[foxyv]

Looking forward to a teardown of an EA charger by someone familiar with power circuits. I wonder if they are shorting primary to secondary and getting 2400V AC straight into their car battery... Probably welding the plug to the car too.

[DannyBee]

The high power ones are putting DC into the car for starters.

The two extra prongs are the DC.

Conversion would generally prevent the issue you cite. They are converting three phase ac, and usually only 480v. Isolation failure would not fry the car like this because it would fault first. They are separate ac and DC cabinets with proper controls.

It may still be overvolting the DC, just not this particular way. It is much more likely the rectifier is fucked or something.

Placing 300kw (or even 150kw) of DC at like 4x the right voltage would make more than just a loud bang. It would instantly melt most insulation, for starters.

The bang is an mccb or something catching the fucked up rectifier

These cars likely got overvolt at light amperage. Otherwise lots of things would have sparked and burst into flame

[foxyv]

Sounds like you know more about these than I do. Part of why I was curious about a tear down. I'm wondering if any corners were cut on these such as improper isolation. Naturally it could also be the car itself has a short that blew itself and the dispenser up. Maybe a rubbing wire on the car with a high resistance short that melted and bridged then tripped the MCCB temporarily disabling the charger.

Judging by the quality of automobile maintenance and manufacturing I would bet on the latter now that I think of it.

[jeffbee]

The charging stations near me are built with the AC-DC converters in one set of cabinets and the dispensers in separate cabinets. The dispensers don't seem to have any AC power available to fault into the car.

[foxyv]

This is purely speculation because we don't have the chargers to tear down. There could be a fault in the transformer, pushing a couple kilovolts AC into the power rectifier and shorting it, then pushing it straight into the dispenser and the car. However, for all we know it's the cars that are shorting themselves and taking 400 volts at full amperage and dying before the dispenser blows a breaker. I wouldn't be surprised if the cause was a battery fault either.

This is why I would love to see a tear down. What type of battery fault prevention is in an EA charger? What kind of step down system? Do they use a battery as a buffer? Just plain curious.

[creaturemachine]

No need for speculation, it's all here in the sales brochure. https://new.abb.com/ev-charging/high-power-charging Fun fact, getting 350 kW into your Lucid requires pulling from two rectifier cabinets.

[CaliforniaKarl]

What?

> CCS vehicle inlets are equipped with an electromechanically controlled locking bolt … designed to withstand high pull-out forces.

Source: https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/use-ccs-connectors-to-si...

[foxyv]

Yeah, that may be why they couldn't be removed. Although, why the locking bolt didn't retract when power was lost is a bit of a mystery. Usually power is required to keep it in place. The plastic may have melted it into place though.

[adolph]

Probably too spendy for BigClive. Munro Live has one about the NACS (N. Am Charging Standard) announcement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjofPpThWU

[rasz]

mikeselectricstuff (guy is a legend) did:

Tesla European CCS adapter teardown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-R49NdernY

Ubitricity EV Smart Charging cable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-seqXymUT-g

Hyundai Kona EV High voltage junction box https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpigvK8v8Tg

Renault Zoe EV Battery Charger Block ( BCB ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=argrHjADn8g

Renault Zoe EV inverter ( PEB) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drS3sEsxOO8

TLDR: CSS is a shitshow

[PM_me_your_math]

Spot Welding America