# Industry Attempting To Stop DIY EVSE



## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

I thought you might like to see just how government and industry conspire to prevent free consumer choice in the UK


----------



## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

Here's a link provided by UK EVSE to the offending article;

http://www.myelifenow.com/2014/01/diy-evse-build-day-by-kevin-sharpe-from.html


----------



## Hollie Maea (Dec 9, 2009)

Funny that they are expressing concern about "inferior, poorly constructed charge points". Did they send the same letter to Blink?


----------



## evmetro (Apr 9, 2012)

When the government gets involved with things, they always screw it up. Over here in the USA, charging stations get installed with federal grants, so they screw them up. They get installed with an obsolete 30 amp service, and do not have the common connections that we have in our homes and businesses, so I still avoid them for now. If the funky plug network ever becomes adequate and abundant, I may add the funky connection to my conversions, but for now I charge with the connections that have become standard over the last century, and the government has no idea how many kwh I use to drive my car. I use a standard 50 amp connection that Home Depot sells for about $20 that has stood the test of time, and I use the country's most common but slowest connection, the 110 volt 3 prong that is native to every wall in every home or business in North America. I do not need a bulky black box to plug in where ever I want. My guess is that the government will eventually govern where I can charge for my own good, just like they need to pick my health care plan, but for now I will enjoy my charging freedom!


----------



## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Firstly, what's written below is not intended as a slam against Kevin or ZeroCarbonWorld
I too think it stinks how gov't and industry seem to love creating closed shops, making it difficult to get new products to market. The EU and all the innumerable directives we now have to comply with are basically killing innovative product design by small companies

I've just watched the video, and I'm speaking as an electronics/electrical design engineer here with 20 yrs experience...

I have some concerns with the unit as it’s built in the video:

first problem I can see is the smaller wires providing the live & neutral feeds to the EPC are not large enough to safely handle the maximum current the 32A RCBO would allow to flow long-term (i.e. 32A) - what happens if the EPC goes faulty, but the fault doesn’t draw more than 32A? If it draws 20A in a fault condition, that's still over 4kW of heat being dumped inside the box!

This smaller gauge wire (and the EPC) should be protected by its own fuse, or be made bigger to withstand the maximum continuous current the RCBO could pass (otherwise you have no protection against an overload of this wire leading to fire)

This issue would be raised if the unit is presented to an accredited test house - and it would prevent CE certification

Interestingly enough - I've looked inside a commercially availble Rolec WallPod unit, and seen the same thing - no overload protection for smaller gauge wiring!!!


2nd problem - earthing!

The box shown in the video has multiple protective conductors connected into just one terminal.
This makes me nervous - it's not permitted in electrical machinery anymore (check BS EN 60204:2009, Safety of Electrical Machinery) Each protective conductor must be fixed using its own dedicated fixing, which is used for no other purpose. It should not be possible to disconnect the protective bonding for multiple components just by undoing one fastener.
Whether this box would fall under 60204 I'm not sure, as it's portable not fixed to a wall, but I'd like to see a better method for joining the earth wires, since they are the ones that provide fault protection!

An easy fix for this is to use multiple earthing blocks, but then you have to make sure the DIN rail is robust enough to withstand the maximum fault current that your 32A socket-outlet's breaker could pass before it trips. Possibly a better solution is to use a dedicated earthing busbar, with individual fixings for each wire (Weidmuller make these, and stockists such as RS Components/ Farnell stock them)



I think it's great you've made this product - but now they (gov't) have got wind of it, you'll need to ensure it complies with all relevant the EU/UK standards

Richard (electricmini)

(it won't be long before they try to ban us from doing DIY EV's anyway)


----------



## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

Hi
I am going to have a contrary point of view

If you are making something for yourself and your mates - then OK - fire away

If it is going to be used by the public then it must meet the appropriate standards
And it must be demonstrated to meet those standards

A system that is "safe" for you to use may not be safe for your dopey brother in law


----------



## Karter2 (Nov 17, 2011)

Kevin Sharpe said:


> I thought you might like to see just how government and industry conspire to prevent free consumer choice in the UK


 I dont see the "government" involvement here ?
The UK EVSE appears to be an.. "industry association " with a.. "governing body" which could be any collection of self elected industry do gooders.
But are they empowered with any "Authority" ??
..or are they just trying to scare off a competitor ?

I guess the basic issue is...you are not in their "club"

But if you do intend to "make public" your designs , then its wise to ensure they comply to safety standards.

REF:


> [h2]What is the role of UK EVSE?[/h2]
> The role of UK EVSE is to provide an industry voice for members, engaging with key stakeholders to help promote the roll out of the infrastructure required to support motorists driving electric vehicles in the UK.
> UK EVSE provides a collaborative platform whereby members can contribute to the development of industry standards and share best practice. UK EVSE and its members provides guidance to national and local Government, organisations installing charge points, the motor industry and the motorist.


----------



## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Duncan said:


> Hi
> I am going to have a contrary point of view
> 
> If you are making something for yourself and your mates - then OK - fire away
> ...


OMG - 4th time this year I agree with Duncan! 

Really, this is no different than Experimental Aircraft. You can do about anything you want if you only endanger yourself; once you become a "business" then government really does have a role to protect people from sales and advertising which can easily portray a false sense of safety.

I do agree that government often goes way too far, but the basic premise is reasonable.


----------



## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

electricmini said:


> first problem I can see is the smaller wires providing the live & neutral feeds to the EPC are not large enough to safely handle the maximum current the 32A RCBO would allow to flow long-term (i.e. 32A) - what happens if the EPC goes faulty, but the fault doesn’t draw more than 32A? If it draws 20A in a fault condition, that's still over 4kW of heat being dumped inside the box!
> 
> This smaller gauge wire (and the EPC) should be protected by its own fuse, or be made bigger to withstand the maximum continuous current the RCBO could pass (otherwise you have no protection against an overload of this wire leading to fire)
> 
> This issue would be raised if the unit is presented to an accredited test house - and it would prevent CE certification


The EPC has an internal fuse and both the EPC and several products built using it have been CE tested and certified.



electricmini said:


> 2nd problem - earthing!
> 
> The box shown in the video has multiple protective conductors connected into just one terminal.
> This makes me nervous - it's not permitted in electrical machinery anymore (check BS EN 60204:2009, Safety of Electrical Machinery) Each protective conductor must be fixed using its own dedicated fixing, which is used for no other purpose. It should not be possible to disconnect the protective bonding for multiple components just by undoing one fastener.
> Whether this box would fall under 60204 I'm not sure, as it's portable not fixed to a wall, but I'd like to see a better method for joining the earth wires, since they are the ones that provide fault protection!


When our wall mounted products were certified this was not raised as an issue but I appreciate the comments and will get it checked out anyway 

The video is intended as an educational tool to show how simple EVSE products can be and that's why it repeatedly requests people to get the end product approved and tested by an expert.

Behind the camera was a power electronics expert with ~40 years experience and in the garage that day were two PHDs


----------



## chris1968 (Sep 11, 2012)

> I dont see the "government" involvement here ?
> The UK EVSE appears to be an.. "industry association " with a.. "governing body" which could be any collection of self elected industry do gooders.
> But are they empowered with any "Authority" ??
> ..or are they just trying to scare off a competitor ?
> ...


Nail on the head I think.


----------



## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

Karter2 said:


> I dont see the "government" involvement here ?


CENEX are partially funded by OLEV as part of the "Plugged in Places" scheme.


----------



## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

Duncan said:


> If you are making something for yourself and your mates - then OK - fire away


I completely agree and thats why I think it's important to defend the right of people to do just that in the UK.



Duncan said:


> If it is going to be used by the public then it must meet the appropriate standards.


Agreed, and all our products are tested to comply with the required standards within the EU and CE marked.

The EVSE in the video is not a product of ours but simply a collection of parts purchased off the the shelf in DIY stores


----------



## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

Kevin Sharpe said:


> The EPC has an internal fuse and both the EPC and several products built using it have been CE tested and certified.


Fair enough, if the EPC has its own internal fuse then it's just the protection of the smaller sized wire that I'd be concerned about. I only mentioned it because we've been tripped up before on this kind of thing on jobs at work, when we take them to a test house



Kevin Sharpe said:


> When our wall mounted products were certified this was not raised as an issue but I appreciate the comments and will get it checked out anyway


Cool, as I said it's not intended as a criticism, just again it's something a test house was picky about on one of the jobs at the office (an MOD project), so this jumped out at me.



Kevin Sharpe said:


> The video is intended as an educational tool to show how simple EVSE products can be and that's why it repeatedly requests people to get the end product approved and tested by an expert.


Good advice, but the end user would need to choose their expert carefully - a good electrician who's competent with doing household installations may not necessarily have the specialist knowledge needed for CE-compliant electrical product design....
(e.g BS EN60204, 61010, the LVD, etc)

I can see why gov't agencies would get antsy - they always think in terms of lawyers and regulations. In reality, the box in your video appears well put together, with decent components. If it's built properly, it's a great add-on that'll let people use the large numbers of existing outlets. It's what happens if someone doesn't build it well that will cause the backlash....

It's a shame we seem to be so obsessed with over-regulation here in the EU, again it's killing innovation by small companies/individuals/charities, leaving product design to large corporations who have the budgets to employ armies of engineers (and lawyers), yet churn out mediocre products and poor customer service.
(my job is with a small/medium size company, so we see this all the time. Many clients don't want to pay what it really takes to do a decent design, even though they do have the budget. they seem to have the mentality of "if the Chinese can make it for $10, why can't you?")


----------



## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

Transport Evolved - UK Trade Association Wants to Stop DIY Charging Stations

"The UK Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment association, a trade body that represents suppliers of charging stations and charging station management systems, has written a strongly-worded letter asking a UK charity to cease the promotion of do-it-yourself charging stations."


----------



## Karter2 (Nov 17, 2011)

Kevin Sharpe said:


> CENEX are partially funded by OLEV as part of the "Plugged in Places" scheme.


"Funded by". Does not necessarily impart any legal authority.

Have it checked by a legal advisor, then tell them to stick it !
...or alternatively (and probably wiser..), just quietly ignor it completely.


----------



## steven4601 (Nov 11, 2010)

What is the moaning about ???
Looks great to me. Earthing can perhaps be safer, but its safe in terms of a DIY situation. Maybe a few cable wraps to keep individual wires from flopping around in a situation ONE screw comes loose. 

I am much more afraid of those who screw all their HV EV components on a piece of wood and call it a conversion! Bad engineering skills such as using 12V fuse cardridges to interrupt their traction pack... Brrr.

All mains at residential is already fused, limited energy. EV Traction packs pack a lot more punch.

//Steven


----------

