WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:08.396 --> 00:00:09.843 [ka-chunk] 00:00:12.299 --> 00:00:15.517 [CHONK - blower motor starts] 00:00:16.109 --> 00:00:21.167 No, that's not some special shop heater  designed to work with electric car chargers, 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. 00:00:29.829 --> 00:00:31.824 And I did this for two reasons: 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 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: 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! 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, 00:01:00.725 --> 00:01:04.182 so this should simply be viewed as a proof-of-concept. 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. 00:01:10.524 --> 00:01:12.568 So don’t try this at home. 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. 00:01:19.756 --> 00:01:21.231 That’s all. 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. 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 - 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. 00:01:46.253 --> 00:01:51.728 But this heater can pump out 7,500W of heat. 00:01:51.728 --> 00:01:57.121 That’ll heat up the garage a whole heckuva lot faster, five times faster, in fact, 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. 00:02:05.039 --> 00:02:06.631 But there’s a problem: 00:02:06.631 --> 00:02:13.795 these things need a 240V circuit to operate, and usually that means hardwiring them. 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, 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. 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. 00:02:34.984 --> 00:02:40.513 Portable high-powered shop heaters are available - here’s a nearly 5 kW model... 00:02:40.513 --> 00:02:42.792 but that presents the same issues. 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. 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. 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. 00:03:05.928 --> 00:03:11.573 It feeds a NEMA 14-50 receptacle  which powers the charging station itself. 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. 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, 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. 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) 00:03:38.973 --> 00:03:43.678 these chonky monster plugs are a right pain in the butt to use. 00:03:43.678 --> 00:03:48.432 They are simply not designed for frequent plug insertion and removal. 00:03:48.432 --> 00:03:50.792 They’re also kind of terrifying. 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. 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, 00:04:09.347 --> 00:04:13.357 a charging connector previously exclusive to Tesla cars. 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. 00:04:20.091 --> 00:04:24.275 In fact, here’s the one that I keep in my car for AC charging. 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 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. 00:04:39.085 --> 00:04:42.721 I would just be installing a different charge port on the heater. 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! 00:04:52.080 --> 00:04:57.420 These don’t do any power conversion or voltage regulation or anything like that. 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 - 00:05:06.314 --> 00:05:07.708 with a nice loud clack. 00:05:07.708 --> 00:05:08.592 [CLACK] 00:05:08.592 --> 00:05:10.211 And that’s all it does! 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, 00:05:19.568 --> 00:05:25.713 and the car itself does the necessary power handling to charge up its battery pack. 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. 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. 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: 00:05:47.449 --> 00:05:51.200 it would keep becoming obsolete as better batteries appear. 00:05:51.200 --> 00:05:56.762 So we’ve never done that, we just give the car raw electricity. 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 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. 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, 00:06:19.112 --> 00:06:25.396 DC fast charging *should* only ever be necessary for road trips. 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, 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 00:06:41.148 --> 00:06:47.412 with a major focus on apartment complexes  and car-dependent places with street-parking only. 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, 00:06:51.896 --> 00:06:56.120 either overnight when you're asleep or during the workday when you're at work, 00:06:56.120 --> 00:06:59.131 you’re gonna stop worrying about how and where to charge it. 00:06:59.309 --> 00:07:01.893 Range anxiety just goes away. 00:07:01.893 --> 00:07:04.465 And these things are cheap. They should be everywhere. 00:07:04.760 --> 00:07:07.547 But anyway, back to the topic at hand. 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... 00:07:18.424 --> 00:07:23.233 it could do a lot more than just charge a car if we wanted. 00:07:23.233 --> 00:07:24.619 And I wanted! 00:07:24.619 --> 00:07:25.780 So I did. 00:07:25.780 --> 00:07:27.199 Which you saw at beginning. 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:29.626 And which I will explain nextly. 00:07:29.626 --> 00:07:34.149 But there’s one very important thing to make clear before we start: 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: 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. 00:07:53.645 --> 00:07:58.033 Which is critical for the car to know as it charges up. 00:07:58.033 --> 00:08:02.434 This heater won't understand that which is a problem. 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, 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. 00:08:18.278 --> 00:08:26.268 The heater draws 31.3 amps max, and my charging station can supply 32 amps continuously. 00:08:26.268 --> 00:08:29.942 That means to power this heater with that charging station, 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 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. 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. 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. 00:08:55.028 --> 00:08:57.426 First, let’s handle the easy parts. 00:08:57.426 --> 00:09:01.182 I need to get power wires hooked up to the charging inlet. 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. 00:09:10.420 --> 00:09:16.565 The three largest pins on the J1772 connector are, unsurprisingly, for handling the power: 00:09:16.565 --> 00:09:20.045 line 1, line 2, and a protective ground. 00:09:20.045 --> 00:09:24.579 Though the ground pin is slightly smaller so be sure to set it aside. 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, 00:09:34.107 --> 00:09:39.925 but eventually I had all three power wires in-place and I could reassemble the connector. 00:09:39.925 --> 00:09:44.611 And just as a note - because this is going on a heater which will be indoors, 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. 00:09:51.334 --> 00:09:54.455 But it’s together enough for my purposes. 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. 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 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. 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. 00:10:24.206 --> 00:10:29.486 So… just connect those three wires up to where they need to go. 00:10:29.486 --> 00:10:33.518 I got fancy this time and used ferrules for the power wires. 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. 00:10:40.666 --> 00:10:42.548 I know, it’s weird! 00:10:42.548 --> 00:10:46.241 But of course the ground wire needs to go to the grounding lug. 00:10:46.241 --> 00:10:49.717 And, when it comes to the power connections, we’re done. 00:10:49.717 --> 00:10:51.104 That’s it. 00:10:51.104 --> 00:10:57.746 Except, well right now if I plugged the charging cable into here, nothing would happen. 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. 00:11:04.900 --> 00:11:09.289 And luckily for us, that signaling scheme is incredibly simple! 00:11:09.289 --> 00:11:14.762 The charging station sends out a pulsing 12V signal on the control pilot pin, 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. 00:11:22.850 --> 00:11:28.221 That causes a voltage drop on the signal pin  which the charging station can measure. 00:11:28.221 --> 00:11:33.155 And, when the charging station sees the right thing, it will energize the cable. 00:11:33.155 --> 00:11:36.248 I’m skipping over some details here but long story short: 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) 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. 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:58.256 And that’s why I also soldered this small wire to the control pilot pin - 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. 00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:08.614 So, with that done it was time to test it out. 00:12:08.614 --> 00:12:14.736 OK, so if this worked when I plug it in the charger should show “charging” 00:12:14.973 --> 00:12:16.578 [clack] 00:12:16.992 --> 00:12:18.936 and it does. 00:12:18.936 --> 00:12:22.373 The light is on so this should… just work. 00:12:22.373 --> 00:12:25.817 [clunk, blower starts] 00:12:29.397 --> 00:12:31.220 Pretty cool! 00:12:31.220 --> 00:12:33.381 That was quite easy. 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. 00:12:39.927 --> 00:12:43.233 Making the actual connections was fairly trivial. 00:12:43.647 --> 00:12:48.301 So now, all that’s left to do is hang this thing from the ceiling somewhere. 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. 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. 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, 00:13:09.140 --> 00:13:14.557 and with that done I’ve got a working shop heater! 00:13:14.557 --> 00:13:15.963 [clack] 00:13:17.502 --> 00:13:18.441 [CHONK] 00:13:18.914 --> 00:13:21.061 [hmmmmmm] 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… 00:13:28.286 --> 00:13:32.302 I really don’t think I’m ever gonna want or need that. 00:13:32.302 --> 00:13:37.100 For a start, I only need to charge my car about once a week. 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 - 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. 00:13:49.183 --> 00:13:53.427 So when I plug it in outside those hours it doesn’t actually start charging, 00:13:53.520 --> 00:13:58.841 instead it says “charging scheduled” and patiently waits until 11:30. 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. 00:14:07.127 --> 00:14:10.830 And that’s really the point of this whole project! 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. 00:14:18.601 --> 00:14:21.347 Why not make it useful for something else, too? 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 - 00:14:28.838 --> 00:14:34.336 especially helpful for me since I only have 100A electrical service. 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. 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 00:14:53.409 --> 00:14:58.789 which can’t possibly be unplugged from the wall to use that circuit for something else. 00:14:58.789 --> 00:15:02.116 Of course using this heater is fairly expensive: 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. 00:15:11.434 --> 00:15:16.068 But at the same time, this thing isn't gonna run constantly. 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 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, 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. 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:41.081 This level of power is all about getting the cold garage warm quickly, 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. 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. 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. 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. 00:16:13.974 --> 00:16:18.671 Running the heater for an hour makes the garage pretty warm! 00:16:18.671 --> 00:16:24.934 That much energy increased the room temperature from 54 degrees up to 78 degrees! 00:16:24.934 --> 00:16:27.341 (that’s about 12 to 26 Celsius) 00:16:27.341 --> 00:16:32.394 and that test was filmed at night when it was slightly below freezing outside. 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, 00:16:39.153 --> 00:16:46.534 the garage only warms up very slightly, barely enough to notice even after hours of charging. 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! 00:16:54.060 --> 00:17:00.639 Instead it’s stored as a chemical reaction inside its battery pack for use later. 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, 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 - 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. 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 - 00:17:27.945 --> 00:17:33.943 so hot that the air leaving the heater is over three hundred degrees Fahrenheit - 00:17:33.943 --> 00:17:39.922 I’ve got a pretty neat demonstration of how incredibly efficient electric car charging is. 00:17:39.922 --> 00:17:43.079 Batteries, turns out, are pretty cool. 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. 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? 00:17:55.507 --> 00:17:59.604 Yeah, so this charger (along with every other AC charger out there) 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. 00:18:09.294 --> 00:18:15.248 That needs to be communicated to the car because the car is the actual electrical load: 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, 00:18:20.396 --> 00:18:25.548 but charging circuits? They come in all sorts of sizes. 00:18:25.548 --> 00:18:30.067 I’m gonna skip over the weeds about continuous loads and the 80% rule here 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. 00:18:40.692 --> 00:18:46.327 For instance, my car can pull 48 amps to charge at over 11 kilowatts, 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. 00:18:53.001 --> 00:18:57.066 So that’s what it does, charging at about 7.5 kilowatts. 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. 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. 00:19:16.630 --> 00:19:20.995 But if I were to, say, visit my parents with this thing 00:19:20.995 --> 00:19:22.435 [holy transition, batman!] 00:19:22.435 --> 00:19:24.376 well now it's a problem. 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 00:19:33.437 --> 00:19:35.875 which is about 5.5 kilowatts. 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. 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. 00:19:53.304 --> 00:19:55.408 Which is bad. 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. 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. 00:20:09.946 --> 00:20:16.380 So if I do that - actually this is perfectly fine to use with this charging station. 00:20:16.380 --> 00:20:22.612 But I could also turn the third element back on and… that would become a problem. 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. 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 00:20:35.982 --> 00:20:39.296 but we don’t want to be relying on that if we don’t have to. 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. 00:20:47.182 --> 00:20:50.799 If I were put in charge of designing something like this for sale 00:20:50.799 --> 00:20:54.205 (which for the record I’m not saying would be a smart idea!) 00:20:54.205 --> 00:21:01.228 I would give it the logic circuitry necessary to understand the J1772 capacity signaling protocol 00:21:01.228 --> 00:21:05.543 and I’d use three separate relays for its heating elements. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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. 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. 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. 00:22:02.533 --> 00:22:06.611 When an actual car gets connected to a charging station like this, 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. 00:22:14.122 --> 00:22:17.407 Likewise, when the car is disconnected from the charger, 00:22:17.407 --> 00:22:20.361 pressing the latch on the handle [clicky clicky] 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. 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, 00:22:35.848 --> 00:22:40.998 and this prevents electrical arcing  which damages electrical contacts over time. 00:22:40.998 --> 00:22:44.759 This heater, uh, well it’s not that smart. 00:22:44.759 --> 00:22:48.204 It’s got no logic circuitry in there whatsoever: 00:22:48.204 --> 00:22:53.048 it’s just got a basic bimetallic thermostat (which also serves as the power switch), 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), 00:22:59.771 --> 00:23:03.555 and, uh well, a contactor of its own. 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. 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, 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! 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. 00:23:29.443 --> 00:23:35.021 And that thing’s gotta switch two big motors which makes for very sparky connections! 00:23:35.021 --> 00:23:39.574 I’m mildly annoyed this cheap heater got such a nice contactor. 00:23:39.574 --> 00:23:44.617 Anyway, if the thermostat’s switch is closed when you plug the heater in, 00:23:44.617 --> 00:23:51.421 then the moment the heater is supplied with 240V, it’s gonna start pulling power. 00:23:51.421 --> 00:23:55.832 In theory, that’s not actually a problem when plugging the heater in. 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 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. 00:24:07.953 --> 00:24:08.968 [Ka-clack!] 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. 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. 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. 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. 00:24:37.920 --> 00:24:42.662 But the arcing could also happen inside the charging station. 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,   00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:53.920 then the charging station will open its own contactor and de-energize the cable,   00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:56.470 cutting off power to the heater. 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 00:25:03.750 --> 00:25:06.162 and it’s not really designed for that. 00:25:06.162 --> 00:25:10.509 Some car chargers use the same sort of contactor that’s in the heater, 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, 00:25:20.497 --> 00:25:24.098 aren’t really expected to do that repeatedly. 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. 00:25:32.989 --> 00:25:36.995 Now, the severity of that arcing problem is debatable. 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. 00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:45.324 But in any case there’s an easy solution: 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. 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 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. 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 00:26:13.564 --> 00:26:17.459 that way it can shut itself down as you reach to unplug it. 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, 00:26:25.688 --> 00:26:28.447 and there are a whole bunch of potential ways to do that. 00:26:29.480 --> 00:26:34.880 But whether an actual product like this  could ever be sold is an open question.   00:26:34.880 --> 00:26:39.240 Obtaining safety certification for it  would probably be a bit of a nightmare,   00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:43.640 and that’s assuming the Society of Automotive Engineers wouldn’t send you a nastygram   00:26:43.640 --> 00:26:49.052 demanding that you pull the product from the  shelves for misusing one of their precious standards. 00:26:49.052 --> 00:26:54.132 Then again, if this 4,800 watt portable shop heater is a product for sale, 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. 00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:07.340 And I think there’s a case to be made for that. 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. 00:27:14.093 --> 00:27:17.740 Have you seen the Wikipedia article on NEMA connectors? 00:27:17.740 --> 00:27:20.506 Yeah there are simply way too many of them. 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 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, 00:27:34.395 --> 00:27:36.680 or a car charger. 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 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. 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. 00:28:01.527 --> 00:28:03.478 But that’s all for now. 00:28:03.478 --> 00:28:06.302 Except, no, I forgot about one other thing. 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, 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. 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, 00:28:28.715 --> 00:28:32.631 in fact my car can do that, though it’s a pretty basic function. 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. 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, 00:28:48.438 --> 00:28:52.487 home charging stations are going to get more complicated. 00:28:52.487 --> 00:28:57.315 What precisely that’s going to look like in the future is anything but clear. 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, 00:29:04.536 --> 00:29:07.999 and any new features will be layered on top of that. 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 - 00:29:16.336 --> 00:29:19.689 it doesn’t care which direction the current is flowing. 00:29:19.689 --> 00:29:21.720 At least I don’t think it does. 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 - 00:29:29.762 --> 00:29:34.184 that’s how Ford’s Intelligent Backup Power works on the F-150 Lightning, 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, 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. 00:29:46.089 --> 00:29:48.787 At least if you want to do it through the charge port. 00:29:48.787 --> 00:29:51.320 But that's a problem for future us. 00:29:51.320 --> 00:29:54.354 Now, this is actually the end of the video. 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. 00:30:02.209 --> 00:30:06.405 So this charging station is gonna hang around for a long while. 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! 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. 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? 00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:28.208 I'll just take that adapter off and plug it in. 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! 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. 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. 00:30:51.642 --> 00:30:57.696 You don’t need two chargers in two-car households unless both drivers are supercommuters. 00:30:57.696 --> 00:31:01.094 Like, more than 100 miles a day each. 00:31:01.094 --> 00:31:05.039 If you made it this far, this is probably just gonna be preaching to the choir 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… 00:31:12.063 --> 00:31:13.588 ANYTHING. 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 00:31:21.466 --> 00:31:25.894 and pinball machines can charge my car to take me places, 00:31:25.894 --> 00:31:29.000 cook my food to have a meal and in myriad ways, 00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:31.223 preserve my food in the refrigerator, 00:31:31.223 --> 00:31:34.281 heat and cool my home to keep me comfortable, 00:31:34.281 --> 00:31:37.685 and now they can heat my garage, too. 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. 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, 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. 00:31:55.523 --> 00:31:59.600 I just plug the car in and it charges while I sleep. 00:31:59.600 --> 00:32:04.779 Those of you who still refuse to see how awesome that is are really missing out. 00:32:05.667 --> 00:32:08.264 ♫ modificatedly smooth jazz ♫ 00:32:09.684 --> 00:32:15.268 No, that’s not some special shop heater designed to work with an electric car charger… 00:32:16.333 --> 00:32:18.106 [disappointed sighment] 00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:22.282 Seconds in and I flubbed a line 00:32:22.282 --> 00:32:26.538 Which is plenty of heat for even a fairly large room assoming it’s - 00:32:26.538 --> 00:32:27.840 assoming? 00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:31.320 Wow, this isn’t going great.  00:32:31.320 --> 00:32:35.560 But the basic gist of this video will be ex--- fraIdidaphetackbadadah  00:32:35.560 --> 00:32:38.170 Portable. Powered. Shop. Hi? 00:32:38.170 --> 00:32:42.741 …exactly the same if I were using a J3400 AC charger. 00:32:42.741 --> 00:32:45.556 I would just be installing [bong as plug hits heater]… 00:32:45.556 --> 00:32:47.582 great work, me! 00:32:47.582 --> 00:32:49.889 So I did! Which you saw at the beginning. 00:32:49.889 --> 00:32:52.402 And which whyweeuvd…. 00:32:52.728 --> 00:32:53.615 oooops! 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. 00:32:59.254 --> 00:33:02.497 Oh well, no sense getting hot and bothered over it. 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..." 00:33:07.322 --> 00:33:10.755 must. resist. executing. silly. idea.