Adapt Ford's 120v charge cable to 240v

[cecil-t]

Has anyone adapted Ford's standard 120v charging cable they give you with the car to a 240v circuit? I just got a 2017 FFE, and I have a level 2 cable on order, but I can't keep up with what I need in the meantime with the L1 cable. I have plenty of 240v circuits and it would be no problem to whip up an adapter tonight to supply the standard charger with 240v (I think I even have one laying around), but I don't want to blow it up if some of the internal circuitry is 120v only.

Since they sold the Focus Electric in Europe, and in my experience most electronics are safe from 90-250 volts anyway, I suspect it would work but I figured somebody here must have tried it already.

Thanks!

[edit]
Part number of EVSE is FM58-10B706-AJ

 

[jmueller065]

Not sure if anyone tried it, the topic has come up from time to time--search the forums here.

 

[spirilis]

I have. Made a 6-15 to 5-15 adapter cable. Go for it!

My 2017 C-Max is currently using one set up like this full time (same convenience cord as the Focus Electric fyi) and it's been plugged into 240V for 6 days with no faults. I had tested this arrangement with the Focus Electric's convenience cord some months back with success.

I went ahead and made a couple of adapters for 14-XX universal (14-50 plug with missing neutral blade) to 5-15 and a 10-30 to 5-15.

 

[cecil-t]

Awesome, thanks. I searched and came up with nothing. I assume it charges twice as fast? I'll give it a whirl, just wanted to make sure nothing pops or sizzles.

 

[cecil-t]

Welp, here we go. Converted an L6-20 to 5-15. Seems to be working, FFE has charged about 5 percent on it so far and the projected time to full charge dropped about 11 hours from the 120v setup. Without putting an ammeter on it I'm assuming I'm somewhere near 2900 watts.

 

[Guest]

This is good to know. I thought I had read that the ford charger would not work with 240 but I guess the proof is in the pudding, so to speak.

 

[cecil-t]

Fully charged this morning! I think it would probably be something like 14 hours for a full charge vs 30.

 

[triangles]

what year FFE is that from? Is that a European EVSE? I took mine from my 2014 apart and there is no way it would handle 240V.

 

[spirilis]

no idea what he has, but I have a USA 2017 FFE. My C-Max is also a USA 2017 model with the same convenience cord. Judging by the charge times he's quoting I'm assuming it's a 2017.

Curious though, what was it about the 2014 cord that gave you hesitation? What parts appeared incompatible?

 

[cecil-t]

Correct, mine is a 2017, and it's just the portable EVSE that came with the car.

Remember the amperage will be the same - most computer cables, power supplies, etc work worldwide on either 120v or 240v. It's generally only things with motors where you run into issues adapting on to another.

Of course it's not "rated" for 240 because of the 5-15 plug.

 

[triangles]

Curious though, what was it about the 2014 cord that gave you hesitation? What parts appeared incompatible?

It's been a while but IIRC there were MOVs which assume were there as surge suppressors across the input that are not rated for 240V I know a little about basic electronics but looking at the circuit board most of it was over my head as far as figuring out what was what on the PCB. I had my Electrical Engineering friend who has experience with power supply design take a look at it and asked him if there was even a remote possibility that I could plug it in to 240V. He said nope it would go poof.

I'll have to dig it out and take another look.

Edit: Also to answer your question, the fact that it quite clearly said, "120V 12A 60Hz 1440W" on the EVSE.

 

[spirilis]

Curious though, what was it about the 2014 cord that gave you hesitation? What parts appeared incompatible?

It's been a while but IIRC there were MOVs which assume were there as surge suppressors across the input that are not rated for 240V I know a little about basic electronics but looking at the circuit board most of it was over my head as far as figuring out what was what on the PCB. I had my Electrical Engineering friend who has experience with power supply design take a look at it and asked him if there was even a remote possibility that I could plug it in to 240V. He said nope it would go poof.

I'll have to dig it out and take another look.

Yeah the big Q now is what is the part# for yours...

Mine is FM58-10B706-AJ per the label on the back

 

[Pearl]

Somebody on the C-Max Energi was able to do this also.

http://fordcmaxenergiforum.com/topic/7315-dual-voltage-charger/?p=48331

 

[spirilis]

Somebody on the C-Max Energi was able to do this also.

http://fordcmaxenergiforum.com/topic/7315-dual-voltage-charger/?p=48331

That was me fyi

 

[cecil-t]

So, the "right" way to go about hooking this up would be to replace the 5-15 plug on the Ford charger and replace it with an IEC C14 or C20 inlet. Then you could run the proper power cable to the unit regardless of voltage / plug type. This is how my Zero Motorcycle and accessories run, and I already have the adapters to feed it.

If you go C14 you'll be near the power rating, and cheap computer cords will be tempting to plug in but will get hot and potentially burn up. Heavy duty 12 or 14 gauge ones would work. But I'd recommend going with C20 (using C19 plugs) which would give a little more overhead.

This obviously doesn't affect the "rating" of the EVSE itself, but would prevent goofy / non-standard wiring which might tempt some unsuspecting passer-by to accidentally plug something else into your 240v 5-15 adapter.

 

[triangles]

cecil-t what is the part number on your EVSE?

spirilis I'll check my part number tonite. If it's the same as yours I may plug it in and try it anyway. I had plans to put open evse guts into factory EVSE anyway. The only thing that sucks is that the OEM EVSE has such small wire. I think it was 16ga. which seems like it's pushing it for 12A The wire is rated for 600V so 240 should be no problem.

Edited: Corrected Amperage and voltage rating. I must not have been awake when I typed this as it wasn't remotely correct.

 

[spirilis]

So, the "right" way to go about hooking this up would be to replace the 5-15 plug on the Ford charger and replace it with an IEC C14 or C20 inlet. Then you could run the proper power cable to the unit regardless of voltage / plug type. This is how my Zero Motorcycle and accessories run, and I already have the adapters to feed it.

If you go C14 you'll be near the power rating, and cheap computer cords will be tempting to plug in but will get hot and potentially burn up. Heavy duty 12 or 14 gauge ones would work. But I'd recommend going with C20 (using C19 plugs) which would give a little more overhead.

This obviously doesn't affect the "rating" of the EVSE itself, but would prevent goofy / non-standard wiring which might tempt some unsuspecting passer-by to accidentally plug something else into your 240v 5-15 adapter.

Yeah the only catch is there's some thermistor or similar inside the stock plug... might be nice to figure out exactly what that is, and replace it with a new one, but it would also be nice to retain the original functionality by embedding it in the C20 receptacle somehow. Probably not happening, so one would just terminate the thermistor circuit inside the EVSE box to fool the PCB.

 

[cecil-t]

My part number, I assume is this: FM58-10B706-AJ

Manufacture date: 17133

 

[cecil-t]

Yeah the only catch is there's some thermistor or similar inside the stock plug...

Ah I see on the cable "3 COND 16 AWG & 2 COND 22 AWG 600V". OK I won't cut it off

 

[triangles]

So it looks like there are some 240V capable OEM EVSE's. Unfortunately I am certain mine is not one of them. From what I've gathered from cecil-t and spirilis the differences are as follows:

240V capable:
OEM EVSE part #FM58-10B706-AJ
- Has thermistor in plug. Plug end cord has the following on it (3 COND 16 AWG & 2 COND 22 AWG 600V) The 22 conductors for the thermistor which is probably an added safety feature to detect if the plug overheats.

NOT 240V CAPABLE:
OEM EVSE part #FM58-10B706-AF
- Has no thermistor in the plug (3 COND 16 AWG AWG 600V) ie. no wires for a thermistor

For the curious here's supporting info on how arrived at the above. First the part number:

I believe the manufacture date (just out of frame in the picture) is in the format (year day of year). For example the manufacture date on mine is 14175. I got my FFE late in 2014 so it makes sense that my EVSE was made on the 175th day of 2014. Now for some geek porn.

The back of the circuit board:

Front of the circuit board:

In the image above, the power comes in on the left. I believe the object in the middle of the 3 blue things is the GFCI current transformer.
The blue things are varistors. One is across the line and neutral. I didn't verify but I speculate that the others go across line - ground and neutral - ground. The two blocks are the relays that connect power to car. I was surprised to see a current transformer on the line exiting the relay going to the car. Apparently there must be some logic that monitors how much current is actually being drawn while charging. The rest is mostly a mystery to me. I see a couple transformers and various other components that I assume are the power supply for the onboard logic and the current signal the EVSE sends to the car (blue wire).

Varistors (S20K150):

Besides the fact that there are transformers and nothing resembling a switching power supply for the logic power supply, the Varistors on the input are what verified that this model is NOT capable of dual voltage. I looked up the data sheet here for the part number S20K150. This varistor is rated for 150V. For those that don't know what a varistor is for, or how it works, they are basically cheap circuit protection. In this case, when a voltage greater than 150V is encountered, the resistance drops to practically 0. Basically it sacrifices itself in a dead short, across the power input wires, in order to save the electronics down stream from high voltage spikes. Since there is a 150V varistor across the input, it would go poof if you plugged it into 240V.

cecil-t it might be a good idea to edit your first post with the part numbers to show which EVSE can and can't use 240V so some poor schmo with the older EVSE don't kill them trying to plug them in to 240V if they don't read this far before trying it.