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Originally Posted by oil pan 4
This is what I'm thinking for leaf mods.
First, get a 240v charger. I got a 3.8kw univeral 120/240v j1772 charger that should be here any day now. 120v is killing me I don't know how any one gets by with one of these as their primary vehicle slow charging on 120v power.
If you were thinking "I'll just plug it into that outlet by my front door" nope. I guess you could get by on 120v power if you could charge at work, the store, so on. If your only place to charge is at home, don't bet on 120v power.
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May I ask what "charger" (aka, EVSE, charge cord or J1772 chord) you're getting? There's one made by a company called Zencar that seems to be there best bang for buck. But I see you have a "3kW" 240V onboard charger, unless it's been modified. So anything that takes a 20A or more 240V circuit will work for your car.
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Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Trailer hitch, already here, just got to put it on.
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Cool! May I ask what you plan on towing? A future range extender perhaps?
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Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Add some kind of flat tow provision incase it gets ran dead. Our other 2 cars have hitches on them except for the useless VW which should be gone soon.
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On the one hand the owner's manual says to never tow flat with all four wheels on the ground. There is a good reason not to with a 2011 or 2012 Leaf, if the battery runs dead the parking brake locks on. But as long as you never let that happen, you can actually charge the Leaf with the tow vehicle by leaving it in D while towing it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Later on mod the original OEM nissan leaf charger to also take 240v power. It may seem redundant to have 2 chargers and that's the whole point. What happens when the original charger quits?
I want to leave a charger hard wired into 240v power at the house, so all I have to do is grab the j1772 and plug it into the car. Then keep the other one in the car. Along with some extension and adaptor cords.
All I should need for an adaptor cord is a 5-15p to 6-20r to charge anywhere with the universal j1772 charger and a L14-30p to 6-20r so I can charge the car while working on my rental house. Yes on one side of that house I installed a L14-30 and a 6-20 on the other side, plus three 120v receptacles inbetween. My old house was 100% electric car and welder ready.
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Great idea! I have 3. A 240V "40A" (32A actual) Aerovironment wall mounted unit, the original 120V cord that came with the car, and an 12A/16A/24A/32A Zencar EVSE cord that I also want to make adapters for.
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Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Stick a big flexible solar panel on the roof to provide most of the power needed by the 12v systems during the day.
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Great idea! I think I could actually fit a full 6kW of solar on the roof for charging the car too. But it wouldn't be cheap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Any other mod ideas?
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Mod the car to accept more than 16A during 240V charging. You can do this by adding Brusa charger modules. Sometimes they come up cheap on eBay. The 2013 and later Leafs take up to 32A off a 40A circuit breaker or better, charging up in less than 4 hours (the 2011's and 12's charge up in less than 7 hours on 240V.). If your circuit breaker is 50A or 70A, you could add even more onboard chargers and charge even faster.
Also better battery cooling would increase the life of the battery. All Leaf batteries can see very little drop in capacity with over 10 years of use if the battery is kept cool. A hot Leaf battery can lose well over 10% of it's capacity every year.