Charge your electric unicycle at an EV charger

[EUC Addict]

Would you like to be able to charge your electric unicycle at an EV charging station? Then you’ve come to the right place. If you live outside of North America, the J1772 adapter that I’ll be discussing will not work for you.

Message me through social media if you know where adapters for outside of North America can be purchased and I’ll add it to this article.

The J1772 adapter allows you to plug your electric unicycle into Level 2 EV chargers. Level 2 chargers usually produce 16 or 30 amps at 240v, which means your charger must be capable of accepting 240v (if the charger says 220v you are fine). If you forget or ignore this, you will ruin your charger.

You can tell how many amps the charger produces by the kW rating. This information is easily found on Google maps. A 3.8 kW charger produces 16 amps and a 7 kW charger produces 30 amps. You will see variations of these numbers as you look at different chargers.

So enough of this technical jargon, why would you want to buy one of these adapters? Here are four great reasons why you may want to consider adding this adapter to your backpack... (Read More)

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by shwinston
Added video for illustration. Also, updated with article describing adapter.

[Willy510]

1 hour ago, shwinston said:

About a month ago I was planning a 125+ mile trip in Southern California, and I was searching for charging locations. There are so many EV charging stations in California I wondered if it would be possible to charge my EUC from an EV charging station. I spoke to a knowledge rider back east about the idea and he said it would be possible. I started doing a lot of research and was coming up dry, but I came across a website www.TucsonEV.com and saw that they made a J1772 adaptor for the Zero motorcycle with a C13 connection. I emailed the company and told them what I was trying to do. The owner, Rush, wrote me back and said he could do me one better and put 5-15 plug-ins on the adapter so I could just plug my charger in directly. The only hitch that anyone needs to be aware of is that your charger needs to be able to handle 240v.

The adapter arrives this coming Wednesday, and if all goes well, then a whole new world will be open for charging. I have a 5A charger from eWheels that handles 240v. I'll probably be purchasing a 9A charge for my King Song 18XL too. This charger and being able to use EV charging stations will allow for some long trips with minimal charge time and time searching for charging locations.

I'll update this post once I've tested the adaptor.

You'll need to have an account with most of the EV charger providers to turn the charger on or you'll have to enter your credit card a bunch of times. Also if you think that your charger will go faster , it won't be any faster than plugging it into the wall. There is a free app Plugshare that lists open and free outlets all over the place and EV stations and their fees too.  Or just download the Starbucks or Mcdonalds apps for free plugs everywhere

[EUC Addict]

@Willy510 Of course it doesn't charge faster. That's why I'm looking at buying a 9A charger. I've used Plugshare and its been very useful. Accounts and credit card stuff is a moot point for me. I'm focused on convenience of charging, giving myself another charging option should I need it. I've seen charging stations that give you the first 3-4 hours free. I wouldn't use a pay by the min charger unless an absolute emergency and then probably not even then. I'd just get an Uber. I'm more interested in the pay by the Wh or free chargers. J1772 chargers are just significantly more plentiful than 110v outlets on Plugshare.

[EUC Addict]

Updated this post with a video of how to charge with the J1772 adapter. See first post.

[EUC Addict]

On 5/24/2020 at 2:49 PM, Willy510 said:

You'll need to have an account with most of the EV charger providers to turn the charger on or you'll have to enter your credit card a bunch of times. Also if you think that your charger will go faster , it won't be any faster than plugging it into the wall. There is a free app Plugshare that lists open and free outlets all over the place and EV stations and their fees too.  Or just download the Starbucks or Mcdonalds apps for free plugs everywhere

The first charger I tested my adapter on did not require an account. It accepted Apple Pay, so it only took a second to pay. I hope others are just as easy.

[M640x]

I bought a j1772 setup from them for my S10 EV.  I thought about them as well for exactly the same charging scenario.  It should work just fine.

[EUC Addict]

4 hours ago, Senior Coffee said:

I bought a j1772 setup from them for my S10 EV.  I thought about them as well for exactly the same charging scenario.  It should work just fine.

It did. I documented the experience in the video. 

[FreeRide]

I believe it could be illegal in NA to have a J1772 terminating to an 5-15 connector since the 5-15 is only rated for 125V Max.  If something happened I think the supplier could be in trouble, not sure about the buyer.  I would recommend he stick with the C13 plug and leave it up to the buyer to adapt the plug to 5-15 if they needed to do that, not exactly a hard problem to solve, but better they get a charger that simply accepts a C-13 (like any good charger should).

Over all this is a great concept of using the EV charging networks for other PEVs.  The adapter is quite bulky and the charger can be as well, but the only real problem is most PEVs charge way too slow.