Clipper Creek are awesome

[Jeff]

Welp, I am doing another track day!  However, I realized last week that I will probably not have the Brammo folks there to mooch power off of, so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on buying an LCS-25 level 2 charger.  $500 seems pretty reasonable, and I'm just going to slap a NEMA 14-50 on the end of the wire so I can use the RV hookups at the track.  (which is basically the same setup the race team let me borrow during the previous session)

So I took the plunge, ordered the thing, and because I need it relatively quickly (track day is this next Monday), I paid a few extra bucks in shipping for the UPS 3-day over the regular UPS Ground.

This morning I get the following email from an Amanda at Clipper Creek:

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your order through the ClipperCreek online store. I want to inform you that we are shipping from Auburn, CA and with UPS ground your order is guaranteed to be delivered in 1 business day. This will reduce your cost of shipping from $16.85 to $11.22. Your order will be shipping out today so you would receive the unit by the end of the day tomorrow, September 17th. Please let me know if you would not like your order processed with UPS ground.

.............!!!

An actual human being looking at my order and then actually not only saving me money but also getting me my thing faster?  I nearly fainted.

[frodus]

Make an adapter for it rather than chop off the end and put a different end on.

Thats a good price for those EVSEs

[Jeff]

The unit just has a bare wire end -- it's designed to be installed straight onto the garage wall or whatever.  So haha I'll need to put something on there, and it might as well be the RV hookup plug.

[frodus]

Oh. Cool. I thought they'd come with a standard locking plug.

[shocker]

Let us know how it works out.  I might buy one to charge my LEAF.

[Shinysideup]

Oh. Cool. I thought they'd come with a standard locking plug.

When I spoke with Clipper Creek a while back, I learned that federal law says it must be sold to be hard wired.

[flar]

A trick I learned from reading the Tesla forums.  The difference between a 14-50 (50 amp max draw) and a 14-30 (30 amp max draw) is the shape of the 4th blade.  In the case of the Clipper Creek unit, it only draws 25 amps so it would work with either a 14-30 or a 14-50 socket and the 4th blade isn't even used so the shape is irrelevant.  Also, since the 4th blade would require you to commit to a 30 amp or a 50 amp socket, it's kind of in the way.

It turns out you can get a plug that has an interchangeable 4th blade so the same plug can be configured for either a 30 amp or a 50 amp 4-wire installation.  On the other hand, by simply not installing either blade you can hook up the Clipper Creeks's 3 wires to the other blades and leave the interchangeable 30 vs. 50 blade off.  That way you end up with a plug that can plug into either a 30 amp or a 50 amp socket.

The plug that I got was this one, from Lowes:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_246879-1571-3867-CC5_4294722554__?productId=3537750

(And, if you want to go hog-wild with compatibility, the guy who brought this up on the Tesla forums created a system of connectors for his Tesla that used an L6-30P plug on the end of the charger and a bunch of short converter cables that each had an L6-30R socket on one end and various "plugs you might find in the wild" on the other end.  He also created a longer L6-30R-to-L6-30p extension cable that he could use in conjunction with any of the converters to connect to anything over any reasonable distance.  That's fine if you carry this around in a car but, personally, I'm not sure what I'd expect to find out there other than the 14-30/50s.  Since you get both 14-30/50 compatibility for free by leaving that last )

[benswing]

Now Clipper Creek sells the LCS-25 with plugs already attached! 

Look at the bottom two:
http://stores.homestead.com/ClipperCreekInc/StoreFront.bok

These are small enough to be portable.  Looks like road trips are becoming more and more realistic!

[Jeff]

Now Clipper Creek sells the LCS-25 with plugs already attached! 

Look at the bottom two:
http://stores.homestead.com/ClipperCreekInc/StoreFront.bok

These are small enough to be portable.  Looks like road trips are becoming more and more realistic!

Hey there sir!  Haha yeah I saw that right as I placed the order.  Neither of those are the one I need for the NEMA 14-50 RV outlets at the track though.  Also bare plugs are pretty cheap; the extra 50 bucks didn't seem worth it.

[benswing]

Hey buddy, have fun at the track!  Looking forward to videos...  ;-)

[flar]

I second Jeff's post.  That's an expensive NEMA plug!

All 3 (install, 14-30, and L6-30) versions come with a 25-foot EV cord, but the 2 with plugs on the input end have a short rubber cord to reach the socket.  The install version comes with a longer input cord which may be nice, or it may take more room in a backpack, and the cord on the install version is a more industrial type that looks like it is meant to be stapled to a wall.

I'm wondering if the short rubber cord on the plugged versions wouldn't be nicer to stuff into a backpack and to handle on a day to day basis.  On the other hand, the short cord on the PCS-15 that we got with the bike has made me want to get an extender cord to relieve the strain on the cord when I plug it into a socket that is higher than a couple of feet from the ground.  And, for $50?

With respect to socket compatibility, if they didn't attach the 4th blade of their 14-30 plug to anything (the install version only has 3 wires and the L6-30 plug only has 3 blades), then you could probably remove the unused 4th blade of their 14-30 version and use it universally on 14-30 and 14-50 sockets.

I wonder why nobody makes a 14-30+50 plug that has a short un-angled 4th blade that would help seat it in either a 14-30 or a 14-50 socket better, but fit into the common vertical space that both sockets have?  The standard 110 sockets that can supply higher current than the standard 15A have a design such that lower amperage plugs can fit into the higher amperage sockets, but with 14-30/50 they designed the 30 plug to not fit into a 50 socket...?

[Jeff]

Let us know how it works out.  I might buy one to charge my LEAF.

Took it to the trackday yesterday and charging went flawlessly!  Wired it up to a dual 14-30/14-50 plug, plugged it into an RV outlet at the track, and it worked first time with no problems whatsoever.  Totally recommended.

[Shinysideup]

Took it to the trackday yesterday and charging went flawlessly!  Wired it up to a dual 14-30/14-50 plug, plugged it into an RV outlet at the track, and it worked first time with no problems whatsoever.  Totally recommended.

I just took delivery of the Clipper Creek 240V charger for a road trip next week. Did you leave the 4th (bottom) blade off your plug? That idea from Flar sounded good to me, so mine's wired that way, but I have no outlet on which to try it out at home.