Awesome product, superb support, a bit confusing
For J1772 Hydra
We've been a 2 EV family for 2 years now but only have a single charging station in the garage. Most of the time the first car (with a 6.6kW charger) was done in less than 2 hours so it was a simple matter of swapping the cable (if I remembered) before bed. But we traded my wife's 6.6kW LEAF for a Volt recently, and that car charges SLOWLY, as does my older 3.3kW LEAF. That meant I would sometimes have to wait up for her car to complete so I could swap the cable. And if we both arrived home late, that usually meant getting the 120V charger out and hoping it would finish by morning. The J1772 Hydra is the perfect solution for us.
Altogether in parts it's quite an investment, as the developer warns. But for us, it worked out about the same as getting a second charging station (which actually would've been difficult since our panel couldn't accept another 240V circuit as is), and having a portable unit that I could take anywhere if I needed to was a win.
The project got off to a slow start as the initial shipping was delayed, but Nick more than made up for it in support and excellent response from that point on.
The board itself seems very well designed, and is being actively developed. Nick has had extensive experience with the OpenEVSE project, so I trust that he knows the ins and outs of charging stations. I have a high confidence in the design and Nick's support. While I chose to go "by the book" as far as the external components and configuration goes, there is sufficient information provided if you want to tweak the design to your specifications (both from a hardware and software perspective).
The main issue I had (aside from the fact that I'm a chip designer by trade, so working with high voltage components is quite foreign to me) is that with all the development activity and revs to the board, referencing the correct documentation is a challenge. Going into the project I found two different build documents (one for an older rev and one for what looked like the current rev), plus an illustrated build guide, plus a software repository, all spread around different sites. And even then, as I later found out, I was not referencing the most recent documentation which was on yet another site. As it turned out, referencing back-level documentation is a big problem, so make 100% sure you are referencing the current docs. I just checked and the current docs ARE linked from this site (and you should probably check with Nick just in case). In my case, my initial web search for the J1772 Hydra (since I was aware of its name) found the obsolete docs first (which I didn't know were obsolete at the time) and those had a link to this store which I just quickly ordered the board from without checking the documentation link.
I will say that the older docs are actually better in some respects. The instructions are a bit more detailed in some key areas. But on the other hand, the newer instructions have a more complete/succinct BOM list (something that would have helped me tremendously), and most importantly they are current!
As for the BOM list, as I mentioned, the current docs have a more complete BOM list, but it's not necessarily better. While the older docs had incomplete BOM lists, and they were spread around the documentation, I will say that the older docs did a better job at identifying potential sources for the parts. The current docs ALMOST do this, but not quite. For example, the older docs had a much better discussion on where to get the J1772 cable sets and things to watch out for when it came to making sure the proximity sensor wires in the cable actually did something. For the record, I was able to get what I feel was a high quality cable for the best price from Quick Charge Power, although even then I had to hack the nozzles a bit to get the proximity wire hooked up (something the old docs mentioned, but the newer ones don't cover at all). Nick also referred me to good sources for some of the other components. Examples: the best deal on the contactors was from OpenEVSE.com, whereas the button was a better deal from Adafruit (although if you are already ordering from OpenEVSE, you could save shipping costs by buying from them).
So I had three major issues with the build. First, one of the two boards included in this project had a defect. Nick gladly sent out replacement boards even before I returned the defective board. This was excellent service. The other two issues were mine. The first of those is that because I was referencing older docs, I got the wrong contactors and actually damaged the HV board, which again, Nick gladly replaced and even helped me to diagnose and get back up and running. The other is that once I had the correct contactors, I hooked them up wrong. Again, this could have been avoided by pointing to the most recent docs. Fortunately the only damage I did this time was to the contactors themselves. Thankfully the contactors at OpenEVSE are only $12 compared to about $47 from Grainger!
The build itself did take quite a bit of time (and significantly more considering I actually built/rebuilt the unit 4 times due to my errors!) but most of that was in getting parts and realizing I didn't have everything I needed. The older docs failed to mention some items which a hobbyist might have on hand (but I didn't), so I had to go back and order more supplies. The current docs do have a better list. I will say that while intimidating at first, the project is actually quite straightforward to wire up and Nick has done a fine job in creating a nice, compact arrangement for mounting. My only critique here is that I would probably find a way to mount the components such that both the outlets come out of the bottom of the case, and the inlet on the side (perhaps even rotating the case to a "landscape" orientation). I mounted my inlet in such a way that the angled nozzle was "sideways", and that way I could hang the finished project flush against the wall, but this seems kind of kludgy--a side mounted inlet would solve this problem. AND, having the outlet cables come out of the bottom would seem a little better from a mounting standpoint. But as it is, there is nothing functionally wrong with it and it works fine. The cables and inlet I got had smaller gauge pairs of wires (rather than single thicker gauge). This made it easier for me to route the wires than the unit described in the instructions. I think this would also have afforded me the opportunity to have a tidier cable routing (with somewhat longer wires) and properly cable tie them.
In the end, and with excellent support from Nick, I was able to get my J1772 Hydra working great. It can charge both my cars simultaneously (since they both only pull a maximum of 15A), but there is a sequential mode available (to charge one after the other), and if I did have a 30A capable vehicle, the unit should slow that vehicle down while a second vehicle is charging. It's really a great solution!
If you can financially justify the expense of the additional hardware required for this project, I would highly recommend this for someone with 2 EVs, or even someone that regularly charges in public where charging stations are limited.
