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OTOH I see no fundamental reason that one couldn’t build an EVSE that connected to two different outlets and drew from both of them. Two branch circuits supply
by amluto 2y ago
OTOH I see no fundamental reason that one couldn’t build an EVSE that connected to two different outlets and drew from both of them. Two branch circuits supplying the same device is not especially rare.
- giantg2 2y agoI've never seen that. With the right protection circuits it could work safely. However, most garages seem to only have one branch anyways, so might as well add a 20amp+ 220v branch.
- toast0 2y agoIn a (large, recently constructed) garage, it seems likely that you've got multiple circuits with outlets. If you've got multiple outside outlets, they're probably all on the same circuit. If the hots are the same phase, I don't know if there's a way to determine if they're behind the same breaker or not. If the hots are on different phases, you need to return to each neutral or the gcfi that's likely to be present on an outdoor outlet will trip.
- applied_heat 2y ago>I don't know if there's a way to determine if they're behind the same breaker or not. Turn the breaker off and plug something in and see if it turns on
- toast0 2y agoWell yeah, but it'd be a bad idea to make a charger with two 120v plugs, because chances are people will plug them both into the same circuit.
- philsnow 2y agoI'm not defending the idea of using two out-of-phase 110V circuits, but... this theoretical EVSE could detect its two inputs not being out-of-phase, blink its red "110V only" light, and only use one of the inputs to charge at 110V instead of 220V.
- applied_heat 2y agoI’ve seen carpet cleaners where their machine had two 120v cords that needed to be on different breakers
- conk 2y agoIf either circuit had arc fault or ground fault (or both) it would trip if you tried drawing power from both. Which is going to include pretty much any plug outside or in a garage in the past 30 years.
- lsllc 2y agoYes, it'd create a multi-path circuit causing the trip. This (multi-path circuits) is not uncommon when homeowners try to wire up a smart switch requiring a neutral to a switch-circuit without a neutral (as most light switches actually only need to switch the hot) and so they "borrow" a convenient neutral from a neighboring circuit which causes it to immediately trip!