it's worth noting that
even these drastic failures did NOT cause a fire or shock hazard. The
safety standards did what they are supposed to do.
The examples all appeared to use aluminum wire. It's much harder to make
a reliable connection with it. Aluminum wire should only be used with
connectors explicitly rated for it. Aluminum is also less conductive
than copper, so you have to de-rate the devices accordingly.
Another aspect is the duty cycle. When UL rates something as "60 amps",
that's the maximum current; not the average current rating. Electrical
items should not be used continuously at more than 80% of its max rating.
Finally, there was no failure analysis as to whether these items were
actually UL listed, and installed correctly in the first place. I've
seen a lot of things that claim to be UL listed but are in fact cheap
offshore junk with fake UL markings. And I've often found electrical
installations with undersized wire or connectors, or where the screws
were never fully tightened, etc. I think these are the real problems.
(It also irked me that they continuously referred to the EVSE
connections as the "charger". But that's just me.)
Lee Hart
--
"#3 pencils and quadrille pads." -- Seymour Cray, when asked
what CAD tools he used to design the Cray I supercomputer
--
Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com
--
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