1 00:00:08,396 --> 00:00:09,843 [ka-chunk] 2 00:00:12,299 --> 00:00:15,517 [CHONK - blower motor starts] 3 00:00:16,109 --> 00:00:21,167 No, that's not some special shop heater  designed to work with electric car chargers, 4 00:00:21,167 --> 00:00:29,829 in fact it's an ordinary shop heater which I very-slightly modified so I can use my charging station to power it. 5 00:00:29,829 --> 00:00:31,824 And I did this for two reasons: 6 00:00:31,824 --> 00:00:36,802 One, to hopefully demonstrate in a way which is a little more intuitive than in my previous videos 7 00:00:36,802 --> 00:00:45,405 that these charging stations are nothing but slightly smart power cords (a fact which I'll explain more later on) and two: 8 00:00:45,405 --> 00:00:52,660 Because this is a product that I wanted and that I think should exist but it currently doesn't exist so I made one! 9 00:00:52,660 --> 00:01:00,725 However, my hacked-together version is missing a few key features which would make the product more useful and safer, 10 00:01:00,725 --> 00:01:04,182 so this should simply be viewed as a proof-of-concept. 11 00:01:04,182 --> 00:01:10,524 I understand the risks I’m taking here and this is definitely not ready for prime time as I built it. 12 00:01:10,524 --> 00:01:12,568 So don’t try this at home. 13 00:01:12,568 --> 00:01:19,756 For those of you who might not know what these are,  these are just really powerful forced-air electric heaters. 14 00:01:19,756 --> 00:01:21,231 That’s all. 15 00:01:21,231 --> 00:01:31,182 Here in the US, thanks to our weedy little plugs and relatively low household voltage, ordinary plug-in space heaters like this top out at 1,500W. 16 00:01:31,182 --> 00:01:41,156 Which is plenty of heat for even a fairly large room, assuming it’s well-insulated, but if you’re trying to warm up, say, a cold garage - 17 00:01:41,156 --> 00:01:46,253 it’s going to take a heater like this absolutely forever if it can even manage it. 18 00:01:46,253 --> 00:01:51,728 But this heater can pump out 7,500W of heat. 19 00:01:51,728 --> 00:01:57,121 That’ll heat up the garage a whole heckuva lot faster, five times faster, in fact, 20 00:01:57,121 --> 00:02:05,039 which would be great since I’m about to do something of a garage reorganization project and I picked the exact wrong time of the year to do it. 21 00:02:05,039 --> 00:02:06,631 But there’s a problem: 22 00:02:06,631 --> 00:02:13,795 these things need a 240V circuit to operate, and usually that means hardwiring them. 23 00:02:13,795 --> 00:02:18,971 This unit doesn’t have a power cord at all - you’re expected to permanently mount it somewhere, 24 00:02:18,971 --> 00:02:28,016 run electrical conduit to one of these knock-outs and directly wire it to the appropriate circuit using the lugs in its electrical compartment. 25 00:02:28,016 --> 00:02:34,984 That’s quite a lot of work for a $150 electric heater which I’m only going to be using occasionally. 26 00:02:34,984 --> 00:02:40,513 Portable high-powered shop heaters are available - here’s a nearly 5 kW model... 27 00:02:40,513 --> 00:02:42,792 but that presents the same issues. 28 00:02:42,792 --> 00:02:53,166 Yes, it has a power cord but it has a NEMA 6-30 plug on the end of it which, while receptacles for it do exist, are not common at all. 29 00:02:53,166 --> 00:02:57,365 I don’t have one of those in my garage so that heater would be no use to me. 30 00:02:57,365 --> 00:03:05,928 Ah but as it happens I already have a hefty  240V circuit installed in my garage for my charging station. 31 00:03:05,928 --> 00:03:11,573 It feeds a NEMA 14-50 receptacle  which powers the charging station itself. 32 00:03:11,573 --> 00:03:18,746 Now, in theory I could just buy a range cord like this  and then wire it up to the heater. 33 00:03:18,746 --> 00:03:23,114 So long as this was long enough to reach the receptacle from where I want the heater to go, 34 00:03:23,114 --> 00:03:30,343 I could unplug my charging station from the wall and then plug in the heater whenever I want to use it. 35 00:03:30,343 --> 00:03:38,973 But that solution is kludgy - the cord hanging down right next to  the other one would annoy me very muchly, but also (and most importantly) 36 00:03:38,973 --> 00:03:43,678 these chonky monster plugs are a right pain in the butt to use. 37 00:03:43,678 --> 00:03:48,432 They are simply not designed for frequent plug insertion and removal. 38 00:03:48,432 --> 00:03:50,792 They’re also kind of terrifying. 39 00:03:50,792 --> 00:03:59,210 The plug on the other end of the charging station,  though - that one was explicitly designed to be used regularly. 40 00:03:59,210 --> 00:04:09,347 This is a J1772 connector which, I should note, is in the beginning stages of being superseded by the J3400 connector here in North America, 41 00:04:09,347 --> 00:04:13,357 a charging connector previously exclusive to Tesla cars. 42 00:04:13,357 --> 00:04:20,091 The change is mostly just physical: passive adapters which convert between those two plugs are already available. 43 00:04:20,091 --> 00:04:24,275 In fact, here’s the one that I keep in my car for AC charging. 44 00:04:24,275 --> 00:04:32,112 So the change is not a big deal - I’m only bringing it up because before too long this specific connector will stop being so common 45 00:04:32,112 --> 00:04:39,085 but the basic gist of this video would be exactly the same if I were using a J3400 AC charger. 46 00:04:39,085 --> 00:04:42,721 I would just be installing a different charge port on the heater. 47 00:04:42,721 --> 00:04:52,080 Anyway, the critically important thing to understand about electric car chargers like this is that… they are not battery chargers! 48 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:57,420 These don’t do any power conversion or voltage regulation or anything like that. 49 00:04:57,420 --> 00:05:06,314 This charging station simply checks to make sure things are safe and then uses a contactor inside the enclosure to energize the cable - 50 00:05:06,314 --> 00:05:07,708 with a nice loud clack. 51 00:05:07,708 --> 00:05:08,592 [CLACK] 52 00:05:08,592 --> 00:05:10,211 And that’s all it does! 53 00:05:10,211 --> 00:05:19,568 When that green light is on, the charging station is simply sending the 240V AC power that’s coming from the wall straight to the car, 54 00:05:19,568 --> 00:05:25,713 and the car itself does the necessary power handling to charge up its battery pack. 55 00:05:25,713 --> 00:05:31,559 Car charging was designed this way because the car’s battery pack could be any number of configurations. 56 00:05:31,559 --> 00:05:39,559 It might be a higher voltage than another car, or it might use a different battery chemistry - down the road it might even have a solid-state battery. 57 00:05:39,559 --> 00:05:47,449 Creating vehicle charging infrastructure  which is specific to a battery pack voltage and chemistry just doesn’t make any sense: 58 00:05:47,449 --> 00:05:51,200 it would keep becoming obsolete as better batteries appear. 59 00:05:51,200 --> 00:05:56,762 So we’ve never done that, we just give the car raw electricity. 60 00:05:56,762 --> 00:06:03,691 Now, I will note that DC fast charging - done by those really big chargers that look something like a gas pump 61 00:06:03,691 --> 00:06:12,925 and offer dozens or even hundreds of kilowatts of power output - that’s a whole other kettle of fish which is not relevant to this video. 62 00:06:12,925 --> 00:06:19,112 But, if you’ll indulge me in making a rather important point that many people haven't seem to have figured out yet, 63 00:06:19,112 --> 00:06:25,396 DC fast charging *should* only ever be necessary for road trips. 64 00:06:25,396 --> 00:06:34,768 I rarely ever use those things because I can charge at home, and if policy makers had any idea what using an electric car is actually like, 65 00:06:34,768 --> 00:06:41,148 they’d be spending much more effort getting these  cheap things installed anywhere people live and work 66 00:06:41,148 --> 00:06:47,412 with a major focus on apartment complexes  and car-dependent places with street-parking only. 67 00:06:47,412 --> 00:06:51,896 Because once you know you are going to be able to charge your car where you park it, 68 00:06:51,896 --> 00:06:56,120 either overnight when you're asleep or during the workday when you're at work, 69 00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:59,131 you’re gonna stop worrying about how and where to charge it. 70 00:06:59,309 --> 00:07:01,893 Range anxiety just goes away. 71 00:07:01,893 --> 00:07:04,465 And these things are cheap. They should be everywhere. 72 00:07:04,760 --> 00:07:07,547 But anyway, back to the topic at hand. 73 00:07:07,547 --> 00:07:18,424 Since this often-so-called-but-not-actually charger is really just a big, high-current power cable delivering 240V AC to an easy-to-use connector... 74 00:07:18,424 --> 00:07:23,233 it could do a lot more than just charge a car if we wanted. 75 00:07:23,233 --> 00:07:24,619 And I wanted! 76 00:07:24,619 --> 00:07:25,780 So I did. 77 00:07:25,780 --> 00:07:27,199 Which you saw at beginning. 78 00:07:27,199 --> 00:07:29,626 And which I will explain nextly. 79 00:07:29,626 --> 00:07:34,149 But there’s one very important thing to make clear before we start: 80 00:07:34,149 --> 00:07:44,749 despite how simple these charging devices are on the surface, they are doing one very, very important extra thing as they deliver power to a car: 81 00:07:44,749 --> 00:07:53,645 they announce over one of these two control pins how large the charging circuit the car is now attached to actually is. 82 00:07:53,645 --> 00:07:58,033 Which is critical for the car to know as it charges up. 83 00:07:58,033 --> 00:08:02,434 This heater won't understand that which is a problem. 84 00:08:02,434 --> 00:08:07,863 I’ll discuss the repercussions of that later in  the part where I talk about all the pitfalls of what I’ve just done here, 85 00:08:07,863 --> 00:08:18,278 but for this project, I bought this model of heater knowing that its power requirements are matched to the power my charging circuit and this charging station can provide. 86 00:08:18,278 --> 00:08:26,268 The heater draws 31.3 amps max, and my charging station can supply 32 amps continuously. 87 00:08:26,268 --> 00:08:29,942 That means to power this heater with that charging station, 88 00:08:29,942 --> 00:08:36,115 all I need to do is wire a J1772 charging inlet up to the heater’s power input 89 00:08:36,115 --> 00:08:44,490 and then somehow trick the charging station into thinking it’s plugged into a car which is requesting to charge when I plug it into the heater. 90 00:08:44,490 --> 00:08:50,847 That will cause the charger to close its contactor and boom - the heater will have the power it needs. 91 00:08:50,847 --> 00:08:55,028 Actually I’m hoping there won’t be a boom  but we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. 92 00:08:55,028 --> 00:08:57,426 First, let’s handle the easy parts. 93 00:08:57,426 --> 00:09:01,182 I need to get power wires hooked up to the charging inlet. 94 00:09:01,182 --> 00:09:10,420 These connectors are a little fiddly to disassemble but eventually you can remove the pins which, in this case, you’re expected to solder to directly. 95 00:09:10,420 --> 00:09:16,565 The three largest pins on the J1772 connector are, unsurprisingly, for handling the power: 96 00:09:16,565 --> 00:09:20,045 line 1, line 2, and a protective ground. 97 00:09:20,045 --> 00:09:24,579 Though the ground pin is slightly smaller so be sure to set it aside. 98 00:09:24,579 --> 00:09:34,107 I will not pretend that I’m great at this, and given how large these wires and pins are I  needed to use a butane torch to generate enough heat to melt the solder, 99 00:09:34,107 --> 00:09:39,925 but eventually I had all three power wires in-place and I could reassemble the connector. 100 00:09:39,925 --> 00:09:44,611 And just as a note - because this is going on a heater which will be indoors, 101 00:09:44,611 --> 00:09:51,334 I’m not bothering with the waterproofing components and that means that technically I haven't finished putting this together. 102 00:09:51,334 --> 00:09:54,455 But it’s together enough for my purposes. 103 00:09:54,455 --> 00:10:02,326 Of course the connector needs to be mounted on the heater itself and we need to get those power wires into the electrical compartment somehow. 104 00:10:02,326 --> 00:10:09,091 There’s a lot of open area behind the fan so I decided to drill a hole for and mount the connector here 105 00:10:09,091 --> 00:10:15,031 and then I ran the wires to a second hole I drilled which leads down into to theelectrical compartment. 106 00:10:15,031 --> 00:10:24,206 And whaddya know, inside there the heater's got a lug for line 1 and line 2, and there's a bonding point for grounding the body of the heater. 107 00:10:24,206 --> 00:10:29,486 So… just connect those three wires up to where they need to go. 108 00:10:29,486 --> 00:10:33,518 I got fancy this time and used ferrules for the power wires. 109 00:10:33,518 --> 00:10:40,666 And when it comes to those wires which goes where doesn’t matter: this is split-phase 240 so there is no neutral. 110 00:10:40,666 --> 00:10:42,548 I know, it’s weird! 111 00:10:42,548 --> 00:10:46,241 But of course the ground wire needs to go to the grounding lug. 112 00:10:46,241 --> 00:10:49,717 And, when it comes to the power connections, we’re done. 113 00:10:49,717 --> 00:10:51,104 That’s it. 114 00:10:51,104 --> 00:10:57,746 Except, well right now if I plugged the charging cable into here, nothing would happen. 115 00:10:57,746 --> 00:11:04,900 The charging station won’t close its contactor  and energize the cable unless a car signals it to do so. 116 00:11:04,900 --> 00:11:09,289 And luckily for us, that signaling scheme is incredibly simple! 117 00:11:09,289 --> 00:11:14,762 The charging station sends out a pulsing 12V signal on the control pilot pin, 118 00:11:14,762 --> 00:11:22,850 and when connected to a car, the car will shunt the control pilot pin to its chassis ground through a diode and a resistor. 119 00:11:22,850 --> 00:11:28,221 That causes a voltage drop on the signal pin  which the charging station can measure. 120 00:11:28,221 --> 00:11:33,155 And, when the charging station sees the right thing, it will energize the cable. 121 00:11:33,155 --> 00:11:36,248 I’m skipping over some details here but long story short: 122 00:11:36,248 --> 00:11:45,227 if I connect the control pilot pin to the heater’s ground through a diode and an 882 ohm resistor (or something close enough) 123 00:11:45,227 --> 00:11:53,680 the charging station should react as if a car is requesting power and thus it should close its contactor and energize the cable. 124 00:11:53,680 --> 00:11:58,256 And that’s why I also soldered this small wire to the control pilot pin - 125 00:11:58,256 --> 00:12:04,960 connecting it to the ground lug through that resistor and diode  should be enough to trick the charging station. 126 00:12:04,960 --> 00:12:08,614 So, with that done it was time to test it out. 127 00:12:08,614 --> 00:12:14,736 OK, so if this worked when I plug it in the charger should show “charging” 128 00:12:14,973 --> 00:12:16,578 [clack] 129 00:12:16,992 --> 00:12:18,936 and it does. 130 00:12:18,936 --> 00:12:22,373 The light is on so this should… just work. 131 00:12:22,373 --> 00:12:25,817 [clunk, blower starts] 132 00:12:29,397 --> 00:12:31,220 Pretty cool! 133 00:12:31,220 --> 00:12:33,381 That was quite easy. 134 00:12:33,381 --> 00:12:39,927 The most difficult part by far was figuring out where to mount the connector and cutting a hole for it. 135 00:12:39,927 --> 00:12:43,233 Making the actual connections was fairly trivial. 136 00:12:43,647 --> 00:12:48,301 So now, all that’s left to do is hang this thing from the ceiling somewhere. 137 00:12:48,301 --> 00:12:56,457 This heater isn’t designed to be portable and it has some pretty specific mounting requirements so it should be installed permanently. 138 00:12:56,457 --> 00:13:04,513 But a nice benefit of this setup is that I can mount this thing anywhere in my garage that my charging cord can reach. 139 00:13:04,513 --> 00:13:09,140 I decided to mount it close to the charging station just because that would be the most convenient spot, 140 00:13:09,140 --> 00:13:14,557 and with that done I’ve got a working shop heater! 141 00:13:14,557 --> 00:13:15,963 [clack] 142 00:13:17,502 --> 00:13:18,441 [CHONK] 143 00:13:18,914 --> 00:13:21,061 [hmmmmmm] 144 00:13:21,061 --> 00:13:28,286 Of course one downside here is that I can’t  charge my car and use the heater at the same time but… 145 00:13:28,286 --> 00:13:32,302 I really don’t think I’m ever gonna want or need that. 146 00:13:32,302 --> 00:13:37,100 For a start, I only need to charge my car about once a week. 147 00:13:37,100 --> 00:13:43,229 And when that day rolls around, I wait to charge it until the dead of night when electricity is cheapest - 148 00:13:43,229 --> 00:13:49,183 in fact I have the car programmed to only charge between 11:30 PM and 5:00 AM. 149 00:13:49,183 --> 00:13:53,427 So when I plug it in outside those hours it doesn’t actually start charging, 150 00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:58,841 instead it says “charging scheduled” and patiently waits until 11:30. 151 00:13:58,841 --> 00:14:07,127 If I’m not already asleep by then I will be soon and I’m not gonna keep the garage warm if I’m not out there actually doing something. 152 00:14:07,127 --> 00:14:10,830 And that’s really the point of this whole project! 153 00:14:10,830 --> 00:14:17,920 I have this high-powered, easy-to-use car charging thingamajig in my garage which only gets used about once a week. 154 00:14:18,601 --> 00:14:21,347 Why not make it useful for something else, too? 155 00:14:21,347 --> 00:14:28,838 And most importantly, this approach eliminates the need for running a new circuit and all the faff that entails - 156 00:14:28,838 --> 00:14:34,336 especially helpful for me since I only have 100A electrical service. 157 00:14:34,336 --> 00:14:44,946 I would have a pretty hard time getting an electrician to sign off on adding another 40A circuit to my already pretty full panel without getting a service upgrade. 158 00:14:44,946 --> 00:14:53,409 And a heater which can be powered by a car charger becomes especially useful  for those of you who have hard-wired car charging stations 159 00:14:53,409 --> 00:14:58,789 which can’t possibly be unplugged from the wall to use that circuit for something else. 160 00:14:58,789 --> 00:15:02,116 Of course using this heater is fairly expensive: 161 00:15:02,116 --> 00:15:11,434 it’s resistive electric heat, after all, and something slurping down 7.5 kilowatts costs me about one dollar per hour to use on average. 162 00:15:11,434 --> 00:15:16,068 But at the same time, this thing isn't gonna run constantly. 163 00:15:16,068 --> 00:15:22,512 If it’s extremely cold outside it might run for an hour or so when I first switch it on 164 00:15:22,512 --> 00:15:28,018 but after that point it’s gonna be cycling on and off as its thermostat regulates the room temperature, 165 00:15:28,018 --> 00:15:35,519 so the overall cost to use this won’t actually be any higher than if I let an ordinary space heater handle the job. 166 00:15:35,519 --> 00:15:41,081 This level of power is all about getting the cold garage warm quickly, 167 00:15:41,081 --> 00:15:47,074 and it’s not actually necessary for maintaining a toasty warm temperature out there since it’s pretty well-insulated. 168 00:15:47,074 --> 00:15:56,425 Speaking of toasty warm garages, this heater also lets me illustrate one of the coolest things about the big batteries found in electric cars. 169 00:15:56,425 --> 00:16:03,425 When this thing is running, it’s pulling just about the same amount of power as my car does when it’s charging its battery pack. 170 00:16:03,425 --> 00:16:13,974 So after one hour of running nonstop, the heater consumes the same  7.5 kilowatt-hours that my car does after one hour of charging. 171 00:16:13,974 --> 00:16:18,671 Running the heater for an hour makes the garage pretty warm! 172 00:16:18,671 --> 00:16:24,934 That much energy increased the room temperature from 54 degrees up to 78 degrees! 173 00:16:24,934 --> 00:16:27,341 (that’s about 12 to 26 Celsius) 174 00:16:27,341 --> 00:16:32,394 and that test was filmed at night when it was slightly below freezing outside. 175 00:16:32,394 --> 00:16:39,153 Yet, when the car charges up its battery for an hour,  despite consuming the same amount of energy, 176 00:16:39,153 --> 00:16:46,534 the garage only warms up very slightly, barely enough to notice even after hours of charging. 177 00:16:46,534 --> 00:16:54,060 That’s because the vast majority of the energy my  car takes from the wall isn’t released into the room as heat! 178 00:16:54,060 --> 00:17:00,639 Instead it’s stored as a chemical reaction inside its battery pack for use later. 179 00:17:00,639 --> 00:17:08,319 That process isn’t perfectly efficient, but it’s close - only a few hundred watts are lost when charging the battery cells, 180 00:17:08,319 --> 00:17:12,772 so only a few hundred watts of heat are released by the car when it's charging - 181 00:17:12,772 --> 00:17:21,562 even though it is in fact consuming the very same seven thousand five hundred watts that this giant heater does. 182 00:17:21,562 --> 00:17:27,945 And now that I have this thing which lets me feel just how hot 7.5 kilowatts of electricity actually is - 183 00:17:27,945 --> 00:17:33,943 so hot that the air leaving the heater is over three hundred degrees Fahrenheit - 184 00:17:33,943 --> 00:17:39,922 I’ve got a pretty neat demonstration of how incredibly efficient electric car charging is. 185 00:17:39,922 --> 00:17:43,079 Batteries, turns out, are pretty cool. 186 00:17:43,079 --> 00:17:49,596 But now comes the part where I explain all of the ways what I’ve just done here is a bad idea. 187 00:17:49,596 --> 00:17:55,507 Remember when I said the charging station announces to the car how big the charging circuit is? 188 00:17:55,507 --> 00:17:59,604 Yeah, so this charger (along with every other AC charger out there) 189 00:17:59,604 --> 00:18:09,294 is modulating that 12V signal on the control pilot pin to tell the car it’s plugged into how many amps it is allowed to draw from the circuit. 190 00:18:09,294 --> 00:18:15,248 That needs to be communicated to the car because the car is the actual electrical load: 191 00:18:15,248 --> 00:18:20,396 this thing, as I hope you understand by now, is just a power cable and a switch, 192 00:18:20,396 --> 00:18:25,548 but charging circuits? They come in all sorts of sizes. 193 00:18:25,548 --> 00:18:30,067 I’m gonna skip over the weeds about continuous loads and the 80% rule here 194 00:18:30,067 --> 00:18:40,692 but the important part is an actual car will use the charger’s control pilot signal as a sort of speed limit and lower its charging current to match what it tells it. 195 00:18:40,692 --> 00:18:46,327 For instance, my car can pull 48 amps to charge at over 11 kilowatts, 196 00:18:46,327 --> 00:18:53,001 however it knows when it’s plugged into this charging station that it’s only allowed to pull 32 amps. 197 00:18:53,001 --> 00:18:57,066 So that’s what it does, charging at about 7.5 kilowatts. 198 00:18:57,066 --> 00:19:05,810 This heater has no idea what that signal is and even if it did, it can’t lower its power draw to match the signal. 199 00:19:05,810 --> 00:19:16,630 For me in my garage with this heater and that charger, that’s no problem - I know this thing has a maximum current draw slightly below 32 amps. 200 00:19:16,630 --> 00:19:20,995 But if I were to, say, visit my parents with this thing 201 00:19:20,995 --> 00:19:22,435 [holy transition, batman!] 202 00:19:22,435 --> 00:19:24,376 well now it's a problem. 203 00:19:24,376 --> 00:19:33,437 Their charger, because it’s connected to a smaller circuit, is configured to tell any car plugged into it that it can only safely pull 24 amps 204 00:19:33,437 --> 00:19:35,875 which is about 5.5 kilowatts. 205 00:19:35,875 --> 00:19:44,519 That is, for the record, more than plenty for charging a car overnight  unless you’re a supercommuter but it’s not enough to power this heater. 206 00:19:44,519 --> 00:19:53,304 Yet the connector I bodged onto it will still signal their charger to close the contactor and supply power so the heater will still work. 207 00:19:53,304 --> 00:19:55,408 Which is bad. 208 00:19:55,408 --> 00:20:00,990 Now, if you haven’t already spotted it there  is actually a power selector switch on this thing. 209 00:20:00,990 --> 00:20:09,946 This heater is made up of three 2.5 kilowatt heating elements  and you can shut one of them off to turn it into a 5 kilowatt heater if you like. 210 00:20:09,946 --> 00:20:16,380 So if I do that - actually this is perfectly fine to use with this charging station. 211 00:20:16,380 --> 00:20:22,612 But I could also turn the third element back on and… that would become a problem. 212 00:20:22,612 --> 00:20:28,614 The circuit would now be overloaded and the wiring would start heating up which is not good. 213 00:20:28,614 --> 00:20:35,982 The 30A circuit breaker protecting the 10 gauge wiring in this circuit should trip before things get too too spicy 214 00:20:35,982 --> 00:20:39,296 but we don’t want to be relying on that if we don’t have to. 215 00:20:39,296 --> 00:20:47,182 And it’s probably not enough to sell a high-powered device like this with a simple warning about circuit capacity. 216 00:20:47,182 --> 00:20:50,799 If I were put in charge of designing something like this for sale 217 00:20:50,799 --> 00:20:54,205 (which for the record I’m not saying would be a smart idea!) 218 00:20:54,205 --> 00:21:01,228 I would give it the logic circuitry necessary to understand the J1772 capacity signaling protocol 219 00:21:01,228 --> 00:21:05,543 and I’d use three separate relays for its heating elements. 220 00:21:05,543 --> 00:21:14,444 Then, when plugged in it could determine how many of those heating elements could be switched on given the max current signal coming from the charger. 221 00:21:14,444 --> 00:21:23,561 That would allow the same product to work safely on any charging circuit, even a weedy little 12A, 2.8 kilowatt supply. 222 00:21:23,561 --> 00:21:30,675 That wouldn’t be a whole lot more heat than a standard space heater but 2.5 kilowatts is still a 66% bonus. 223 00:21:30,675 --> 00:21:37,513 Or, if more product skus is your jam and you want more models for sale rather than a one-size-fits-all heater, 224 00:21:37,513 --> 00:21:46,188 at the very least each one should have enough smarts to refuse to operate if it detects that it’s connected to a smaller charging circuit than it needs. 225 00:21:46,188 --> 00:21:52,856 That’s not the only problem that would need to be tackled, though: there’s also the issue of electrical arcing. 226 00:21:52,856 --> 00:22:02,533 That’s a fairly small problem in the grand scheme and it’s not much of a safety issue, really, but it could potentially become one given enough time and misuse. 227 00:22:02,533 --> 00:22:06,611 When an actual car gets connected to a charging station like this, 228 00:22:06,611 --> 00:22:14,122 the contactor closes and energizes the cable before the car starts drawing any power from the circuit. 229 00:22:14,122 --> 00:22:17,407 Likewise, when the car is disconnected from the charger, 230 00:22:17,407 --> 00:22:20,361 pressing the latch on the handle [clicky clicky] 231 00:22:20,361 --> 00:22:28,520 it actuates a switch which signals to the car through the proximity pilot pin to stop pulling power, which it does almost instantly. 232 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:35,848 Both of those actions ensure that no electrical connections are made or broken while under a load, 233 00:22:35,848 --> 00:22:40,998 and this prevents electrical arcing  which damages electrical contacts over time. 234 00:22:40,998 --> 00:22:44,759 This heater, uh, well it’s not that smart. 235 00:22:44,759 --> 00:22:48,204 It’s got no logic circuitry in there whatsoever: 236 00:22:48,204 --> 00:22:53,048 it’s just got a basic bimetallic thermostat (which also serves as the power switch), 237 00:22:53,048 --> 00:22:59,771 a high-temperature limit switch to shut it down if it’s overheating (as would happen quite quickly if the fan motor were to fail), 238 00:22:59,771 --> 00:23:03,555 and, uh well, a contactor of its own. 239 00:23:03,555 --> 00:23:09,681 As a side note, that contactor is actually pretty impressive for such a cheap and basic thing. 240 00:23:09,681 --> 00:23:15,039 It’s a three-pole contactor with each heating element  getting its own set of switch contacts, 241 00:23:15,039 --> 00:23:22,863 so each contact is only switching about 10 amps despite being rated for 32 - enough for each one to switch the whole thing! 242 00:23:22,863 --> 00:23:29,443 That’s mighty impressive compared to the single-pole contactor in the central air conditioner we looked at a couple years ago. 243 00:23:29,443 --> 00:23:35,021 And that thing’s gotta switch two big motors which makes for very sparky connections! 244 00:23:35,021 --> 00:23:39,574 I’m mildly annoyed this cheap heater got such a nice contactor. 245 00:23:39,574 --> 00:23:44,617 Anyway, if the thermostat’s switch is closed when you plug the heater in, 246 00:23:44,617 --> 00:23:51,421 then the moment the heater is supplied with 240V, it’s gonna start pulling power. 247 00:23:51,421 --> 00:23:55,832 In theory, that’s not actually a problem when plugging the heater in. 248 00:23:55,832 --> 00:24:01,891 Its contactor has to physically move the contacts inside of it in order to power the heating elements 249 00:24:01,891 --> 00:24:07,953 so there’s a small delay between when the contactor in the car charger closes and when that contactor closes. 250 00:24:07,953 --> 00:24:08,968 [Ka-clack!] 251 00:24:08,968 --> 00:24:15,086 That should mean any potential arcing is limited to the contactor inside of here, which is normal. 252 00:24:15,086 --> 00:24:23,122 But if you unplugged the heater while it was running... well now we’re definitely gonna have an arcing problem. 253 00:24:23,122 --> 00:24:30,019 The button on the charge handle will not do anything, so the heater will keep drawing current as you remove the plug. 254 00:24:30,019 --> 00:24:37,920 And that could cause some nasty arcing on the charging connector contacts which could damage them and lead to overheating down the road. 255 00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:42,662 But the arcing could also happen inside the charging station. 256 00:24:42,662 --> 00:24:48,920 If, as you remove the plug, the control pilot pin  lost connection before the power pins do,   257 00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:53,920 then the charging station will open its own contactor and de-energize the cable,   258 00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,470 cutting off power to the heater. 259 00:24:56,470 --> 00:25:03,750 But that’s also not great - now the charging station has to interrupt the full 30-ish amps the heater is pulling 260 00:25:03,750 --> 00:25:06,162 and it’s not really designed for that. 261 00:25:06,162 --> 00:25:10,509 Some car chargers use the same sort of contactor that’s in the heater, 262 00:25:10,509 --> 00:25:20,497 but others (like this Grizzl-E charger or this cheap Amazon thing) use what are basically large relays which, while they can open under load, 263 00:25:20,497 --> 00:25:24,098 aren’t really expected to do that repeatedly. 264 00:25:24,098 --> 00:25:32,989 It’s really only for emergencies such as when the charger detects a fault and repeatedly breaking that much current could damage it with time. 265 00:25:32,989 --> 00:25:36,995 Now, the severity of that arcing problem is debatable. 266 00:25:36,995 --> 00:25:42,560 I may be making a big deal out of nothing, this is mostly a resistive electrical load after all. 267 00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,324 But in any case there’s an easy solution: 268 00:25:45,324 --> 00:25:52,809 just turn the heater off before unplugging it and also never turn it on before plugging it in. 269 00:25:52,809 --> 00:26:00,705 Since I’m the one who put this together and I’m probably gonna be the only person to ever use it I’m reasonably sure those instructions will be followed 270 00:26:00,705 --> 00:26:06,764 but for a product sold to the general public, you can’t count on instructions like that alone. 271 00:26:06,764 --> 00:26:13,564 So for a real product, I would make sure it can detect the  request-to-unplug signal coming from the latch button 272 00:26:13,564 --> 00:26:17,459 that way it can shut itself down as you reach to unplug it. 273 00:26:17,459 --> 00:26:25,688 Or at the very least I would add a mechanical interlock to the connector which prevents removal of the plug while the heater is running, 274 00:26:25,688 --> 00:26:28,447 and there are a whole bunch of potential ways to do that. 275 00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:34,880 But whether an actual product like this  could ever be sold is an open question.   276 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:39,240 Obtaining safety certification for it  would probably be a bit of a nightmare,   277 00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:43,640 and that’s assuming the Society of Automotive Engineers wouldn’t send you a nastygram   278 00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:49,052 demanding that you pull the product from the  shelves for misusing one of their precious standards. 279 00:26:49,052 --> 00:26:54,132 Then again, if this 4,800 watt portable shop heater is a product for sale, 280 00:26:54,132 --> 00:27:04,680 it seems to me like the only real headache would be convincing… whoever needs convincing that products other-than-cars should be able to use a car charging station. 281 00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,340 And I think there’s a case to be made for that. 282 00:27:07,340 --> 00:27:14,093 One of the most annoying things about the North American electrical system is all these dang plugs. 283 00:27:14,093 --> 00:27:17,740 Have you seen the Wikipedia article on NEMA connectors? 284 00:27:17,740 --> 00:27:20,506 Yeah there are simply way too many of them. 285 00:27:20,506 --> 00:27:26,793 They are cleverly designed to be physically incompatible that way you can’t put the wrong plug into the wrong hole 286 00:27:26,793 --> 00:27:34,395 but that means you’re pretty much only ever installing them for dedicated things like a dryer, a kitchen range, 287 00:27:34,395 --> 00:27:36,680 or a car charger. 288 00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:47,328 Meanwhile we came up with this much nicer-to-use high-current connector that supplies up to 80 amps and broadcasts how much current can safely be pulled from it 289 00:27:47,328 --> 00:27:54,624 and I feel like it would be a shame to only ever use this (or the J3400 connector) for electric vehicle charging. 290 00:27:54,624 --> 00:28:01,527 And, given what has happened with USB, it could easily be argued there’s already a precedent for this. 291 00:28:01,527 --> 00:28:03,478 But that’s all for now. 292 00:28:03,478 --> 00:28:06,302 Except, no, I forgot about one other thing. 293 00:28:06,302 --> 00:28:14,970 While most home charging stations are simply delivering AC power, and that's probably still gonna be the general case for quite some time, 294 00:28:14,970 --> 00:28:21,909 vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid technology has the potential to make this a little messier. 295 00:28:21,909 --> 00:28:28,715 Already there are electric vehicles for sale which can backfeed power through their charge port to provide emergency power, 296 00:28:28,715 --> 00:28:32,631 in fact my car can do that, though it’s a pretty basic function. 297 00:28:32,631 --> 00:28:42,913 Other vehicles offer the ability to provide backup power for your entire house, and right now those solutions are all pretty bespoke and hardly standardized. 298 00:28:42,913 --> 00:28:48,438 But assuming we do create some sort of standard for that,  which it seems like we will, 299 00:28:48,438 --> 00:28:52,487 home charging stations are going to get more complicated. 300 00:28:52,487 --> 00:28:57,315 What precisely that’s going to look like in the future is anything but clear. 301 00:28:57,315 --> 00:29:04,536 I have a feeling they’ll still provide the same basic functions as this charger, delivering straight 240 when asked, 302 00:29:04,536 --> 00:29:07,999 and any new features will be layered on top of that. 303 00:29:07,999 --> 00:29:16,336 Plus for backfeeding the grid, the vehicle could (in theory anyway) just backfeed AC through the same dumb charging station - 304 00:29:16,336 --> 00:29:19,689 it doesn’t care which direction the current is flowing. 305 00:29:19,689 --> 00:29:21,720 At least I don’t think it does. 306 00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:29,762 But we already see some vehicles which are able to connect their battery packs to external devices and offload DC power - 307 00:29:29,762 --> 00:29:34,184 that’s how Ford’s Intelligent Backup Power works on the F-150 Lightning, 308 00:29:34,184 --> 00:29:40,089 and thanks to our split-phase power system where there’s a neutral wire the car’s usually not hooked up to, 309 00:29:40,089 --> 00:29:46,089 an external inverter is required for powering most of the stuff in your home when the power’s out. 310 00:29:46,089 --> 00:29:48,787 At least if you want to do it through the charge port. 311 00:29:48,787 --> 00:29:51,320 But that's a problem for future us. 312 00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,354 Now, this is actually the end of the video. 313 00:29:54,354 --> 00:30:02,209 I intend on keeping this car for many more years - it’s pretty much the perfect car for me and I have no reason to replace it. 314 00:30:02,209 --> 00:30:06,405 So this charging station is gonna hang around for a long while. 315 00:30:06,405 --> 00:30:12,220 And even if I get a new car, so long as I haven’t moved I’m still gonna use this charging station! 316 00:30:12,220 --> 00:30:19,608 It might have a different charge port but you can just stick an adapter on the end of there and then it becomes a J3400 charger. 317 00:30:19,608 --> 00:30:24,880 So, whenever the day comes that I have a new car and I want to use this heater? 318 00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,208 I'll just take that adapter off and plug it in. 319 00:30:28,208 --> 00:30:35,062 And by the way, this 32 amp charging station is still massive, massive overkill for my needs! 320 00:30:35,062 --> 00:30:44,331 It completely charges my car from empty to full in 12 hours and the number of times I have actually needed to do that is zero. 321 00:30:44,331 --> 00:30:51,642 And if there were a second electric car in my household, I’m quite confident this single charger would take care of both. 322 00:30:51,642 --> 00:30:57,696 You don’t need two chargers in two-car households unless both drivers are supercommuters. 323 00:30:57,696 --> 00:31:01,094 Like, more than 100 miles a day each. 324 00:31:01,094 --> 00:31:05,039 If you made it this far, this is probably just gonna be preaching to the choir 325 00:31:05,039 --> 00:31:12,063 but the reason I like electricity so much is that, in case you haven't noticed, it can do… 326 00:31:12,063 --> 00:31:13,588 ANYTHING. 327 00:31:13,588 --> 00:31:21,466 The very same wires that go into this electrical panel and are powering my lights, TV, stereo system, computer, smart speakers 328 00:31:21,466 --> 00:31:25,894 and pinball machines can charge my car to take me places, 329 00:31:25,894 --> 00:31:29,000 cook my food to have a meal and in myriad ways, 330 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,223 preserve my food in the refrigerator, 331 00:31:31,223 --> 00:31:34,281 heat and cool my home to keep me comfortable, 332 00:31:34,281 --> 00:31:37,685 and now they can heat my garage, too. 333 00:31:37,685 --> 00:31:44,674 Just imagine how much more work would have been involved running a gas line and venting for a gas-fired shop heater. 334 00:31:44,674 --> 00:31:49,355 And yes, my car is a little slower to charge when I’m on a road trip, 335 00:31:49,355 --> 00:31:55,523 but day-to-day I’m never stopping for gas on my way home from work or anywhere else. 336 00:31:55,523 --> 00:31:59,600 I just plug the car in and it charges while I sleep. 337 00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:04,779 Those of you who still refuse to see how awesome that is are really missing out. 338 00:32:05,667 --> 00:32:08,264 ♫ modificatedly smooth jazz ♫ 339 00:32:09,684 --> 00:32:15,268 No, that’s not some special shop heater designed to work with an electric car charger… 340 00:32:16,333 --> 00:32:18,106 [disappointed sighment] 341 00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,282 Seconds in and I flubbed a line 342 00:32:22,282 --> 00:32:26,538 Which is plenty of heat for even a fairly large room assoming it’s - 343 00:32:26,538 --> 00:32:27,840 assoming? 344 00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,320 Wow, this isn’t going great.  345 00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:35,560 But the basic gist of this video will be ex--- fraIdidaphetackbadadah  346 00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:38,170 Portable. Powered. Shop. Hi? 347 00:32:38,170 --> 00:32:42,741 …exactly the same if I were using a J3400 AC charger. 348 00:32:42,741 --> 00:32:45,556 I would just be installing [bong as plug hits heater]… 349 00:32:45,556 --> 00:32:47,582 great work, me! 350 00:32:47,582 --> 00:32:49,889 So I did! Which you saw at the beginning. 351 00:32:49,889 --> 00:32:52,402 And which whyweeuvd…. 352 00:32:52,728 --> 00:32:53,615 oooops! 353 00:32:54,977 --> 00:32:59,254 I realized when I first tested the thing that I should have set "pretty hot!" rather than pretty cool. 354 00:32:59,254 --> 00:33:02,497 Oh well, no sense getting hot and bothered over it. 355 00:33:02,497 --> 00:33:07,322 Though maybe I should have said "the air coming out of this is so hot you could use it as an air fryer..." 356 00:33:07,322 --> 00:33:10,755 must. resist. executing. silly. idea.