Currently, I'm using the included charger to charge my Gen 5 in a standard 120v outdoor outlet. It usually charges in about nine hours. I would like to shorten that time. What is level two charging; Is that just a matter of plugging the included charger into a 240v outlet, or do I need an actual level 2 charger?
Level 2 AC charging is charging at 208-240V. Power ranges from 3.3kW to 19kW. I believe the new Prime is still limited to 3.3kW? I don’t think the Toyota supplied charger (technically called Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment or EVSE) has the plug type of a 240V outlet. You’ll need both the outlet and the EVSE/charger unless you hardwire a Level 2 EVSE. If you go the plug route, the typical outlet is a NEMA 14-30 or 14-50. The second number (30 or 50) is the rated amperage of the outlet. 14 is the design type. The other typical outlet is NEMA 6-50 - this one is 208V 3-phase.
The fairly inexpensive evse’s for sale online, many can use a 6-20 240 volt outlet. That’s all is needed to charge a Prime. Any 20 amp outlet can be converted to a 6-20 receptacle and by installing a 20 amp 240 circuit breaker. Done by a licensed electrician of course.
I guess 208V can be both single and 3-phase. 208V 3-phase probably goes to commercial? 480V to industrial?
I wired a short adapter to convert the standard Nema 5-15 (15A @ 120V) to a L6-15 (15A @ 240V) and plugged it into a 240V outlet wired to a 20A breaker. Obviously, this adapter does not meet code and I put lots of warning labels to deter anyone from plugging something else into the end. The end result is the car charges much quicker and it only takes about 11kWh to fill the car rather than around 14kWh. As an additional warning, do not cut off the plug on the OEM adapter as it has thermal sensors inside.
Yeah... AC is not the easiest to grasp sometimes. Perhaps this drawing can help? It's a 120V (phase to neutral) 3-phase system. You get 208V by connecting between any 2 phases. Most 240V appliances will function at this lower voltage, but they may pull more current to make up for it.
I've never seen a 208 volt single phase AC supply. My question was about the 208 vault single phase. Does that exist somewhere?
All 208s I've ever heard of, were between two 'hots' of 120V 3-phase. A.k.a. 120/208V. When someone calls this 'single phase', they probably usually mean the particular branch circuit has only just two hot lines from 120V 3-phase, without the third phase or a neutral. So such individual branches don't have 3-phase on them, even though the overall site service is 3-phase. Remember that 208V = 120V * sqrt(3). I haven't heard of a split-phase 104/208. Our common 120/240V residential service is technically split-phase, a special form of single phase. On a true 2-phase system (now obsolete, though one of my old college profs worked one in his youth before they mostly vanished), the difference between two 120V legs would be just 170V = 120V * sqrt(2). This gives the same smooth continuous power flow as 3-phase (or any balanced multi-phase), but without the wire savings of 3-phase. I believe the 480V systems are referring to the voltage between two 'hots' of 277 / 480V 3-phase. I.e. 277V hot to neutral, if a neutral is present.
'Pirate' 240V to 120V adapters are now readily available on Amazon. Look for NEMA 6-15 / 6-20 / 5-15 / 5-20 on the output / socket side. Though buyer / user beware, these cannot be made code-compliant or pass any safety inspection, because they cannot be made idiot-resistant. I use a proper code-compliant 240V outlet and L2 EVSE at home, and started with some 'pirate' adapters for travel with the Toyota 120V EVSE, which seems to handle 240V just fine, though is still limited to 12 amps. But have now upgraded to a portable true-L2/L1 EVSE, to allow travel charging at my RAV4's full 7kW rate from 50-amp RV outlets, such as was available at the base camp of a recent multi-day event I was supporting (but not where I was lodging overnights). Old brochures listed this RAV4 at 6.6 kW, newer ones 7 kW, but this campground's voltage was slightly on the high side, giving me 7.3 kW. Worked great.
