Reliable and safe should be the priorities for ev charging not low cost
As you said, the car side is dealt with by the car itself. There are some minor issues (read the YouTube comments, people on YouTube love to comment about safety, justified or not!) but overall quite reasonable from a safety perspective.
This is a slow charger and that car is not that different from a regular appliance from the charger point of view.
Edit: my buddy is ex-googler. IQ is twice his weight. I wouldn’t trust him any electrical cable. He can work on ground breaking theories, but breaks everything what he touches with his hands.
Certain professionals should be licensed, because people need to know they are safe, but within your personal domain you should have a lot more freedom.
Because shit causes fires and burns my house down. That’s not to say it can’t be done safely, and if you’ve got the space to do it away from other people, such that the only person you hurt is yourself, then by all means I think you should be able to do your thing. But codes should come into play when it's being done in a garage attached to a home where the partner, kids, and dog live. if I blow myself up, that's totally on me. taking other people with me isn't okay.
Not all of it; the whole point of having a controller on the wall box is that there's mains power in the cable only while it's plugged into a vehicle (and that this power is removed immediately if the cable is pulled out from the vehicle, which could help prevent arcing on the contacts if it happens while charging).
That is completely wrong.
The EVSE is responsible for implementing a GFCI cutoff as well as an over-current cutoff. Those are both safety features. A failure in the car's insulation resulting in a short to the frame is a shock hazard. A shock hazard also exists if the charge cord insulation is damaged. A bug in the car's charger firmware that results in too much current draw is a fire hazard.
Additionally, the EVSE must keep the contactor open unless the plug is attached to the car (sensed via the [edit: pilot, not proximity] pin). Again, a safety feature because the J1772 plug is large enough for a finger to accidentally contact the conductors.
Yet another is that the EVSE informs the car of the maximum safe current via a PWM signal. Too much current = fire.
The car can't help you with any of those safety aspects.
Because yes, some homes are really vulnerable to electrical problems. And no, you can't trust any device (high-branded, non-name, DIY, whatever) on such homes. You can't even trust them to handle electricity being available, without any device consuming it.
A smart electrical switch toggling dozens of amps over several hours... this might be getting outside the realm of what I trust cheap chinese amazon products with fake, misleading, or no UL certifications to handle.
So like two microwaves. It's also not running 20 amps through the Arduino, if the switch the software is flipping is rated for that much power then it's fine.
People suspect the traditional duty cycle used in rating these has been more for dryers, kilns, or welders, where they're active for an hour tops or at least not drawing full current. An EVSE can be at full power much longer, making the rating... less reflective of real-world conditions. I've heard there's a new rating system coming out designed especially for EVSE-sized duty cycles.
And that's not even getting into things like torque specs for the connections, etc.
None of this is blocking a dedicated, well-researched, and properly equipped DIYer, but at this level of power, there's enough "tricks of the trade" involved where the risk-to-reward ratio falls maybe outside the casual "buy things off AliExpress and who cares if the magic smoke comes out" range.
At this current, spending an extra couple hundred bucks might be worth it to have an actual company with a non-made-up-syllables name and a non-Shanghai-alley address that my insurance company can go after if my garage goes up in flames because their UL claims were misleading.
You’re probably thinking about DC fast charging, where the charger is external to the car and connects directly to the battery. Nobody should be trying to make _that_ themselves with an Arduono, sure.
Getting the amperage wrong or sending power when the car is not ready both sound like astoundingly dangerous failure modes for a DIY project, even if the most damage is bricking your car's battery controller.
The EVSE is talking to the onboard charger, the on board charger is what actually interacts with the batteries. The EVSE has a specific resistance inline with a comm pin to indicate presence (even when unplugged from the wall) and modulates a frequency on the comm pin to indicate max amperage. The car puts a specific resistance on a different comm pin to request that the contactors close to connect the charger to wall power. Any problems or bugs thereafter are with the onboard charger, not the EVSE.
A 10A outdoor charger probably also deserves it's own breaker.
If you are not comfortable with high voltage electrical work, or are not familiar with basic components of the electrical code that governs your area, then definitely don't do this. But mass-labeling the work of others as unsafe or harmful is not appropriate either.
You have a good source for this? I see claims like this every time a discussion of this sort and they rarely come with any citations.
Insurance will pay out, provided electrical fires are covered by your policy.
They will then do their best to assign liability and pursue subrogation. If you did the work yourself, you're liable. If you're insured for that work, they'll come after your insurer. If you're not, they'll come after you. If your work is permitted and to code, you'll probably be fine, if not, good luck!
So it looks like you're correct! Unlicensed work appears to be covered, but you may paid AND sued.
For example, DIYing electrical work in Australia is illegal. https://www.electricalsafety.qld.gov.au/electrical-safety-ho...
> Not only is it breaking the law, but you could also jeopardise your insurance!
> Changing powerpoints or light switches might seem simple, but unless you are trained and qualified, there are lots of risks you just won’t know about. Never attempt to do your own electrical work – you could kill or injure yourself or your family, or start a fire. Always use a licensed electrician.
Unless Australia has a much lower rate of home electrical accidents than rest of the world, I refuse to believe that this is a good thing.
Sorry, a bit offtopic but that partiular thing really grinds my gears, especially since it covers any cabling that goes inside your wall, so even just running an HDMI cable inside your wall requires a certified electrician to sign off on it.
Home insurance policies (in the US) often cover negligence including faulty electrical work. If it's in your contract, they will pay.
Insurance companies will then do their job, which is to find someone liable and send them the bill (subrogation). If you did the work, you're the responsible party.
TL;DR: Burning your house down is probably covered by insurance, but that doesn't mean you're not liable.