100 miles of charge overnight from included charger

Apparently the included portable charger works fine with 240V sources as well. This means if you had any kind of 240V receptacle near by, you could make your own pigtail adapter with a regular 120V NEMA 5-15 receptacle wired to the suitable 240V plug for your 240V receptacle. I'd use 14 gauge or better wire for this pigtail/adapter.

The adapter/pigtail would just connect the ground to the ground, and the two 240V hots to each of the two blades of the NEMA 5-15 receptacle. If you made such an adapter, label it with something like "Bolt Charging ONLY. DO NOT USE for anything else.".

The included portable charger would limit amps to 12 maximum, so it would safely work with any 240V source.

I think you would get about 100 miles of charge in a 12 hour session. Anyone tried this?

I have not even removed the included EVSE from it's hidey-hole.
It would be nice to know if it has a label stating the voltage range it's designed for, maybe I'll look at it a little closer someday. The adapter would be easy-peasy to make.

I've found that I use a 240V station, or DCFC pretty much exclusively, I used the L1 that came with my Volt (120V only) for a few weeks back in 2011, and just once more, this year. Once you have 240V available, it's hard to go back.

My major hassle with the included EVSE is the cord wrapping required, I still have not put the one in my Volt back where it belongs because it's such a pain to wrap up...

I have an empty shell and J1772 cable from the very early days of the Volt,16 AWG cable only, but should be good for 12A. I have a little OpenEVSE board and a relay that is destined to make it 120-240V capable.

I have a 240vX30Amp Aerovironment Level 2 Charger That I installed myself, and that Brick that comes in the Hidey Hole for 40 Hour 0-to-Full charge. I thought I'd try the Stock Portable Brick charger on 220V, so made myself a 1 foot Pigtail with adaptation from 220-240 to 110 socket. It Works! I had a tad less than half the power remaining and tried the Pigtail on the portable Brick. It was complete in less than half day of charging.

Comparatives:
Level 2 Charging from 0-to-Full in 24 hours.
Portable Brick 0-to-Full 40 Hours
Portable Brick on 220V Half-to-Full was less than 10 hours.

Conclusion:
1) The Portable Brick on 110V to charge is the BEST way to charge, considering the life expectancy
of the battery. It generates a modest amount of warmth on the battery being charged, and hardly
enough heat to start all the cooling apparatus on the car. It may not be always feasible to charge
this way due to the time it takes to charge, but I use it as often as I can. *LONGEST BATTERY LIFE EXPECTED

2) The Portable Brick on 220V Charge is in the middle. Faster than 110V, but Slower than Level 2
It generates a tad more heat on the battery, but nothing that even started the cooling system fans.
I do notice with the 220V use, there was no choice as to the current limiting on the indotainment
center, as there is when using it on 110V. *MEDIUM PROJECTED LIFE EXPECTANCY PROJECTED

3) The "Big Boy" Aerovironment L2 240V 35Amp Charger. This unit has already caused the cooling
system to activate many times already. (almost always) It does charge FAST, when I need to use the car the following
day, and not much power is left in the batteries. It Works as expected. *SHORTEST PROJECTED BATTERY LIFE EXPECTANCY

My reasoning:
As I was in college traing in Electronics, a rule was given to us in planning, and designing anything.
in all electronic components, a 1 Degree increase in temperature equates to 10 years decrease in productive component life.
I have always kept this in mind when designing anything, and have had a good success rate in having my designs last as long as
or longer than what was deemed "Usable Life expectancy"

So Friends, I do recommend you use the slowest means of charging, whenever feasible, and you will keep your
Bolt EV's great Lithium Battery around for longer than the "T" brand has any cars on the road! :>)

Aloha Bob-

A few notes:

The Aerovironment EVSE-RS available from the dealer is a 32A unit, not a 35A unit. The Bolt can only pull 32A max from an L2 AC EVSE, even if that EVSE can provide more current. Charging from 0 to 100 percent on that EVSE takes 9.5 hours.

While the portable EVSE on 120V might appear to be less stressful on the battery due to lower amount of current, GM engineered the battery system to be able to handle 240V @32A and the resulting thermal stresses. The cooling fans coming on is not in response to some sort of thermal emergency, but rather to keep the battery in an ideal temperature range. The same system will come on to warm the battery if the outside temperature is sufficiently low.

Charging on 120V is less efficient than using 240V, especially towards the end of the charge cycle as the Bolt begins to taper the current. The efficiency can be as low as 70%. L2 efficiency is between 83 and 87% efficient, even towards the end of the charge cycle. I don't know if the expected lifespan increase you might see by always charging using 120V is worth the effeciency loss, or the extra amount of time it takes. For people who are on a Time of Use plan with low overnite rates, the extra time necessary on 120V would dramatically increase the cost to charge the car if they were pushed into partial or peak periods instead of remaining in an off-peak period.

I got this one for around 400. Thoughts?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/263125352524

Bobolinko said:

Level 2 Charging from 0-to-Full in 24 hours.

Click to expand...

That number doesn't sound right, unless the supply to your EVSE is much lower amperage than you think it is. 0-to-full should be 8-10 hours at 240V 30A.

All else being equal, the charging rate is proportional to the watts (=volts x amps) delivered by the charger. 240V 30A should be 5x as fast as 120V 12A.

scooter123 said:

I got this one for around 400. Thoughts?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/263125352524

Click to expand...

How reliable is that company (EVFAST) and their stats?

Let us know how it works for you.

globecanvas said:

Bobolinko said:

Level 2 Charging from 0-to-Full in 24 hours.

Click to expand...

That number doesn't sound right, unless the supply to your EVSE is much lower amperage than you think it is. 0-to-full should be 8-10 hours at 240V 30A.

All else being equal, the charging rate is proportional to the watts (=volts x amps) delivered by the charger. 240V 30A should be 5x as fast as 120V 12A.

Click to expand...

This is roughly true, but not exact. Mostly because "all else" is not equal.

Do we have a feel for the overhead in charging? Basically, the car will likely pull some extra load for TMS, etc, while charging. A lower supply wattage would cause a large overhead, due to more time on the charger. Throw in the fact that 240V is more efficient than 120V (even at the same wattage) due to less boosting (it has to be boosted to ~400V DC either way to charge the battery).

As an alternative to making a pigtail adaptor, could a dedicated "regular" 110v outlet be converted to run at 220 volts? Obviously it would have to be CLEARLY labeled as such, but it might save a bit of voltage drop as it is one less connection.

OUCH!!

trevmar said:

As an alternative to making a pigtail adaptor, could a dedicated "regular" 110v outlet be converted to run at 220 volts? Obviously it would have to be CLEARLY labeled as such, but it might save a bit of voltage drop as it is one less connection.

Click to expand...

So much fail here.
If you don't even know that your outlet is 120V, please don't attempt ANY modifications to your home electrical system. I cringe at the thought of someone pulling wires for a new 240V circuit, and then installing a 120V receptacle. This would all have to be done without a permit or inspection.

A label, "clear" or not, on a 120V outlet modified to provide 240V would violate the NEC and all known electrical codes, is a severe safety hazard, and just plain all around bad idea.

It wouldn't be so bad if the genius that tried this was the one that got fried, but it would most likely be some unsuspecting soul that was innocent of any wrongdoing.

trevmar said:

As an alternative to making a pigtail adaptor, could a dedicated "regular" 110v outlet be converted to run at 220 volts? Obviously it would have to be CLEARLY labeled as such, but it might save a bit of voltage drop as it is one less connection.

Click to expand...

It could be, but it would be asking for trouble. Murphy knows that if it CAN be plugged in, then sooner or later it WILL be plugged in.

I remember seeing a mixed 120/240V dual SOCKET setup being sold. But it was a REAL 240V socket (it looked very similar to a 120V plug, but it was the "official" 240V socket - probably NEMA 6-20, but I wouldn't swear to it). Impossible to plug a 120V appliance into it with modifying the plug on the appliance.

NEMA 6-20 looks like this :




This recepticle will accept both NEMA 6-15 and 6-20 plugs (240V) :

Bobolinko said:

Conclusion:
1) The Portable Brick on 110V to charge is the BEST way to charge, considering the life expectancy
of the battery. It generates a modest amount of warmth on the battery being charged, and hardly
enough heat to start all the cooling apparatus on the car. It may not be always feasible to charge
this way due to the time it takes to charge, but I use it as often as I can. *LONGEST BATTERY LIFE EXPECTED

2) The Portable Brick on 220V Charge is in the middle. Faster than 110V, but Slower than Level 2
It generates a tad more heat on the battery, but nothing that even started the cooling system fans.
I do notice with the 220V use, there was no choice as to the current limiting on the indotainment
center, as there is when using it on 110V. *MEDIUM PROJECTED LIFE EXPECTANCY PROJECTED

3) The "Big Boy" Aerovironment L2 240V 35Amp Charger. This unit has already caused the cooling
system to activate many times already. (almost always) It does charge FAST, when I need to use the car the following
day, and not much power is left in the batteries. It Works as expected. *SHORTEST PROJECTED BATTERY LIFE EXPECTANCY

Click to expand...

Nope. It turns out that Lithium Ion batteries, when recharging, have parasitic chemical reactions occurring that degrade overall useful capacity of the battery. The longer it takes to charge, the more parasitic reactions occur, degrading the battery more.

In actual fact, as long as the battery has an active thermal management system (which the Bolt does), the faster you can charge, the better, for long battery life.

trevmar said:

As an alternative to making a pigtail adaptor, could a dedicated "regular" 110v outlet be converted to run at 220 volts? Obviously it would have to be CLEARLY labeled as such, but it might save a bit of voltage drop as it is one less connection.

Click to expand...

Yes you can, but it wouldn't be done by clear labeling. You would modify the wiring, then you would throw out the 120V receptacle and wire in a NEMA 6-15 or 6-20 receptacle. That way you couldn't accidentally plug a 120V appliance into it.

The bigger problem is that almost all household wiring strings a bunch of 120V receptacles together on the same circuit. If you modified the wiring in the breaker panel, ALL of those 120V receptacles on that same circuit would have to get swapped out for the 240V receptacles.

Occasionally you might find a single 120V receptacle meant for a specific purpose that was on a circuit all by itself. In a garage, it might be for a central vac for instance. So if such a receptacle wasn't being used for anything now, you could make the switch. But in the end, you'd still only end up with a 15A or 20A 240V receptacle. Considering the Bolt can charge with an EVSE that can use a 40A 240V circuit, that's limiting yourself.

Here's another way to do this:

http://www.quick220.com/220_catalog/voltage-converters.html

NeilBlanchard said:

Here's another way to do this:

http://www.quick220.com/220_catalog/voltage-converters.html

Click to expand...

Problem is in the fine print:

** Note: The Quick 220 Power Supply uses two outlets from two different circuits that are out of phase and not controlled by ground fault interupters (GFI's). The Quick 220 Power Supply has built in circuitry to test for the out of phase circuits. A separate tester is supplied to check the outlet for a GFI. Most buildings have numerous outlets that meet these two requirements.

Click to expand...

Anybody have a garage with not one, but two non GFI circuits? Close enough to where you park that you won't string extension cords all over the garage?
If you do happen to have 2 (15A) circuits handy with nothing else plugged in to them, you can charge at ~3 kW.

DucRider said:

NeilBlanchard said:

Here's another way to do this:

http://www.quick220.com/220_catalog/voltage-converters.html

Click to expand...

Problem is in the fine print:

** Note: The Quick 220 Power Supply uses two outlets from two different circuits that are out of phase and not controlled by ground fault interupters (GFI's). The Quick 220 Power Supply has built in circuitry to test for the out of phase circuits. A separate tester is supplied to check the outlet for a GFI. Most buildings have numerous outlets that meet these two requirements.

Click to expand...

Anybody have a garage with not one, but two non GFI circuits? Close enough to where you park that you won't string extension cords all over the garage?
If you do happen to have 2 (15A) circuits handy with nothing else plugged in to them, you can charge at ~3 kW.

Click to expand...

Many garages have non-GFI circuits.

Many garages have two out of phase circuits.

Many garages have one non-GFI circuit, and can easily string the included extension cord to another non-GFI out of phase circuit close by in the house; such as the utility room, etc.

If this is too complicated; and/or not feasible, hire an electrician instead of buying the Quick220.

I'd also be a bit concerned about someone building 240 volt devices but seems to think that they are 220 volts...

LeftieBiker said:

I'd also be a bit concerned about someone building 240 volt devices but seems to think that they are 220 volts...

Click to expand...

The difference is pretty trivial - you do it the same way. The truth is, they used to be 220V, a few decades ago. The power companies bumped them up to 240 without changing a thing, because everything was already built to handle 250V or more. They decided that reducing the headroom from 30V to 10V was a tolerable risk.

The terms "220V" and "110V" are used so often simply for historical reasons. They were used for so long, that they simply have stuck around. So someone calling it 220V when it's technically 240V is really a non issue.

BTW, the voltage on a "240V" circuit can easily drop below 220V under heavy load. A friend of mine in Buffalo regularly sees less than 200V in the summer when all of his neighbors turn on their whole-house A/Cs.