I have an EV on order to be delivered in about 5 weeks - I believe far too early for the release of the GivEnergy product which I believe is Q3. Is there somewhere I can get any info on the release of this product or where it is in it's release cycle - will Q3 slip to Q4? For months the web page has just said "...Coming Soon..." which is not really helpful as I will have to 'charge in the wild' until I can install a home charger.
Licks finger, raises it aloft in the wind.....
quarkrad it's available now to pre order for September delivery.
ITS, 485+vat 22nd Sept due in.
Midsummer 455+vat 22nd Sept
I’ve been charging in the wild for the last few months while I wait on the release of the GE charger. I’ve got used to managing things like that for now but looking forward to the release date and getting one installed at home.
I have a unit 'on order' but according to the supplier dates keep slipping. I was hoping to get some info from GivEnergy - being one of their customers and all that .....
quarkrad One thing you could do (although it may not save you installation costs), is to have a power cable installed to where you will install your charger and fit an IP66 3-pin socket there to use with a granny charger. Obviously, the granny charger will take more than twice as long to charge your EV but would give you some amenity while you weigh up the options. We had two 6mm SWA cables installed to potential EV charge points (each with a STP Cat5 cable tie-wrapped to it). One now has a Zappi on the end and the other has an IP66 double socket on for the PHEV that our daughter has. The latter also has a contactor in line so we can switch it on automatically for the off-peak period, or when we are exporting.
Whether you install a power supply prior or at the time, don't forget to put in at least one STP cat5 cable for metering/comms.
Tim you can get actual EV power cable. 4mm with twisted pair comms.
PVC and SWA from toolstation
I've had a 6mm cable and terminal point installed in the garage some time ago ready for a EV charger. I like your suggestion as a temp measure whilst waiting for the GE charger. I'm a little unknowledgeable about the CAT5 cable (I know what a CAT5 cable is) in terms of the metering/comms bit - what do you actual use the cat5 cable for and how is it set up? Thanks.
TheDragon (GivEnergy) Doncaster cables make it - or at least it is the version I’ve heard of.
Yep.
Here's another with Cat5 instead of 2 core twisted
According the the manual you have to connect a comms cable between the charger and the inverter if you want to use excess solar energy to charge your car
quarkrad A data cable is often used for communications between the charge point and other devices (your inverter over Modbus for the GE one) or from a grid CT (between the DNO fuse and your consumer unit) to your charger to divert export to EV.
A shielded twisted pair (STP) cat5/6 would provide up to four Modbus or CT connections or two with a 10Mbps Ethernet connection. Or for the cost, install two cables - one for inverter/charger duty and one to get Ethernet to the garage (if you can see a use in the future).
Tim: My apologies - miss interpreted your post. Yes, I have read about the ethernet cable between the GE charger and inverter and have plenty of these around for when the charger arrives. Thanks for replying.
I do find it interesting that the use of cat5 for ct clamps is often used in solar installs. Only because in my works most ct clamps have a secondary current rating of 5A. I really wouldn’t want to put 5a down Ethernet cable! So I assume they are 1A secondary clamps? Which even then I wouldn’t want to also run modbus in the same cable. In fact the spec for modbus is a 2.5pair cable (yes it exists!) and you can’t have two signals in the same overall cable. The latter I’ve done loads of times and a 4 core is often used with no ill effect - but that is at fairly slow speeds. (19.2k or 38.4)
anglefire so that 185mm2 4 Core I had spare is just about O.K - knew it would come in for something!
hoggy can I watch you terminate it 🤣
anglefire it just needs a bit of a haircut to get it in the EM115 terminals!
anglefire in my works most ct clamps have a secondary current rating of 5A
Most of the CT clamps I've seen/used have an internal resistor within the clamp which are rated to convert the secondary current to a voltage drop, either 0-1Vac or 0-5Vac. But I accept that in an industrial environment, you may want to drop the voltage at the remote end where your instrumentation is. Since the CT will create a proportional current in the secondary, this will drive over long distances so voltage drop doesn't become an issue.
hoggy 185mm2 4 Core I had spare
If you have enough, you could cut in into say 50cm lengths and use the sections as stools?