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

Hypervolt 2.0 also here 18 months now. No problems. Very solid unit. My only mistake was not getting the 7.5m cable when I first ordered the unit. I replaced the 5m cable a couple months ago. I also use an adapter with it to charge the type 1 Leaf.

Their customer service is excellent I have found. Definitely get the longer cable from the start. The 7.5M still wraps around the unit neatly. It’s got a large face profile alright, but it’s neat.

Have you a link to that ?

Can any of the new home charge points work on a power limiting schedule?

I only want the charger to pull 3-4kW from 6am to midnight. But after midnight to 6am it can pull the full 7kW.

Cheers.

It's basically so I won't have to install a priority switch during the day. I don't want the charger pulling 7kW when I'll have the oven and induction hob and all the other bits in the house on.

Does the zappi need the harvi to be able to load sense and back off? Or does it just have a clamp on the mains incoming?

Yup just got the zappi installed, have electric showers and the install didn't require a priority box. As listermint mentioned, it has a clamp that measures the current coming into the house and will automatically adjust the output to the car to suit.

Also handy as you can use it to see what's the power hungry devices in the house!

Why?

the Ohme works that way it’s tarts off slowly conditioning the battery and then ramps up as it approaches the desired set time. So if you want set the car to be ready at 8am. It’ll charge at 4kwh for a while and ramp up at say 6am to give you whatever charge you want by 8am. ( it has an API that reads the cars SOC from

the cars app

So I don't have to install a priority switch.

Cool. Cheers.

just make sure you have the space, i couldnt have got an emporia set up into my consumer unit went with two shelly ems instead.

I'm slightly confused.

Are you saying that all in it cost €395 ?

I can't see that deal anywhere.

Ya space is a commodity in irish the Irish CUs alright. I think I've enough room there the live feeds are fairly clean.

What I had hoped would be a straightforward process has turned into an absolute palaver. I've a 70's house that was rewired in 2013 with a new distribution board. Smart meter installed a couple of years ago. Got my grant app in just before Christmas, and am trying to get my act together to get the install done before it runs out in June.

So, three quotes requested to different installers online, all asked for a photo of the meter cabinet, distribution board and the proposed location of the charger.

First company came back with 'we're not touching it until you've upgraded the meter tails, ring your electrician'.

Second firm told me that they were "confident that your property will need a periodic inspection prior to an EV charger being installed" and wanted to send out someone (not specifying if it was an electrician, elec eng, or salesperson) and charge me 350 euro for the privilege, to tell me what 'upgrade works' needed to be done, and that the 350 would be refunded if I did the works with them.

Third firm sent out someone (again I don't know whether an electrician or sales guy), who looked in the meter cabinet, proclaimed my red & black meter tails were fine (16), and claimed that the other crowds who did the photo-based check use a simple rule of red/black=no, yellow/green=yes without actually knowing the cable CSA.

I asked him about getting the charger connected via the meter cabinet as allowed for here: https://safeelectric.ie/contractors/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/MarchNewsletterSafeElecFinal-1.pdf since I'd rather not have the house hacked apart to get back to the distribution board inside.

Answer was that he'd seen it done by subcontractors before & should be possible but more expensive due to requiring more electrical equipment in the meter box (I assume a big RCBO & an isolation switch as per p6 of the safelectric document). Then I get the final quote by email from the company and they would only offer to do the install via the distribution board, so the house hacking would be required.

Pain in the ass all round with three different answers from three companies. At this stage I might just replace the car with another diesel.

Lovely. Sounds like a half arsed job done 10 years ago so. Probably safe to assume that replacing the mains cables in my house is an awkward or difficult job if it wasn't done as part of the rewire then...

Thanks for the updated safelectric document- that's good info and explains why the installer wont do it in my house. I wasn't clear enough in my post- I'm happy with the new kit being attached to the wall outside the meter cabinet, rather than inside it, but it seems like the installers are taking the safelectric guidelines to heart and only recommending it as an 'installation of last resort' which, tbf in my case, it isnt. Its just tidier not to have to drill holes in my front wall and try to hide cable at the front of the house, plus the mess inside with conduit/trunking/whatever its called hiding new cable around the distribution board. If it's all installed outside it's hidden around the side of the house and theres no mess.

Right, time to decide whether its worth investigating spending a fortune getting these mains cables upgraded or just buying a diesel car.