Restoration of a "Broken" Eaton EVSE

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PV1

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I was going to put this under pictures, but they aren't pictures of the i-MiEV, so EVSE seemed a better fit.

About a year and a half ago, I was able to obtain an Eaton charging station that was headed to the dumpster. All I knew was that it was "broke". Granted, knowing where the station was located, I knew it wouldn't charge Nissan LEAFs with the 6.6 kW on-board charger. Still, I jumped at the chance, figuring that at the least I'd have a neat display unit for events, and at the most, a simple fix would mean a working station to at least charge my cars. Somehow, I lucked out that it turned out to be a simple fix.

I got it home, opened it up, and looked everything over and didn't see any damage to the circuit board, so I hooked up 240 volt power to it and it booted up. I plug the car in, the contactor in the EVSE kicks on then immediately back off with the wrench icon on. Tracing the wiring inside the unit, I found that the contactor required a neutral connection (despite the internal schematics showing otherwise). I had only hooked up two hots and a ground. Knowing that neutral and ground are bonded at the panel, I simply jumped ground over to the neutral pin, turned the power back on, and plugged the car in. The contactor engaged, stayed engaged, and the car started charging :mrgreen: . Now that the station is working, I cleaned up the wiring and removed some extra components (a Ubiquiti Networks PicoStation that is now used as a WiFi adapter for my solar array's monitoring system, and a system on chip computer that was apparently set up for remote monitoring on these early stations). I also removed some adhesive left over from signs attached to the station, sanded it down, and re-painted the station. My friend happened to have a baseplate for the unit that allows it to free-stand, so I have it attached. I also converted it to be plugged in instead of hardwire by wiring a 14-50 plug to the terminal block and screwing it into place. I also made a 14-50 extension cord for both the station and my EVSEUpgrade. Since there were two holes drilled into the top of the unit, I re-used one of them to wire a photocell for some LED lights. Since the base for this station stayed put and the new station (of a different style) was installed on it, I have the new style base, which doesn't have the side tubes. My station has them, so I used some Altoids tins to make brackets to put LED lights on. These are tucked up in the side tubes of the station and shine down. I also put an LED module in the opening by the J1772 holster. These lights come on at night and make the station much more visible.

It still won't charge 6.6 kW LEAFs, but it will charge everything else at up to 30 amps.

Pictures!:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ra14pd39uwgcbv1/AADpiGjYjOs_eJTwM_yGYYiZa?dl=0

It lives in the garage, as it is not yet weathertight (still has open holes in the top from the sign that used to be on it). The paint also needs touched up in a couple of places and clearcoat applied.
 
These early stations have firmware with timing that the LEAF doesn't like. Newer stations have a different circuit board and firmware that is compatible with the LEAF.

The easiest way I've found to tell the difference is to see what color the J1772 handle is. The ones with the white/faded yellow handle (like the one I have) won't charge a 6.6 LEAF (but works fine for LEAFs with 3.3 kW chargers strangely), but the ones with a grey handle work on all LEAFs. This was one of the reasons why it was replaced (I suspect a bad neutral connection may have caused others to get the wrench icon).
 
I don't believe so, especially since Eaton doesn't make these anymore. I think if I want to gain that functionality, I'll have to put OpenEVSE controls in it.

Thanks. I did this all last year, but realized I never documented it. I almost got ahold of a second one, but Eaton decided they wanted that one back.
 
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