I have been using the PFC-50 at low charging currents off a 120VAC 20 amp circuit. I was able to set the finishing charge voltage level with the trim pod and a jewelers screw driver from the front panel.
But that is only the first step to being ready to connect to a higher capacity power source and turn the charging current higher. Today at the Silicon Valley Rally I made a 10-3 14-50 extension cable to connect the PFC-50 EV charger to a 15-40 outlet with a 40 amp breaker in the EV charging area. I need to know at what AC amps into the PFC-50 relates to what DC amps into my pack. I asked one of the EAA members to connect his Fluke 40 to the panel he had made just for measurements like this. My pack was only down by 7 miles, using 2.1 ah per mile on a 132V US145 pack (about 100 ahs of capacity). The 208VAC feed from Stanford read 204 VAC under load at the outlet. I cranked the current knob on the PFC-50 charger until I was drawing 30 AC amps. My cruising control emeter was reading 36.6 DC amps into my pack. I left the know at the setting for 15 minutes. The AC draw remained constant (6 kw), the DC amps in changed as the pack voltage rose. I then cranked the current knob until I reached a 40 AC amp draw into the PFC-50. I was getting 44 amps DC into my pack. This tells me that when I connect the PFC-50 to a public AVCON charging head using an AVCON adaptor, if I read a 40 DC amp charge current going into my pack at the beginning of my charge and do not change the knob setting, I will pump about 6kw into my pack and not trip either the AVCON charging head or the host 40 amp circuit breaker. I will need to prove this setting works to verify my readings. Tripping the host's breaker is not what we want to do. Imagine tripping the breaker at Costco and what a pain it will be to get them to reset it. Also the sigma of them remembering that EVs keep tripping breakers is really bad. Since the PFC-50 has much more charging capacity, I plan to find a 220VAC 50amp outlet to open the PFC-50 charger to its maximum and see what current I can achieve. This will be a good test to know how long it would take to charge if the PFC-50 on a 14-50 220VAC 50 amp outlet was my only charing source. There is just such a scenario, if I were to challenge a trip from San Jose to LA, at the Atascadero Circle K. They have a 14-50 50 amp outlet on the outside next to the front door. My guesstimate is that I would get 72 amps from the PFC-50 in this configuration. I get 3 miles back for every hour of charge at 10 DC amps into my pack. So I should get 21+ miles back for every hour of charge at a 72 DC amp rate into my pack. Since this is the last stop before a long steep grade to reach San Luis Obispo, I would not do just a simple opportunity charge to recoup the miles used. I would spend an extra hour to ensure a full charge. This should make my recharge time about 3 hours (2 hours to recoup + 1 hour to reach 100% (minus a finishing charge to balance the pack). More on the PFC-50 testing as I do it. :-zzz ===== ' ____ ~/__|o\__ '@----- @'---(= . http://geocities.com/brucedp . EV List Editor & RE newswires . http://egroups.com/group/evangel ===== __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
