Home charge points (purchase/problems/questions) (See mod note post#1)

kennethsmyth

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118246455#Comment_118246455

Lets be honest, isolators are silly in the context that anyone can disconnect your car charging and additionally looks naff. The charger is essentially a 32amp socket. I understand the regs but its a silly reg.

crisco10

If I want to be future proof with regard to solar pv… is the zappi my only option?

L'prof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118179626#Comment_118179626

Just a quick update on my experience. Electric Ireland installer arrived yesterday and I was told that they couldn’t install a type 2 tethered charger as our car is type 1. The best he could do was install an untethered charger for us as it’s not advised to use adapters to convert from type 2 to 1 🙄

Fuming with the electric Ireland rep who said this would be an option and also the 2nd rep who finalised the order even though they knew it was a type 1 car that we had

We went ahead with that anyway but now we still can’t charge our bloody car at home without running an extension lead out the window. We’ll get sorted eventually but is it any wonder there’s so much resistance to switching to EV with faulty towers-esque outcomes like this 🤦‍♂️

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118248158#Comment_118248158

I bought my car from www.electricautos.ie and they appear to be direct suppliers of Zappis at 900e after VAT. (Not certain if a great price / standard / terrible)

Would it make more sense for your regular electrician to buy from them and fit?

CoBo55

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250505#Comment_118250505

Why can't you use the car's cable that you'd use at a 22Kw public charger?

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118249200#Comment_118249200

No, several others support Solar integration too.

Hypervolt

Andersen

Elli (i.e. VW, Seat etc) has the hardware included but the software isnt ready yet

And Im sure there are a few more too.

Manion

The Andersen has solar support. You can configure how much solar to use to power the car and you can have overrides as well. From reading around the zappi has a lot more modes for combination of Solar and Battery and Grid.

Screenshot_20211201-112140.jpg

Re isolators, I can see its debated over and over on the forum. I noticed the other night after watching another charger installation, that it doesn't seem to be a requirement at all in the UK if the unit itself has overload protect and can be locally isolated. So I'm not worried tbh. Frankly my set up seems safer than what the minimum. I've a mains isolator duel pole, I've an RCB going back to the house consumer unit and I've an RCBO for the charger on top of the overload protection in the device itself. The minimum setup provides for far less protection.

L'prof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251576#Comment_118251576

It didn’t come with one. 3 pin only. Pain in the face

Edit: maybe I should have mentioned it’s a PHEV?

CoBo55

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252832#Comment_118252832

That's a right royal pain in the nuts alright, mine came with both the dial up charger and a proper cable I've a phev too. Did you buy yours from a dealer? I'm sure it would have come with both cables originally.

L'prof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118254400#Comment_118254400

Yeah but not a main dealer. We didn’t know any better. He showed us the charger in the boot and didn’t mention the public one. We got back to him and he gave us some tosh about it being an optional extra when it was initially purchased 🤦‍♂️

I’ve looked online and can’t source a type 2 to type 1. I did find one Irish site but it wouldn’t let me checkout from my basket 🙄 I’ve rang a main dealer now and they said they can get one in by Friday. Just waiting to hear back on how much

fafy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118228457#Comment_118228457

They are a fine charger, and by far the most discreet on the market, most people don’t even realise its an EV Charger, and it has a great user friendly and reliable app, app support is excellent. The unit is Expensive, but its a long term investment, and great to get a 3 year warranty included.

EV Power Ireland had mine installed last July, 4 weeks from order, the lead times from 2 other quotes was up to 12 weeks, but i had asked Andersen UK directly, about recommended installers in Ireland & EV Power Ireland were top of their list.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118255047#Comment_118255047

They are the best looking charger for sure, but the most discrete is the EO Mini.

fafy

Yes EO mini is indeed very discreet, if untethered, but there is no comparison to an EO mini Pro 2 tethered, and an Andersen A2

This “hose reel” setup with EO Mini

Or, Andersen A2, all cables hidden away:

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256218#Comment_118256218

absolutely, of the tethered chargers the Andersen is the one,

how anyone could look at a tethered EO at the front of their house is beyond me 😁

fafy

It might not be too bad, if its at the side of a house, out of view, i had to place our charger out front, as two cars are parked side by side, so have the Andersen A2 in the middle, so either EV can be easily charged, and had zero interest in taking cables, in and out of car boots, and back in again afterwards - especially in the cold and wet winters we get here.

Neighbour got a zappi, they are probably the next best in terms of looks, its a good option, but Andersen betters it.

Manion

It's a lot to do with the asthetics of your property. Neighbor got a zappi installed and it looks wicked. A big lump of plastic mounted on the house. It's clearly had design though put into it but it won't work everywhere.

The Andersen was outrageously expensive to install, coming in just shy of 2400 euro for us.

Brexit apparently has added a significant amount of overhead and the chap was telling me that getting them through customs has turned into a full time Job with antequated customs systems in Ireland. I'm not surprised that most of the Irish sites claiming to sell them have stopped providing quotes for installation. At the end of the day I felt it was a one off purchase and could see what several of the neighbors had done, it would annoy forever having something industrial looking at the front of the house.

fafy

I was the same, could not be looking at a hose reel setup.

€1,945 (less €600 grant) is what i paid for Andersen A2 from EV Power Ireland, in July this year, only needed the 5m tether length, fuse board was at other end of the house, roughly 7 meters away from charge point location.Came with 3 years warranty.

Definitely expensive, but delighted with it overall

Manion

I think you got lucky with your timing, I know new rules came in to effect in July/August so it's a lot more difficult on the import side. My installation was slightly more complicated as they needed a sub consumer unit in the meter box.

Out of interest, when it's run directly back to the main board, is it just a 32 amp RCB they installed or an RCBO?

fafy

Its run back directly to fuse board, thats the extent of my electrical knowledge on this ! and i get up to 7.1 KW into my i3, but oddly, it drops to about 6.7 KW when charging the wife’s E-Niro.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256964#Comment_118256964

I think the eniro measures whats going into the battery after the AC/DC conversion losses.

Also grid voltage can come into play too.

fafy

What I meant is, the Andersen A2 app, tells me these numbers are being outputted, when each EV is charging.

Manion

Could be several factors I'd guess, including coincidence. Since the cars charge on a curve it might not make any difference. Maybe the e Niro is limiting it in some way.

fafy

Not coincidence, its all the time, the output to the i3 is always higher, could be just down to better German engineering !

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118258290#Comment_118258290

Interesting, Mine pulls a flat 32amps until nearly 100% (i think it start to taper around 95%)

What does the eniro say when it's charging?

I wonder does the i3 be a little bit naughty and pull more than 32amps.

fafy

On the i3, it varies, (i did say, “up to”)they all vary, but have seen it hit 7.1 KW regularly, allthough, its 6.9 to 7.0 kw most of the time, so could just be a slightly inaccurate output reading.

E-niro never goes above 6.7kw on the Andersen app- output reading.

I’l check the E-niro dash readout of the charge input, during the next charge.

Summer2020

Got my own install today. Happy enough with it and delighted they went from meter box and not fuse board as it's not visible from the front of the house.

NCC1701

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118279875#Comment_118279875

Hi. I've a similar house layout to you and have been put off thinking about going down the EV route because to get to my fuseboard would entail crawling through a roofspace in my garage conversion. Were there any problems linking up to the meter box?

Manion

IMG_20211127_131005__01.jpg

Well mine is done from the meter as well. No issues what so ever. This is the set up you end up with. A new main consumer unit and your existing one becomes a sub unit. Might be marginally more expensive I'd guess due to the extras.

Summer2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118283425#Comment_118283425

None whatsoever. House is quite old 30 years but the meter had been upgraded to a smart meter recently and the tails had been upgraded during that. Think he mentioned he put a mini tripswitch or something in the meter box also.

Edit as above post. I've the same mini consumer unit in the meter box now also

NCC1701

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118284240#Comment_118284240

My house is 26 years old too and I also had a smart meter installed recently. Looks like it won't be an issue to get a charger similar to yours installed then.