Anyone got bored of plugging in everyday?

What's that got to do with building your own?
.

 

Quite a lot, if you can't achieve electronic compatibility (if required).
I'm not yet convinced there isn't a proprietary electronic data link between the two.
I'd welcome anyone who can weigh in.

 

"i don't agree with the 'fixed number of charges thing'.
the manual simply states that if the light comes on, it's cooked and you need a new one. this can happen to any product. it's a protection mechanism and does not mean they have calculated a specific number. i'm sure they do lifespan testing like any product, and knowing toyota, most are going to last longer than we have the cars. others will fail under warranty and some will fail at different points after warranty. toyota does not have a monopoly on the evse, and of course, you're welcome to repair and re use if you're capable. "

I'll probably be the first to know, so no worries I'll share !
I charge 3x a day minimum

I guess since the warranty is for time not number of charges I'm better off...

 

I respect your opinion, but I know I read somewhere that after a fixed number of charge cycles, the EVSE is disabled. The manual also implies this. As I said, anyone who can weigh in with some good references is welcome.

 

But you're forgetting the light mode that indicates "nearing end of charging cable life." Pray tell how that is determined if not via some kind of counter schema?

This thread has taken a life of its own. Can anyone with TMC contacts see if they can get the exact parameters for what Toyota considers the "charging cable life?" Unless/until we know this, all is speculation.

 

the electronic handshake is part of the standard. that's why you can buy an L2 from anyone. (which is more commonly done here).

 

there is no one here with contacts, and toyota doesn't release any proprietary info. of course this is all speculation, by a bunch of worry warts with too much time on their hands!

 

The link between the EVSE and the car is ANSI standard SAE J1772. If it were somehow proprietary, you couldn't use public charging stations. Lots of people use Leaf and Volt EVSEs on their Prius Plug-in.

 

I earn $1000 per year picking up and recycling bottles and cans. A PIP is less effort.

 

JuiceBox is opensource EVSE that will work with the PIP.
It uses an Arduino board with an Atmel 8-bit AVR microcontroller.
It's instructions are opensource and annotated. Take a look at the code and note there's no logic bomb/drop dead counter/code in there...
Index of /JuiceBox_Public/8.7/50 - Firmware

 

It's not a minor issue to everyone. If I am forced to buy a new $1200 dollar charge cable after an unspecified period of use or time, I'd like to know. I hope it's not the case, but I'm not going to guess. I'm sure someone will eventually chime in with the right answer.

Until then, I'll decide what I choose to worry about.

 

This is very simple... Toyota, just like GM and Nissan and many others use a standard connector and standard charging protocol.

There IS a handshaking protocol. It is a known (even in open source communities) protocol. You can go buy a new cable from one of a number of sellers, even on eBay or Amazon, as well as a relay from anywhere and a small microcontroller to do the handshake and you are done.

There is nothing proprietary about it. You can buy a replacement one fully assembled and built for a couple hundred dollars on eBay/Amazon or a number of other sellers across the internet. Or go to the GM dealer or Nissan dealer or Mitsubishi dealer and buy one. They will all work. If it didn't, then you couldn't do public charging except at Toyota dealerships which isn't true.

 

Good to know if it's true, however it still doesn't tell me when my cable will stop working. I'd like to know when that will happen, at least.

 

Easy to test "if it is true". Go to your nearest public charger and plug it in. If it charges, then voila.

And nobody can prove to you that it will not just stop working. After a couple thousand uses, that would be a few years of continual use. The rubber insulation will probably be less than ideal. Most of the J1772 connectors are only rated for 10K cycles anyways. And to put into perspective, if you charge once a day, that's over 27 years.

Are you this worried about every electronic piece you have? Do you know that your USB ports on your laptop or PC are usually rated for 1500 cycles? Some high life ones are 10K cycles but are rarely used in consumer electronics. The physical buttons on many devices are only rated a few thousand cycles generally.

 

AFAIK, none have the capability to proactively stop functioning upon reaching that rated number of cycles. They simply stop working when they wear out.

The only issue in my mind is how the Toyota EVSE knows it's in pre-end-of-life/end-of-life. The only logical explanation of how that happens is consistent with the observed EPROM count reported by someone who apparently dinked in there. And thus, the only logical conclusion is that there is some number of cycles that will trigger the device shutting down for the count. (Pun intended).

 

That's not the only way. I work on IC's that provide power to lots of devices including the backbones to the internet. All the IC's monitor the series resistance between the power IC and the main load as well as the DC series resistance of the inductors and ripple voltage around the capacitors. Using this you can determine the health of the system and when you are close to needing replacement. If they are out of spec, we refuse to power up. Better to stay off and not destroy a few tens of millions of dollars worth of network equipment with bad power. Of course there is a warning for replacement since it is actively monitored all the time. This sort of design is not that hard to do, especially if you use on of our ICs!

It could be a simple count on insertions, or it could be something that actually monitors the health of the system. Maybe it checks the relay resistance before connecting the load to make sure it hasn't degraded too much. Who knows. But there are lots of ways to detect this smartly.

 

The impression I get from reading what I have on it, is that after a certain number of uses, the cable is judged to be unsafe, therefore a warning is issued for a time, and then the unit will be disabled.

 

Sorry for the double post.

 

That is not said anywhere officially. All that is said officially is that if it is nearing the end of life, it will tell you. When it has reached end of life, it will tell you and stop charging. That is ALL IT SAYS. Everything else is pure speculation. End of life could be calculated many ways. I have shown above that methods exist to actually determine end of life based on real world data and measurements made actively in real time versus a simple counter. Nobody knows what system Toyota uses.

 

So buy yourself this one: amazon.com/Plug-Charger-Portable-Cord-Nema/dp/B00D6OGRX6 It's even level 2 and will set you back less than $400. I have two now. The one that came with the car is permanently on my deck for use when I am home, and this one is kept in the car for when I am where I can get a charge (mostly at family's houses): amazon.com/Leviton-EVC11-300-Evr-Green-Portable-Charger/dp/B004G6ZQYY I got it on sale for under $500! Basically any cord that is a standard EVSE cord (for USA or Canada) with a J1772 connector will work on your PiP. I would hope enough people on here have now told you not to worry about "Proprietary codes from that awful Company....!" that you will get the point... Now you can go worry about something else.