LightShip Home and Storage Charging

[turbopilot]

The LightShip comes with a Tesla Mobile Connector. That connector has two connection adaptors: a NEMA 14-50 adapter and NEMA 5-15 adapter. Those adapters can be plugged into the connector depending on your power source. Obviously, the best power source at home would be a NEMA 14-50 plug that an electrician can install in your house. Depending on the power source to your house you may or may not have enough capacity to install a NEMA 14-50 plug.

The good news is once the LightShip is fully charged a NEMA 5-15 adapter plugged into a standard 110 volt outlet will supply enough power to the LightShip to support basic loads. If you want to run the HVAC or other appliances, the addition energy will be taken from the HV battery. Once those sources are turned off the NEMA 5-15 connection will very slowly recharge the battery at around 1 kW per hour.

The LightShip 12 volt system has a base load of 7.2 amps or around 100 watts. There is no way to tell other base loading from the HV battery other than the current that flows from the DC/DC converter from the HV battery to the 12 volt battery.

The Tesla Mobile Connector has three thermistors that measure temperatures from the NACS connector to the NEMA 14-50 or 5-15 adapter. In my hot weather testing the Tesla connector is very sensitive to high ambient temperatures and will reduce or even stop output when things get hot.

Apparently the Tesla Mobile Connector is one of the most sensitive NACS chargers on the market, so if you are see reduced output from that device look for other NACS chargers that have higher temperature limits. There are two sources of heat measured: ambient and heat generated during charging. The thermistors don't know where the heat is coming from, so if the ambient temperature wherever you store the LightShip is high, you may find your HV battery will start to deplete because the mobile charger restricts output at high temperatures.

 

[Blackstone]

To add, when I've used that mobile charger, most of the temperature issues I've seen involved it being in direct sunlight in +90F weather. Rarely an issue when in my garage, but most of that charging would have been in the middle of the night. If I remember right, it reduced output from 32 to 16amps.

Word of caution, if you get a NEMA 14-50 installed, pay a little extra for an "EV rated" one, similar to the one that they installed on the Lightship for V2V charging. I've seen a number of people have their non-EV rated NEMA 14-50 melt.

No such issues with a permanently hardwired Wall Connector at home.