Fill 'er up!

"What do you mean, you "can't charge it up"? You don't have all that figured out yet?"- my friend Paul

So all this time, I've had various theories about how to bring the river to the bison since the bison can't come to the river to drink. I could:

A) Build a weather-proof box and mount the charger outside.
B) Buy an $800.00 Zivan onboard charger and wire it up somehow.
C) Mount the charger in the basement and somehow run a cable long enough to reach the van's parking spot.

A) is out. The condo-nazis would never allow it. They already sent me nasty letters about the DeLorean thanks to my withered crone of a neighbor.

B) is out, (for now) because the cash is already flowing freely enough thanks.

C) it is then. My basement is already set up as a shop of sorts, complete with brushed stainless steel workbenches and cabinetry to match the DeLorean.

I cleared of a shelf physically closest to the van, against the wall. This is a good spot...now I need to install an outlet here, and get power to the outlet. Cripes. More books, more reading. Enter the "Black & Decker Complete Guide to Home Wiring". It didn't show -exactly- what I wanted to do, but I figured it out. My breaker box is 20 years out of date to boot. I found ONE shop in town that sold safer replacement breakers that would mount in my box, but how much amperage do I need to be safe? Well the charger draws 22.5 amps AC so...a double-pole 30 amp breaker should do. 3-strand 10 gauge wiring from the breaker, through the basement ceiling to the outlet to handle the load. My charger is 220 volts AC input, like your dryer or oven except that the plug is shaped differently. I found the required outlet at Home Despot. I bought conduit and wall clamps and an outlet box and mounted it all up. Wiring a 220 outlet is cake. There is no "neutral". There's 110 volts on one contact, 110 on the other and black is ground.

Ok, so the charger has power. The "river" is flowing. The DC output cable from the charger is only about 7' long. It's about 50' from the wall to my available parking spots. Ever wonder why the utility company pumps AC down our power lines when nearly everything in our house requires DC power? Because DC (Direct Current) doesn't travel down long lines worth a damn. After a mile, all you have is hot wire and low voltage and current. AC travels much greater distances before you need a "substation" with transformers to boost the power.

Man...50' at 40 amps DC...That's not going to travel well unless I use some heavy cable to minimize resistance. Like nuclear submarine shore power cable. Ok...as near as I can read, the charger output cable is 8-gauge. I'll buy 50' of 6-gauge and connect them.

In the meantime, all this planning is taking a couple of weeks. Out of fear for the batteries' health, I took to charging them in pairs (6v + 6v=12) with an ordinary car charger. What a hassle. The van and the charger have these weird, industrial, gender-less connectors called "Anderson" connectors so like everything else, I was guided to a website that sold them and order a bunch (in case I screw up).

Again...just ONE store in the area had what I needed...and man was it costly. $96.00 for 50'. Why? Because the damn oil shortage has driven up the price. What has the price of oil to do with the price of copper cable? Nothing. But the insulation is PLASTIC which is a by-product of oil. Had I bought this cable 4 months ago, it would have been 1/2 the price!!

Now I have to put these funky connectors on 50' of raw cable. I used a GIANT super-hot soldering iron from Ebay to melt some heavy solder into the connector contacts and prayed that I didn't burn the house down. The trick was shoving the cable tip into the solder while it was still molten. I did this 8 times. There are 4 conductors in the cable. Red, green, black and white.

Red and green I designated for the 72 vDC output which charges the traction pack. The black and white I designated for the 12 vDC output which charges the accessory battery. The new, heavy-duty "extender" cable mated perfectly to the original charger DC output cable.