patrick.net

If you work anywhere near a google,yahoo,facebook facility then just park it in their preferred electric spaces and walk back to your place. Why take from your own company anyway. ;)

You live an an apartment or what's keeping you from charging it?

RentingForHalfTheCost says

If you work anywhere near a google,yahoo,facebook facility then just park it in their preferred electric spaces and walk back to your place. Why take from your own company anyway. ;)

I don't. I'm in SF at work, E-ville at home.

zzyzzx says

You live an an apartment or what's keeping you from charging it?

Yeah. Apartment, top floor. The garage doesn't have house power, but I'm working with Management to install it. I think their hangup is how to meter it without a big install. I think they should just charge me a nominal fee to get the ball rolling. In the interim, I'd like to see if may battery idea would work!

OK, so you want to charge the batteries someplace, then wheel them out to the car? Correct?

You just need one of these. Sneak into the apartment on the first floor and connect it behind the fridge. Easy as pie.

If you would do me a really nice solid and summarize your owenership experience (so far) with Chevy and the Volt itself I will send you a heaping helping of Good Karma !!!

Generally, what are your thoughts on the vehicle ?

Did you have a 'motive' (curiosity-financial, etc) going in ?

The Good - The Bad

Would you do it again ?

Thanks !

zzyzzx says

OK, so you want to charge the batteries someplace, then wheel them out to the car? Correct?

Pretty much. I have loads of the bottom pic, which is the lead-acid component, and a few of the chassis units. I could leave a chassis by the car and bring cartridges down from the apartment or my office as needed. Basically, it would be like "filling my tank" or a somewhat elegant workaround for a lack of 110 outlets.

javco says

Generally, what are your thoughts on the vehicle ?

Did you have a 'motive' (curiosity-financial, etc) going in ?

The Good - The Bad

Would you do it again ?

Of course I will. I've only had it for a few days but I like it. I only have to cross the bridge to get to work, so with the toll savings and potential gas savings I'm only going to spend $100-$150 bucks on the car.

I like the money savings, but I kind of wanted to vote with my dollars and support the industry. I'm also a shareholder on GM, so why not?

I like the Leaf and Prius ideas. Aesthetically, the Volt is much more appealing and has more of a Sedan-feel. It's kind of a higher class car, and obviously the gas generator is the only way I could make it happen right now, so my options were limited. I'd probably have chosen it anyway, and as of now would do it again.

If I had to pay full retail I don't know that I could say that. They're 40-45K without incentives normally, although they're reducing prices as we speak. Is that everything you might need?

Do you have a light fixture in the garage that you can tap into?

CL says

Pretty much. I have loads of the bottom pic, which is the lead-acid component, and a few of the chassis units. I could leave a chassis by the car and bring cartridges down from the apartment or my office as needed. Basically, it would be like "filling my tank" or a somewhat elegant workaround for a lack of 110 outlets.

I don't see why you couldn't do that, assuming that you are bringing batteries that supply a single inverter to charge the car with. Now if all those rack units have their own inverter, you really can't tie the output of them in parallel like you would want to. That and you would need a pretty hefty inverter.

zzyzzx says

CL says

Pretty much. I have loads of the bottom pic, which is the lead-acid component, and a few of the chassis units. I could leave a chassis by the car and bring cartridges down from the apartment or my office as needed. Basically, it would be like "filling my tank" or a somewhat elegant workaround for a lack of 110 outlets.

I don't see why you couldn't do that, assuming that you are bringing batteries that supply a single inverter to charge the car with. Now if all those rack units have their own inverter, you really can't tie the output of them in parallel like you would want to. That and you would need a pretty hefty inverter.

The UPS has a main brain unit with one cartridge. There are extended run units that you attach to the main that are only batteries. They just add uptime. The unit itself converts the DC from the lead/acid to A/C to power the computer equipment.

I believe there are plates you can add to it to make it 220, but that'll just charge it faster.

I think as of right now it would think it was house power, and the extended run batteries would effectively "drain" into the Volt, n'est-ce pas?

What about Sine waves and such? Any risks? I think now, since its intended purpose is to run the much more sensitive computer equipment.

I'd have to kill that god-forsaken beeping though. :)

How much current do you think you can produce with your setup? As so far as putting in a square wave as opposed to a sine wave, I would be searching the internet to see if anyone has done that before (or look at the output of your rig on an oscilloscope to see what the output looks like). And I mean on any hybrid or electric car, not just a Volt. I would have to think that the first thing any hybrid or electric car is going to do is to convert whatever the input is to DC anyway, so I am not sure why it would matter all that much. IIRC, it matters more if you were trying to power a motor (meaning sending a square wave to run a power tool will work, but cook it).

The other option is to read the Owner's manual and service manual and if there is nothing contact GM (although they will probably tell you not to do this since they have most likely never tested the car under these conditions).

What's the make and model number of the inverter part?

The volt is awesome, but I can't believe you purchased one without easy access to a charger. That's like purchasing a smartphone w/o a data package. ;)

zzyzzx says

What's the make and model number of the inverter part?

On the batteries? I believe they are APC 2200 XL RM. XL is for extended run daisy-chains, and the RM only indiactes "rackmount".

drudometkin says

The volt is awesome, but I can't believe you purchased one without easy access to a charger. That's like purchasing a smartphone w/o a data package. ;)

Not exactly. I still have all the functionality, and get the HOV benefits. I just don't get the gas savings (yet). So it's more like a smartphone that requires a power cord to work, or something. :)

The simplest might be to combine either of these two suggestions:

zzyzzx says

Do you have a light fixture in the garage that you can tap into?

RentingForHalfTheCost says

Sneak into the apartment on the first floor and connect it behind the fridge.

and a $20 Kill-a-Watt plug-in meter

If you leave a lot of expensive UPS gear in the garage, you'll want a camera to make sure it's still there when you return, or rather to give you a clue who took it. Also, using UPS gear would be less efficient because each stage incurs some loss, i.e. you're charging the UPS battery to charge the car battery, two rounds of loss instead of one. Also, it would wear out your UPS gear faster. Also, it would become a hassle, having to wheel the UPS upstairs and downstairs, in addition to disabling the UPS beeping. It would probably be more convenient and ultimately cheaper to find something you can tap into, and plug in a cheap meter so you can pay for the electricity you consume.

Thank you very much for the feedback !

Enjoy the Volt ! Good Luck solving the re-charging stuff.

Some good posts already.

Again, thanks !

CL says

On the batteries? I believe they are APC 2200 XL RM. XL is for extended run daisy-chains, and the RM only indiactes "rackmount".

I will assume that it is this one:
http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=su2200rmxl3u

Which looks plenty good enough to work. Now lugging the batteries around might be a good form of exercise and I have no idea if one round of battery exchanges will work, or maybe it's the opposite in that you would only have to do the battery swapping every couple of days.
Quite frankly tapping into a light fixture and doing a slow charge with that still seems like a better idea. Or maybe charging the batteries with the light fixture connection then using that battery charge to do a 220V fast charge for the car might work good too.

I would check the max current rating on a Kill-A-Watt before I would connect it to something like this.

zzyzzx says

I would check the max current rating on a Kill-A-Watt before I would connect it to something like this.

It's 15 Amps @ 120V, and compatible with inverters in case you want to meter from the UPS for some reason. The OP said, "The car only draws 8-12 AMPs."

An issue with the device is, it loses its memory when the power gets disconnected. So, if connected to a light socket, it would lose its memory if the light gets switched off. The car will probably be plugged in at night anyway, but prudence suggests getting a few accurate readings so that you can calculate an average and multiply by the number of nights.

Common garage light circuits usually cannot handle additional loads. My friend lived in a condo, and you couldn't even install a garage door opener without adding a battery system with built in TRICKLE charger.

Even 8-10 amps is a lot to add to this type of circuit, though you could probably "get away with it" until someone else using the common garage gets an electric car too.

Automan Empire says

Even 8-10 amps is a lot to add to [a garage light] circuit, though you could probably "get away with it" until someone else using the common garage gets an electric car too.

That's a good point, the light circuit is probably 20 Amps and might already carry a 10 Amp load, so adding a car might conceivably trip the thermoelectric breaker after a few minutes, and adding two cars probably would. OTOH, it costs very little to try, and if two people buy these cars, then management might be more willing to upgrade. Pulling new wire with better modern insulation (thus higher capacity) through an existing conduit doesn't cost too much. Meanwhile, it might be a good opportunity to replace old incandescent bulbs with LED motion sensing bulbs, which would reduce waste and might reduce the load on the circuit enough to accommodate the car.

Okay..to expound. The garage is a full sized gated garage with roll up door. The light fixtures are more of a fluorescent variety, and emergency lighting. I agree on the amperage issue. If they didn't build it with this in mind, they need to run circuits and conduit. Or at least run wire through existing (which is what I'm asking them to do). I just need an outlet.

They are the ones that have an interest in the metering, so I don't get away with not paying for consumption.

They would need to be concerned about amperage, which will easily exceed standard wiring with only a few vehicles.

curious2 says

hat's a good point, the light circuit is probably 20 Amps and might already carry a 10 Amp load,

Might be a 15A circuit, with the existing load unknown.

CL says

What about Sine waves and such? Any risks? I think now, since its intended purpose is to run the much more sensitive computer equipment.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that UPS systems don't like reactive loads, so you might want to look into the charger system and make sure it's primarily a resistive load.

swebb says

I seem to remember reading somewhere that UPS systems don't like reactive loads, so you might want to look into the charger system and make sure it's primarily a resistive load.

I can't imagine how an inverter could possibly be any type of reactive load??? It's not like there is a motor-generator set in there!