Short and sweet J-1772 to Roadster adapter - lockable

hcsharp · May 4, 2012

I made some more of my short J-1772 adapters. The latest version has a place to insert a small padlock to prevent removal. At 6.5" long it's small enough to leave in your trunk all the time, and especially nice on long trips to free up trunk space. It clamps tight to the Roadster inlet and rated for over 70 amps continuous. All metal parts are stainless steel or aluminum and it's designed for charging in rain and snow. I've made several of these for other Roadster owners and many of them are used daily. I can offer them at a lower price now that I've got a local machine shop helping with production.

The price for the new black anodized version with rounded corners on the J end is $695 including domestic postage. It also includes a free neoprene storage bag! The optional padlock is $4 at any local hardware store.
PM me if you want one.
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jcstp · May 5, 2012

beautifully donne!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I had the car, I would buy one ;-)

doug · May 5, 2012

nice work as always.

bonnie · May 5, 2012

I ordered one

. The small size is a bonus, but the fact that it is lockable is huge. In addition to the adapter cable itself, I carry a cable that allows me to lock it to the car. I always worry during roadtrips that it will be missing when I come back to the car. This design locks, takes less of valuable storage space, and because there is no long cable, it should be less appealing to thieves (no copper cable to walk off with).

I already have the Tesla adapter, but will either sell it or donate it to a Tesla HPC site in the wild.

I'll post a picture after it arrives.

jason.auch · May 5, 2012

Doh! I just ordered my adapter from Tesla a week ago.

Your design looks very good.

smorgasbord · May 5, 2012

It looks like the lock is on the J1772 side. That means the adapter stays with the charge station's cable, but they can, as always, disconnect it from the Roadster. It also means that if your car is fully charged only other Roadster owner's can share if you're not physically present. Then again, charger sharing can be an iffy thing.

Locking to the car would be superior, but I understand the challenges. Someone here made a ring-like lock unit for the Roadster connection - would that work on this as well? It would work on the Tesla J1772 adapter cable.

DrComputer · May 5, 2012

smorgasbord said:
It looks like the lock is on the J1772 side. That means the adapter stays with the charge station's cable, but they can, as always, disconnect it from the Roadster. It also means that if your car is fully charged only other Roadster owner's can share if you're not physically present. Then again, charger sharing can be an iffy thing.

I think you're wrong. The lock looks like it stops the barrel from turning and releasing from the Roadster side. This allows the J1772 to be disconnected and shared.

hcsharp · May 5, 2012

DrComputer is correct. Once you have the outer sleeve twisted onto the Roadster plug, the holes for the padlock line up to insert the lock. Then you can plug or un-plug the J- connector coming from the EVSE while the adapter remains locked to the car.

smorgasbord said:
It looks like the lock is on the J1772 side. That means the adapter stays with the charge station's cable, but they can, as always, disconnect it from the Roadster. It also means that if your car is fully charged only other Roadster owner's can share if you're not physically present. Then again, charger sharing can be an iffy thing.

Locking to the car would be superior, but I understand the challenges. Someone here made a ring-like lock unit for the Roadster connection - would that work on this as well? It would work on the Tesla J1772 adapter cable.

hcsharp · May 5, 2012

jason.auch said:
Doh! I just ordered my adapter from Tesla a week ago.

Your design looks very good.

Return it! Shouldn't be a problem if you haven't used it.

dpeilow · May 6, 2012

Any issues with the extra lever forces that the adapter will put on the Roadster inlet? If not, this is the product Tesla should have made in the first place.

By the way, has working with the machine shop also allowed you to reduce the price of your 70A plug?

TEG · May 6, 2012

dpeilow said:
Any issues with the extra lever forces that the adapter will put on the Roadster inlet?

I recall Tomsax had expressed that as a possible concern in this other thread:

tomsax said:
...One bit of caution. As I understand it, the black cup to which the Tesla inlet is mounted is glued to the body panel. I've heard from a couple of owners who have had that cup come unglued. I don't know if that's due to an unusual manufacturing issue where the glue didn't hold, or if it's a design problem. One possible issue with the compact adapter design is that it increases the torque arm on that cup and could pop the inlet cup loose.

Fortunately, the Level 2 J1772 chargers I've used (two instances of the same Coulomb unit) have pretty light cables. So perhaps the 30A charging stations with light cables won't be any worse with the compact adapter than the heavier HPC cable and the standard Tesla plug...

doug · May 6, 2012

hcsharp said:
DrComputer is correct. Once you have the outer sleeve twisted onto the Roadster plug, the holes for the padlock line up to insert the lock. Then you can plug or un-plug the J- connector coming from the EVSE while the adapter remains locked to the car.

Should add a demo video.

hcsharp · May 6, 2012

dpeilow said:
Any issues with the extra lever forces that the adapter will put on the Roadster inlet? If not, this is the product Tesla should have made in the first place.

The adapter is short enough that I don't think it's an issue. Some of the J- handles angle down so the effective lever arm is not much more than Tesla's standard connector with cable gland on the end. I also designed the outer twist-lock sleeve to hold the adapter in the car under the pressure of a wave spring. Tesla does the same thing but mine allows a little more travel in the event of something getting yanked. I'm also using a stainless spring compared to Tesla's carbon steel which in some climates has rusted and broke.

I tried making one of the prototypes shorter than this version but it wasn't as good. Some of the J- handles angle down sharply enough that there wasn't enough clearance to get your fingers around the handle or the cable would easily touch the car. I'm anathema to anything touching my car! You also need to get a good grip on the outer sleeve and it doesn't stick out very far on the bottom side.

dpeilow said:
By the way, has working with the machine shop also allowed you to reduce the price of your 70A plug?

Yes and no! The long connectors (for attaching to the end of a cable) require a lot more work and are more costly to produce than the adapters. They include a switch and a cable gland. The switch has to serve several functions: to connect/disconnect the pilot signal ONLY when the connecter is fully inserted and twist-locked in place, and to firmly lock the outer sleeve unless the pilot is disconnected. I've had to put a lot of development time and money into this. Kevin had some problems with one that got damaged in shipping so I recently put some more time (and money) into modifications to the switch actuator. So while I very slightly reduced the per-unit incremental production cost, I will never recoup my money no matter how many I sell.

felixtb · May 6, 2012

hcsharp said:
The switch has to serve several functions: to connect/disconnect the pilot signal ONLY when the connecter is fully inserted and twist-locked in place, and to firmly lock the outer sleeve unless the pilot is disconnected. I've had to put a lot of development time and money into this. Kevin had some problems with one that got damaged in shipping so I recently put some more time (and money) into modifications to the switch actuator. So while I very slightly reduced the per-unit incremental production cost, I will never recoup my money no matter how many I sell.

The ones you sold me do not have a visible switch but seem to work well..... this later design is it safer or.....?

hcsharp · May 6, 2012

felixtb said:
The ones you sold me do not have a visible switch but seem to work well..... this later design is it safer or.....?

None of the adapters have a switch because adding one would be duplicating another switch somewhere else in the system. The switch I was referring to above is in the connectors that I make to permanently affix on the end of a cable. I use and sell those for custom charging solutions like a HPC or UMC. I also made a couple of cables with a European 62196 plug on one end and Tesla connector on the other.

felixtb · May 6, 2012

thanks for the clarification.

smorgasbord · May 7, 2012

hcsharp said:
... you can plug or un-plug the J- connector coming from the EVSE while the adapter remains locked to the car.

Very cool. Has anyone tested this with the 70amp Rabbobanks along Hwy 101 in CA?

bonnie · May 7, 2012

I just received mine - only ordered a couple of days ago! Thanks.

smorgasbord, I'll run up to the Clipper Creek charger in Auburn and try it out on their 70amp J1772. Give me a couple of days.

hcsharp · May 7, 2012

smorgasbord said:
Very cool. Has anyone tested this with the 70amp Rabbobanks along Hwy 101 in CA?

Yes I've been told that it works on the 70A chargers by a couple of users. All the electrical components are rated for more than 70A continuous. The J- end is made by ITT-Cannon and UL approved.

One thing it won't do is overcome the bug in the Roadster charging system that won't let the car charge from stations that indicate more than 70A available. I could easily make it work in those situations by adding some simple electronics but I suspect Tesla will fix that bug soon. Then again they've known about it for over a year...

rgjones · May 8, 2012

smorgasbord said:
Very cool. Has anyone tested this with the 70amp Rabbobanks along Hwy 101 in CA?

Yes, I charged at 70A no problems at the Rabobank Goleta using a prototype.
A fellow roadster was getting 'extension cord' detected VDS messages using the Tesla extension, no such nags with Henry's master piece.

BTW, Having an early access prototype, I've racked up a couple of months charging almost daily at 30A, mostly on blink chargers and had no problems.
Great product - Thanks Henry!

Short and sweet J-1772 to Roadster adapter - lockable

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