In early December, blessed by warm weather, I installed and Emporia level 2 charger (EVSE) on my barn wall, for charging a new ID.4.
I thought I would provide a few notes to make the installation easier for others faced with a similar task.
The first thing I did was determined that two conductor wire would work, as opposed to three conductor wire which is required for a 14-50 outlet. On a temporary basis I had been running the charger off of a 14-50 outlet which is near where the permanent mount was done.
At the time the economic difference between running 6/2 wire and 6/3 wire was significant.
Lowe's had 6/2 wire for a little bit over $2 a foot. Their price for 6/3 wire was over $7 a foot. Because my installation is on an agricultural building, I was required to use either conduit, MC or UF wire. I elected to use UF because for me it is easier to handle, and given the construction of the barn, it was easy to run UF.
About 20 ft away is a breaker panel which is sub-fed from the house, via underground cable. I had plenty of capacity and space in that panel, so I planned on a full size breaker and a run from that panel directly to the charger. Because the termination was in the charger, I omitted a handy box as it was unnecessary under code and provided no other benefit.
The front panel of the charger comes off and then access is available to the inside where the connection was made. I removed the 14-50 plug that came with the unit, and although it's not shown in the photograph, I got a plug for the opening that I no longer needed. It turns out that that power cord is 8 gauge, and is not acceptable for use if the charger runs at 48 amps. It can be used if the charger is at 40 amps.
The charger is not really designed for a flush mount where it is back fed power. I drilled a hole in the case where a strain relief is visible and then mount it on the mount that you see on the barn wall. In order to do so the front panel screws had to be put in, which are 3 mm heads. Initially I used a torx driver which I think was t15. Eventually I ended up finding a 3 mm Allen on a 3/8 inch drive, which I could easily turn with my fingers to get the front panel on. That was the toughest part of the job. If I had done the cabling slightly differently, that would not have been necessary.
The rest of the 240 volt work was easy peasy, and the part in the charger is readily visible in one of the photographs.
For inspection, I save photographs of the appliance with the cover off, and I had the panel box cover off for the inspector.
Total project time for the installation was a leisurely 4 hours. 2 hours together the tools, the strain relief, take a trip to a store to get the wire, and so on. An additional 2 hours, taking my time, to pull the wire, reinforce the siding underneath the charger mount, and take a few pictures.
Every installation is a little bit different, and everybody's skills and tools and resources are a little bit different. Recently I helped a friend install one in his garage which involved pulling 6/2 from a panel box in the house, penetrate the foundation at the base of the garage floor, and run the wire kitty corner across the garage. The day was a little colder, and we were motivated to get the job done quickly and get back inside. With two of us, the entire task took an hour.
