Using the Primes 120v Charger at 240 Volts, Cost $20 !!!

This receptacle

Sorry, looks like 2 of my pics didn't load so I added separately.

SM-N986U1 ?

 

Buddy, you are posting pics of all the unsafe and possibly illegal things you are doing to your house.
Why not just buy a proper L2 EVSE that has the connector you need to plug into the existing 240V outlet?
Promise, you'll only have to open that billfold a tiny bit.....

 

I don't understand your reply. I posted this question to verify I'm using the correct adaptor as is the point of this thread no?

This thread includes 240 to 120 adaptor to use with my included prime charger..

I see that this method is working with just the included prime charger. Obviously only plugging this into the adapter extension and nothing else.

Saves me 200ish for L2 charger, if it works.


SM-N986U1 ?

 

The full on L2 EVSE (Not a charger; it's inside your car under the back seat.) won't eliminate your need for the splitter/adapter or, better and safer, another 240V outlet. But it will charge the car noticeably faster than the OEM EVSE at 240V.

 

Hey all, just wanted to chime in to say I just tried running my Toyota factory charge cable on a 240V line and it seems to work great. Charge time is less than half, as expected. I measured the current with a clamp-on ammeter and it seems to be around 11.6 amps most of the time. Interestingly, there is no voltage present at any of the three outputs at the car plug end before connecting it to the car. Toyota must have built some pretty elaborate safety features into this charge cable. It seems the car has to tell the EVSE to turn on after it is satisfied all is well with the connection. So the disconnected charging end is never a shock hazard. Nice design. So glad I found this thread.

I still my buy a real L2 charger one day, but I need to do some research and learn which ones are good. Any opinions? For now, this is great.

 

Yes, the SAE J1772 standard works to protect you from shock. The 'house' end even checks the temperature of the outlet to protect your property.

SAE J1772 - Wikipedia

 

Thanks for the link. Very impressive standard.

 

Traded in the Prius and got a Rav4 prime XSE, looks like we have the same Toyota charger, and I'm using 220v on it with great results. I followed this post and made a $20 adapter. Thanks to all the early testers.

 

me personally keeps hopin one of the early adopters returns and gives an update.
blah blah blah

 

I totally love the fact that the OEM Toyota adapter works perfectly at 240 volts! We certainly owe a debt of gratitude to the early adopters, especially Rob43. I would think that by now Toyota must be aware that so many people are running their 120 volt style charger on homemade adapters that provide 240 volts on what appears to be an ordinary 120v outlet that they would step in, admit it works fine, and offer a safer fix. Perhaps a permanent attachment to the plug end or swap of the inlet cable?

Personally, I am so impressed at how fast my Prime recharges now that I wanted even more. I like 12amp so much I have to have 16! I ordered one of the Chinese L2 units with ammeter, voltmeter, and kwh energy readout and I'll see how I like it. If it doesn't seem well made of is too tight to plug in I'll return it and just stick with the good old modded Toyota.

This is the one I ordered, btw. Anyone else tried it? They can be found on ebay from the manufacturer for less. They have some used ones (returns?) for less than 100.
Look very similar but not exact

 

I just turned my charger power down to 8 amps. It still warms the pack about the same amount during a full charge, according to DrPrius - three sensor readings. I'm not really worried about the longer charge time, although I'd like to understand the packs charge dynamics below freezing a bit more than I do so far.

 

Is there a benefit to charging at less than 16 Amp? Battery life?

 

Hummm, I believe there is. Not all will agree. My belief stems from my 7 years of grid charging hybrid batteries. The slow charge and discharge is almost universally accepted as the standard for balancing a group of cells in a module within a battery pack. Especially as the cells start to degrade.

Couple that with the particular cell type effective temperature range and amount of heat generated while charging, than at very low temps and very high temps for the cell type, slower charging could help in a few ways.

Not that I'd worry at all about charging the Prime using 120 volts or 220 volts or charge mode.

But charge mode charges the pack to 80% SOC at about twice the speed of charging the Prime using 220 volt plug. Again, a couple of reasons why that seems to be the case. (one reason is that charge mode charges the pack with variable power input and charging with the plug in a much more consistent stable power input).

Although, the internal resistance does appear to be higher after using charge mode than after charging using the plug.

compare the internal resistance graph in blue from the DrPrius app after charge mode
In this post
to the other graphs in other posts in that thread.

Internal Resistance of a cell is one measure of battery health.

There are a lot of different theories about just how much one variable will effect a cell or a module (group of cells, usually all connected in series) and a battery packs (all different kinds of cell group configurations) or which is the most important variable when charging a battery or discharging that same type of battery.

 

No benefit to the car. The reason they provide that is in case there's other stuff on the circuit tipping the breaker in you electrical panel.


Charging at 16 amps takes about two hours. Discharging at highway speed in EV takes about 30 minutes at most. Putting the car in charge mode will take you from zero EV to 80% in 30 minutes or less. Going down a long mountain pass will charge vastly faster than L2 charging at 16A. All these ordinary driving scenarios move energy in or out of the battery about four times faster than 16A L2 charging.

Conclusion: if 16A L2 (which is the normal current for L2 and has NO warnings in the owners manual) is bad for the car, driving it is about four times worse. Better just park it and don't even touch it.

I charge mine at L2 16A about 6 times a week. I've been doing it since I got it almost two years ago. It's four years old now. It still take the same number of kWh to charge up as it did when I got it.

 

I am new to the Prime and am unfamiliar with "Charge Mode". How do you put your car in this mode? Very interesting that you say the car itself will charge he EV battery faster than 16 Amps (when going down a hill). I wasn't sure if the car regeneration was able to charge the EV portion of the battery (the last 6.3kwh) at all. Glad to hear this.

I had a Gen 3 for 10 years and now the Prime, and one thing I always wanted was a simple ammeter on the dash! What could possibly be more important in an electric vehicle?

Why don't they include this most basic metric of charge flow as a standard indicator? Stupid green and amber animated fireballs flowing to and from my battery on the display is entertaining but lacks the real information this simple number would give.

Fortunately it is redly available in Dr Prius.

 

Press the EV/HV button and hold. The CHG mode icon will come on the dash. You can switch back to HV or EV by pushing the same button, or it will go back to EV mode when the traction battery is 80%. It can only charge up to 80% and it is almost always less energy efficient than simply driving on HV mode (i.e. uses more gas than HV mode alone even considering the increased EV mode after the CHG).

 

When I borrowed my daughter's Prime I got 11 miles of range back coming down from Stevens Pass after dropping my brother on the PCT. That is about 1/2 the EV battery filled. To get more, you would need a longer drop.

Stevens Pass - Wikipedia

 

Welcome to the Prime! One of the few cars made where the owners manual is your new best friend. I'll give you a free one on charge mode. Push and hold the EV/HV button for 2-3 seconds. The engine will start and the charge mode indicator will display near the speedometer. But know that in the vast majority of situations, charge mode is far less efficient than just leaving it in HV. In HV, the car pretty much goes in and out of charge mode by itself any time that it can charge efficiently and it switches back & forth often enough to keep the engine warm. It'll do that in most situations under about 60 mph.

There is a basic indication of charging and discharging current. It's the hybrid system indicator (HSI). It doesn't have numbers but it still shows how close to max or min charging or regenerating you're at, which is way more useful than some number of amps or watts that stand there in space. So ignore that silly animation and put the HSI on the MID display. For example:


Here's what it looks like in action thanks to @john1701a:

 

I don't know about the Prime, but the European version of the EVSE for the Plugin Prius (2012-2016) did exactly that. The supply cord was detachable, and when you bought the car, you got a cord with the plug appropriate to your country, and attached it to the EVSE. There are a couple of different types of plugs used in Europe. They are all 240V, but the plugs (and their corresponding outlets) are completely different.

 

Museum of Plugs and Sockets: plugs sockets in Europe