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Hi All,

I have an OpenEVSE kit and I'm getting ready to install it.  I've been chatting to an Electrician (also an EV owner) and he mentioned "PEN faults" and EVSE installations.

I've been looking up what I can on this.  I think I might either have to install : -

1) An RCD with DC leakage detection ("Type B"?) and a local earth rod (I'm not sure how local this has to be - like right right beside the EVSE or at the local fuse board?).  

2) Alternatively I've been looking at a unit from GARO - G8EV40PMEB - https://www.garo.ie/docs/2021/specs/g8ev40pmeb%20spce1.pdf - that seems to have a DIN device ("PME fault detection") that does away with the requirement for an additional earth rod.

Does anyone else have any info on requirements (to conform to standards) and what they've done to install an OpenEVSE ?   In Europe and/or Ireland it might be a bit different to the US standards but I guess if this is whats needed to make sure an RCD trips and you don't get electrocuted then this must be pretty standard ?

thanks for any info !

Derek 

As my house has a TN-S supply I fitted a rod for my OpenEVSE.  An additional cable gland went between the inlet and outlet glands, with a 16mm² earth cable running from there to the rod, which when the car is parked up for charging is about three feet from the nearest tyre.

Probably slight overkill with the earth cable sizing, but it's what I already had spare.

 Hi Derek,

I've just bought a kit and I'm mounting all the components, but I didn't install it yet, how did you finally install it? with RCD or without? and did you have any "PEN fault"? I'm also in Ireland :)

Cheers,

Antonio.

Hi Antonio,

I originally looked for some kind of system like a GARO G6EV40PME which says you don't need an earth rod but a distributor said that GARO didn't have any in stock so I gave up on that.

In the end I ran a 10mm2 cable to my installation point and I put a pretty big earth rod and ground enclosure there.  Then back in the fuse board I put a 40A MCB and a normal RCD and I also put a DC RCD (which to be honest is a weird chinese thing I think that I bought from ebay.de (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09K58RL2X).

In the fuse board I used 16mm panel flex cable and crimped bootlace ferrules on all the cables (all from the local electrical wholesaler) to keep all the wiring big and hopefully good.  My charger is quite far away from my fuse board earth rod so the charger's earth rod will be very independent - reading up there are diagrams showing problems say like a grounded pipe running really close to your EVSE ground which would be like connecting your EVSE to the main ground but I don't have that problem for sure. 

I must say the OpenEVSE is working very well as a charger (I charge from 2AM where power is costing less because ESB put in a smart meter and I can buy cheaper KWH at nighttime).

I bought the OpenEVSE because I was interested in learning about it for potential commercial use (but I haven't really followed down that route - on that note what's very interesting is that there is both a traditional web API (to their ESP8266 or ESP32 or whatever) but also a low level API to their ATMEGA328 that does the real work so it would be easy to interface with).

I also kind of wonder how "granny leads" can be 100% safe because we don't worry about earthing with them at all.

A bit of an issue is that I've got a standard electricity supply (so 63A main ESB fuse) but I've now got 2 EVs and an electric shower - I've got to make sure the electric shower (around 42A) isn't turned on at the same time as the EVSE (around 32A) - I'm hoping my main 63A MCB would trip before the ESB bakelite fuse but I haven't found that out yet...

Derek

BTW I did what @MartinPritchard said above - I ran a 16mm2 earth cable out a new hole in the bottom of the OpenEVSE enclosure to my earth rod.

I **didn't** connect the fuse/distribution board earth to the EVSE - I used 10mm2 SWA, and while it's earth was wired up to the panel I didn't connect the earth from it to the OpenEVSE at all (it's taped off) and the EVSE is only on it's own independent earth rod.

thank you for your reply, I will tell my electrician to install that earth rod then, I will see if he doesn't weirdly look at me hahaha.

I wrote more too but it doesn't seem to have appeared in the forum here?

what do you mean by it doesn't appear?

anyway, I will finish it to assembly and I will try with a regular socket not charging more than 6amp to check if at least it is working...

Try again (I have a copy): 

Hi Antonio,

I originally looked for some kind of system like a GARO G6EV40PME which says you don't need an earth rod but a distributor said that GARO didn't have any in stock so I gave up on that.

In the end I ran a 10mm2 cable to my installation point and I put a pretty big earth rod and ground enclosure there.  Then back in the fuse board I put a 40A MCB and a normal RCD and I also put a DC RCD (which to be honest is a Chinese thing I think that I bought from ebay.de (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09K58RL2X but there is something about DC leakage not tripping standard RCDs).  In the fuse board I used 16mm panel flex cable and crimped bootlace ferrules on all the cables (all from the local electrical wholesaler).  My charger is quite far away from my fuse board earth rod so the charger's earth rod will be very independent - reading up there are diagrams showing problems say like a grounded pipe running really close to your EVSE ground which would be like connecting your EVSE to the main ground but I don't have that problem for sure. 

I must say the OpenEVSE is working very well as a charger (I charge from 2AM where power is costing less because ESB put in a smart meter and I can buy cheaper KWH at nighttime.  Really I bought the OpenEVSE because I was interested in learning about it for potential commercial use (but I haven't followed down that route - on that note what's very interesting is that there is both a traditional web API (to their ESP8266 or ESP32 or whatever) but also a low level API to their ATMEGA328 that does the real work so it would be easy to interface with).

I also kind of wonder how "granny leads" can be 100% safe because we don't worry about earthing with them at all.

A bit of an issue is that I've got a standard electricity supply (so 63A main ESB fuse) but I've now got 2 electric cars and an electric shower - I've got to make sure the electric shower (about 40A) isn't turned on at the same time as the EVSE (about 330A) - I'm hoping my main 63A MCB would trip before the ESB bakelike fuse but I haven't found out yet...

Derek