Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryland
... the fancy part of them of course is that you can stick the end of it in your cup of coffee or drop it in a puddle or lick it and the end is dead until you plug it in to the car, not sure how accurate it is but apparently the car has to send a signal (someone said square wave 24v, not sure if it was a joke tho) to the charge station before it will turn on, this keeps someones cup of coffee from tricking it in to turning on.
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The "24 volt square wave" is a pretty accurate description.
The most basic turn-on circuit is a resistor and diode to get moderate power out. And this is about as simple as it can be made. A square wave is used to make certain that the diode is in the circuit, not mud or dirt that happens to be exactly the right resistance.
There are future plans to communicate billing info over the same signaling circuit, but I think they should delay the effort to standardize that. Once money exchange is being talked about, all of non-technical players come out of the woodwork trying to change the standard so that they somehow get a little slice of each payment.
Besides, why should the car be billed for the charge? When I'm at the gas pump I can get gas with cash, credit card, and RFID sensor. And I can put gas in my friend's car or a rental car just as easily as my own.