Which home charging point?
Discussion
Jonny_ said:
I would suggest avoiding EO, mine is 18 months old and has been nothing but trouble for much of that period.
It's no fun finding that your car hasn't been charged overnight and you've insufficient range to get to work and back.
EO customer support is abysmal; they seem to operate on the principle of "it can't possibly be our product, it must be user error". And that's if you can even get them to answer the phone.
It's getting ripped out and returned next week, and an Easee One fitted in its place, which comes highly recommended and hopefully will just quietly do its job. The installer (who in fairness have been excellent) have stopped supplying EO chargers, due to both the volume of faults they've encountered and the problems that they themselves have had in dealing with EO.
It's a fundamental issue that affects most/all manufacturers. Most started up selling (electrical) EV chargers and then software came in and they needed to become an IT company too, but none did a very good job of it. EO actually did put a lot of resources into it but even this weekend we had a past customer complaining that EO didn't want to know. As the original installer we end up being a customer complaints dept for manufacturers.It's no fun finding that your car hasn't been charged overnight and you've insufficient range to get to work and back.
EO customer support is abysmal; they seem to operate on the principle of "it can't possibly be our product, it must be user error". And that's if you can even get them to answer the phone.
It's getting ripped out and returned next week, and an Easee One fitted in its place, which comes highly recommended and hopefully will just quietly do its job. The installer (who in fairness have been excellent) have stopped supplying EO chargers, due to both the volume of faults they've encountered and the problems that they themselves have had in dealing with EO.
Manufacturers also rely on the charger's installer to fix the warranty issues but pay so little for (us) to do so that it just isn't worth it. A few have their own guys but, for example, EO (floated this year for $500m) only have 2 to cover the entire UK!
Some are better than others but none are very good or very well resourced to support their warranties. This situation will improve but it is unlikely to do so any time soon...
Edited by Frimley111R on Monday 19th December 09:09
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We have two Easee chargers, touch wood, seem to work well and very compact.
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That's good to hear!
Mine was installed this morning. Nice tidy little thing, barely any bigger than the EO was. Only used it once so far, briefly, to give it a quick function check. But in terms of the app and the responsiveness of the charging point it's light years ahead of the EO.
Have bought a 10m cable which I'll leave locked to the Easee unit to effectively make a tethered charger. The extra length (who doesn't need a bit of extra length???) means I can reverse park rather than drive in forwards, hurrah!
We have two Easee chargers, touch wood, seem to work well and very compact.
[/quote]
That's good to hear!
Mine was installed this morning. Nice tidy little thing, barely any bigger than the EO was. Only used it once so far, briefly, to give it a quick function check. But in terms of the app and the responsiveness of the charging point it's light years ahead of the EO.
Have bought a 10m cable which I'll leave locked to the Easee unit to effectively make a tethered charger. The extra length (who doesn't need a bit of extra length???) means I can reverse park rather than drive in forwards, hurrah!
I've had two Zappi's installed today and am very pleased with them and the overall level of thought that has gone into designing the product.
One interesting observation is that the 22kW units are supported in a single phase deployment. I wish I had known this 10 months ago because I was waiting to get my power supply upgraded from 1 --> 3 phases before I committed to an install. I could have bought one early on and installed it for 7.4kW charging in the interim period instead of sweating it with a granny charger all that time. The 3 phase unit is about £100 more but also comes with 3 CT clamps instead of 1 which helps narrow the difference if you have need for them.
I've provided hard wired ethernet connections to both of mine and have disabled the legacy RF radio so they talk to each other via ethernet with one unit also providing the 'vHub' function interfacing with myEnergi online. There is no need for the extra hub to provide ethernet connectivity any more and no RF/wireless dependencies. The unit nearest the meter is hard-wired with CT clamps back to the incoming 3 phases but for the second unit, I provided an extra Cat6 enabling me to access it's CT ports in the future when I had some solar/storage without having to fish more cables in and risk compromising the sealing.
You can setup a group limit between the chargers so if somebody wants to deploy a couple of chargers for convenience but restrict the charging current to meet a DNO approval for a single charger then that's easily done. This means I can physically plug two cars in and let the Zappi's balance the charging currents rather than have to go outside to swap cables over late at night.
Really good install overall and I look forward to seeing it integrate with some solar and batteries in the future.
One interesting observation is that the 22kW units are supported in a single phase deployment. I wish I had known this 10 months ago because I was waiting to get my power supply upgraded from 1 --> 3 phases before I committed to an install. I could have bought one early on and installed it for 7.4kW charging in the interim period instead of sweating it with a granny charger all that time. The 3 phase unit is about £100 more but also comes with 3 CT clamps instead of 1 which helps narrow the difference if you have need for them.
I've provided hard wired ethernet connections to both of mine and have disabled the legacy RF radio so they talk to each other via ethernet with one unit also providing the 'vHub' function interfacing with myEnergi online. There is no need for the extra hub to provide ethernet connectivity any more and no RF/wireless dependencies. The unit nearest the meter is hard-wired with CT clamps back to the incoming 3 phases but for the second unit, I provided an extra Cat6 enabling me to access it's CT ports in the future when I had some solar/storage without having to fish more cables in and risk compromising the sealing.
You can setup a group limit between the chargers so if somebody wants to deploy a couple of chargers for convenience but restrict the charging current to meet a DNO approval for a single charger then that's easily done. This means I can physically plug two cars in and let the Zappi's balance the charging currents rather than have to go outside to swap cables over late at night.
Really good install overall and I look forward to seeing it integrate with some solar and batteries in the future.
I'm going to start getting quotes for a home charger next week. Quite a few installers want me to answer a questionnaire and send photos of the consumer unit etc. They will then provide a quote but its understandably caveated in case there is more to the job than they expect.
Is this normal?
Any other electrical work I've had done on my house, no matter how small, such as installing a new external power socket, the electrician has come over to see what I want and provided a quote based on what they've seen.
Is this normal?
Any other electrical work I've had done on my house, no matter how small, such as installing a new external power socket, the electrician has come over to see what I want and provided a quote based on what they've seen.
UrbanAchiever said:
I'm going to start getting quotes for a home charger next week. Quite a few installers want me to answer a questionnaire and send photos of the consumer unit etc. They will then provide a quote but its understandably caveated in case there is more to the job than they expect.
Is this normal?
Any other electrical work I've had done on my house, no matter how small, such as installing a new external power socket, the electrician has come over to see what I want and provided a quote based on what they've seen.
Yes. Fairly normal. Is this normal?
Any other electrical work I've had done on my house, no matter how small, such as installing a new external power socket, the electrician has come over to see what I want and provided a quote based on what they've seen.
UrbanAchiever said:
I'm going to start getting quotes for a home charger next week. Quite a few installers want me to answer a questionnaire and send photos of the consumer unit etc. They will then provide a quote but its understandably caveated in case there is more to the job than they expect.
Is this normal?
Any other electrical work I've had done on my house, no matter how small, such as installing a new external power socket, the electrician has come over to see what I want and provided a quote based on what they've seen.
They want to see what size fuse your house has, 60/80/100 and get an idea of how many circuits / amps from main circuit board.Is this normal?
Any other electrical work I've had done on my house, no matter how small, such as installing a new external power socket, the electrician has come over to see what I want and provided a quote based on what they've seen.
If it’s 60, it’ll prob need an upgrade request to be submitted to national grid as first step.
Both our chargers spur off just after the metre with their own mini rcb
Has anyone seen a tear down of these hi amp portable chargers that look like a granny charger but with a commando socket attached, do they have the safety mechanisms just to plug into a commando socket and if it has a big enough feed then you can charge at 32a?
I use my granny charger quite a lot out and about and it would be the same concept I assume?
I use my granny charger quite a lot out and about and it would be the same concept I assume?
thebraketester said:
UrbanAchiever said:
I'm going to start getting quotes for a home charger next week. Quite a few installers want me to answer a questionnaire and send photos of the consumer unit etc. They will then provide a quote but its understandably caveated in case there is more to the job than they expect.
Is this normal?
Any other electrical work I've had done on my house, no matter how small, such as installing a new external power socket, the electrician has come over to see what I want and provided a quote based on what they've seen.
Yes. Fairly normal. Is this normal?
Any other electrical work I've had done on my house, no matter how small, such as installing a new external power socket, the electrician has come over to see what I want and provided a quote based on what they've seen.
I think that a lot of electricians just aren't geared up to use photos, even though it is pretty easy, and so do stuff the old way.
[quote=__]
Easee was the best I could find, discrete, good app and does the job
[/quote]
Good suggestion but it's about £100-£150 more than others like Hypervolt and Ohme because it doesn't come with a charging cable. I do like that it has the flexibility of tethered/untethered via the lock mechanism.
Easee was the best I could find, discrete, good app and does the job
[/quote]
Good suggestion but it's about £100-£150 more than others like Hypervolt and Ohme because it doesn't come with a charging cable. I do like that it has the flexibility of tethered/untethered via the lock mechanism.
DodgyGeezer said:
Blib said:
Just had this delivered. Charger of one's choice is secreted within. (Base not pictured).
It lights up and EVERYTHING!
WOW!! That looks amazing It lights up and EVERYTHING!
The only issues I can see are:- quite expensive
- I could see this 'going walkies' if placed on the driveway
It will be well anchored down too.
A shout out for the Zappi, had mine for six months and experienced a connection loss recently, first and only issue I have had. Their technical support is very good, something many of us fail to consider when making the buying decision, had it up and working within minutes with no hassle at all.
A500leroy said:
novice question.
Whats wrong with a standard 3 pin plug?
They are slow. I kept 2 cars running with a 3 pin plug for 10 months and just about managed, but having one or two proper chargers is significantly more convenient. Being able to charge your car in a narrower time window also helps take advantage of preferential off-peak charging rates.Whats wrong with a standard 3 pin plug?
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