[USe-car]

I have an old Voltec charger that I bought in 2012 when I bought a Gen I Volt. It has worked flawlessly all these years and now charges our Gen II Volt. I'm thinking about replacing it just because of age.

This old Voltec charger works on a 20A circuit, and all the new ones (different brands) work on a 30A circuit. Because the new ones work on a higher amp circuit, does that mean that these new ones charge the battery faster? Doesn't the vehicle limit how much amperage it will allow to charge the battery?

I'm thinking of a Clipper Creek

Thanks for the responses.

 

[mpmoore1979]

The car will only take 12 amps at 120 volts, the outlet rating is more for safety than actual usage.

Here is the actual requirements from your owner manual.

Electrical Requirements for Battery Charging
This vehicle is capable of being charged with most standard vehicle charging equipment complying with one or more of the following:

•SAE J1772
•SAE J2847-2
•IEC 61851-1
•IEC 61851-22
•IEC 61851-23
•IEC 61851-24
•IEC 62196-1
•IEC 62196-2
•IEC 62196-3
•ISO 15118
•GB/T 18487.1
•GB/T 20234.1
•GB/T 20234.2
The following are the minimum requirements for circuits used to charge this vehicle:

•120 volts/15 amps
•240 volts/20 amps
Charging equipment with a rating of at least 240 volts/20 amps will provide the fastest charging time and best charging efficiency to recharge the high voltage battery. 240 volt/40 amp circuits provide flexibility for future vehicle charging needs. Always follow the charging equipment installation instructions. Contact your dealer for more information.

 

[canehdian]

You could have 80A available from the wall, but volt will not charge any faster than a 20A circuit. The on-board charger is the limiting factor.
Similar to how you can use a USB phone charger on a 15A circuit - despite (relatively) vast amounts of available power in the circuit, the charger is designed to only draw a certain amount, nothing more.

 

[ghostgs1]

I think I would wait for your old unit to fail. Maybe have your new desired unit researched and ready to buy, but the old one might be an outlier and run well for years to come. Just my two cents.

 

[Steverino]

You are lucky. My unit died at 12 months 3 weeks. 3 weeks outside the warranty window.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I have an old Voltec charger that I bought in 2012 when I bought a Gen I Volt. It has worked flawlessly all these years and now charges our Gen II Volt. I'm thinking about replacing it just because of age.

This old Voltec charger works on a 20A circuit, and all the new ones (different brands) work on a 30A circuit. Because the new ones work on a higher amp circuit, does that mean that these new ones charge the battery faster? Doesn't the vehicle limit how much amperage it will allow to charge the battery?

I'm thinking of a Clipper Creek

Thanks for the responses.

Turbocord is available for NEMA 6-20 if you want one with a plug for a 20A circuit.

LCS-20 can be hard-wired on a 20A circuit. It's a 16A Level 2.
https://store.clippercreek.com/lcs-20-lcs-20p-16-amp-level-2-ev-charging-station.

Clipper Creek: with a plug the minimum you can buy is 30A (NEMA 14-30).

You could get a hard-wired and get someone to put a 20A plug on it.

There's also Brad who posts on here occasionally from whom you can buy custom EVSEs.

Gen 2 Volt charges up to 15A, I think. (240V x 15A = 3600VA).

 

[Cord]

My original ( the old one with a re-call) is still working outside under a open car port for almost 5 years so you never know.

PS the EVSE -- so called charger cable is outside the car and the charger is a unit inside the car.

the Volt will ONLY adjust to 6-8-12 amps at 120 Volts it follows a (suggesation) sent by one of the wires in the EVSE.
This is the 2011-2012 unit.

 

[llninja]

Like others said. So a 30A charger will charge a tesla faster than a 20A, but your volt won't draw that much current. Keep your Voltec charger until it breaks, or until you buy an EV that can use a higher current.

 

[Sean_R]

To expand on what Cord said, the J1772 charging cord protocol includes a means for the EVSE "charging station" on your garage wall to communicate to the car's internal charger how much current is available for charging (see Wikipedia's entry on SAE_J1772 for how this works).

I recently bought an Emotorwerks Juicebox for my garage, and wanted to run it off of a 20 A, 240 VAC outlet I already have in the garage. However, there are a few smaller loads that also draw from one of that circuit's breakers, so I wanted to have the Juicebox provide slightly less than the possible 20 A for charging, just in case the additional loads might cause the circuit breakers to blow as my 2017 Volt tried to draw power.

Fortunately, the Juicebox is very configurable, and you can change the available circuit current settings within the Juicebox by 1 A increments. I set my Juicebox up for an 18 A maximum, to give 2 A of margin for the other loads on my circuit. The Juicebox then communicates that 18 A is the maximum current draw available to my Volt via the J1772 protocol, and the Volt's charger (should) draw no more than that 18 A level.

Having said that, I haven't actually been able to park in the garage yet this season, so I still have to verify this setup will work properly... but I will be charging at home soon!

 

[srs5694]

Like others said. So a 30A charger will charge a tesla faster than a 20A, but your volt won't draw that much current. Keep your Voltec charger until it breaks, or until you buy an EV that can use a higher current.

I'll add my voice to this chorus. AFAIK, there are no safety concerns simply because an EVSE is ~4-5 years old -- and if you were concerned about safety, it might make more sense to have an electrician look over the equipment. I don't know about EVSEs specifically, but electronics generally tend to either break soon after they're installed or last a long time, with no firm "expiration date." Sure, it might break tomorrow -- but it might also last another ten years. If you replace it before it stops working, you're just throwing money away. You've (presumably) got the level 1 charger that came with your car, so you can rely on that for a few days until a replacement arrives, should your current level 2 charger fail without warning.

An exception would be if your needs have changed -- if you need a longer cord, if you're charging a car that can take more than the 16 amps your current unit can deliver, etc. If you want the extra data features of something like a ChargePoint or JuiceBox/JuiceNet unit, that might also be cause to upgrade -- but there's a JuiceNet adapter that's supposed to work with an existing EVSE's plug to add such features, so you might look into that if all you want is a web interface.

 

[Farkwar]

Last week, my 2012 Voltec unit gave up the ghost and I replaced it with a Dostar Level 2 cheapo (which showed up in two days--days of painful Level 1 charging). We like it just fine. I have a 2013 Gen 1 and my wife has the '17 Gen 2 and we share the L2.

What's weird is both our cars seem to be getting to a full charge more quickly than before. But that may just be buyer's ecstasy.