PortEV

[Wolf]

Anyone ever tried running the BC-3300 charger on 120V AC instead of 240V AC?

Work says I can recharge on any of the external building outlets... they are all 120V AC. :/

I might have to make my own charger...

[MajorWilson]

Hi Wolf,

The charger will work on 110, but it shortens its life. If you've looked inside it you will see that it's really like 2 chargers in one box. The system splits the power between the hot poles of the 220v and the common is shared. When you use only a 110 oulet it treats the pos and neg poles as hot and then tries to make the ground act as common. As a result, it works but not well and the capacitors overheat and cause bad things to happen and you let the smoke out...

I've been considering buying a power converter to mount under the hood and plug into the charger but if I did that I'd have to figure out how to manage the amp draw. The charger wants to pull 16 amps at 220 when doing the bulk charge phase. That would be over 30 amps at 110 and would blow the breakers on most if not all the 110 outlets available to me at work.

If you can figure out a good way to create a 110-220 converter that has a power shunt to limit the amp draw below 15 @ 110 then let me know. I'm game for buying one. This last winter I had to stop driving to work for about 2 months because I have enough age on my batteries that they were having a difficult time getting me home from work when the temp dropped below 30.

Jeff

[Wolf]

Hmm, intresting.

Are the outputs of the chargers in parallel or series?

If they are in parallel, one would think you could just run one of the charges on 120 AC, i.e nutral to ground pin and hot to one of the 240 legs...

Then it would only pull 8 amps at 120 AC...

I should go take mine apart and take a look at it. :)

I don't think you would be able to step 120AC to 240AC to run the charger, due to the current requiremnts. The voltage would just fall off, if you limited the current...

The next best bet is to build your own charger, however 120AC can't provide the 180 volts DC needed for the "absorption phase".

So you need to do a boost converter to get the bulk voltage high enough...

But first I will take mine apart and take a look at it...

[MajorWilson]

Wolf, it would be great if you could figure something out to get us to a point that we could use a 120 outlet to charge on the fly when needed.

Thanks.

[Wolf]

Heh, I got the user manual for the charger and it says in it:

The NLG-4 is also capable of operating from
120V mains supplies (USA, parts of northern
Europe, on ships) without adjustments
having to be made. Power output, however,
is then lower.

But it does not say anything about how to do this... i.e. just plug it into 120AC, or connect 120AC accross 2 of the 3 input pins...

Also, there is an input current limit that can be adjusted with a 5K ohm pot:

Under certain circumstances it may be
necessary to adjust the maximum current
input to suit local conditions. The maximum
available power output is proportional
to the square of the mains voltage to
which the unit is connected. The NLG-4
thus intentionally limits current input from
the mains, not the charging current output,
so that correspondingly higher power can
be drawn from a higher mains voltage.
This function is activated by connecting a
5k potentiometer, as shown, between pins 5
and 6 of the control connector. The input
current can then be adjusted infinitely
within the range 0 - 16A.

So alternatively, we could actuly, just change the resistance value and lower the current limit, then use a 120AC to 240AC step up transformer...

Althow, a 15 amp step up transformer would weigh a lot...

I am going to e-mail Brusa, and see if anyone is still around that would know how to use the charger as-is on 120AC. :)

[MajorWilson]

Wolf, Don't hold your breath on a response from Brusa about the BC3300. They don't support it any more. I do have a contact from another company that they sold off all the support to. I'll look it up and get back to you.

Yes, you can use it but just making a plug to connect to a 120 outlet. It works but not well and it will overheat and shorten your charger's life.

I like the use of a potentiometer in line. That's the route to go. I'll get you that contact today.

[MajorWilson]

Wolf, here is that contact person:
Andreas Kruspan [info@kruspan.ch] He bought all the parts and technology from Brusa regarding these chargers and the controllers. His web site is www.kruspan.ch

Good luck.

[ThomasHudson]

I wrote Mr. Kruspan some time back but he never replied. I was trying to get a copy of the schematics for the charger, and offered to pay. I'm working on a charger for another owner and trying to troubleshoot the thing is extremely difficult without a service manual or schematics.

If you do get a reply from him, see if you can get a copy of the NLG4 (that's the Brusa designation for this charger) schematics. I'll help pay for them!

Good luck.

[Wolf]

I got a responce form them and they say just to hook it up to 120AC and it will work at 1KW. ;)

They also refered me to Kruspan for any further questions.

I made a quick 120AC to 240AC cable and tested it out and it works fine.

I did not hook up the ground wire, and checked with my meter, for voltage or current leaking into the gorund, but there was none.

From the block diagram schematic I have it looks to be all three stages (boost, buck, and control) are 100% isolated from ground and each other and the ground wire only goes to the case to ground out the chassis, (and in turn the truck).

I don't actuly know how running it at a lower voltage and less current would actuly cause it fail or heat up.

It actuly seemed to run cooler on 120V.

I have the monitor program and my old windows 98 laptop, I could do a quick test and see if the power stage temperture runs hotter or cooler on either voltage.

[Wolf]

I doubt he would want to sell his schematics, then he would not have any way to make money. ;P

I would guess that anyone using these controllers and chargers, would be able to fix them if they had the schematic, he probably knows that. ;)

I will ask nicely anyway. :)

[ThomasHudson]

I just emailed Mr. Kruspan and repeated my request to purchase the schematics. We'll see what he says -- Maybe.