Tesla Wall Connector Gen 2 vs Gen 3 - Should you upgrade?

is it worth upgrading from a gen 2 tesla wall connector to a gen 3 tesla wall connector well that's what we're going to be answering in today's video we're here at job where i installed this three years ago i'm going to be ripping this out and putting in the new gen 3 tesla wheel connector and we're going to be sharing with you in depth all the pros and cons of upgrading what are the differences between the two so i hope you enjoyed today's video if you do make sure you like and subscribe let's get into it [Music] so this is the install what i did three long years ago this was actually the first ever tesla wall connector that i installed and i'll leave a link up here where you can watch the original installation video because i did film this one back in the day when i used to film everything on my phone it's a little bit rough and ready but you'll see the difference in how far things have come with tesla chargers and with our channel in general this is not your typical domestic install because actually it's a three-phase installation our customer here very lucky has a three-phase supply to their property so he said well why don't i get the full shebang and get a three-phase test wall connector install but actually the tesla wall connector itself is the same whether you do single phase or three-phase and that is the same with the new gen 3 as well essentially with this one we've got a three-phase circuit running from the distribution board a three-phase type b rcd and i explain why it needs that in a minute big chunky cable it's i think a 10 mil five core cable because it is quite a long cable route i remember having to get floor boards up and it was quite complicated run through and into this charger we also fitted an earth electrode and earth rod in the driveway there because this doesn't have pen full protection in so either needs a pen full protection device or an earth electrode for the charging point only so i'll quickly show you the earth pit because actually i'm quite curious as to how well it's aged and whether it's still in good condition or not and then we're going to get the gen 3 paired up to the wi-fi already because that is a little bit of an issue that we've been having with them you might see my previous video where i said that the tesla gen 3 wall connector is the worst ep charging point ever well there's a reason because wi-fi connectivity can be a challenge on that so we'll try and get that bit out of the way so like eat your veg first you know and then eat your desserts afterwards the dessert is actually putting it up on the wall i feel like indiana jones uncovering this old earth pit that i installed perfect so lots of cobwebs in there but uh that looks pretty decent to me the connection to this copper rod is as solid as ever looks like we've got a good earth connection there still which we can use for the new charging point so that's great we will do a test reading on it later and i'll show you how we do a test on earth electrodes but for the moment we'll pop that back and we'll get the gen 3 unboxed so what i'm doing here is literally just putting it on a plug top and then we can liven it up temporarily in order to do the wi-fi setup on this because it has been known to be a bit of a nightmare and we've got this portable power station that we use which is obviously not enough power to actually you know to charge a car but it's enough to power up this unit and then just get it paired to the wi-fi so this is one of the unique features about the new gen 3 tesla wall connector is that it does have wi-fi connectivity and you can see when you power it on it creates its own wi-fi network here which we can click on connect to okay so now we've got the wi-fi what i can do is type in the ip address and then click search and we then go into wi-fi and we connect it to the customer's wi-fi network so after a little bit of faffing around as usual with these lovely charging points we managed to get it connected to the wi-fi you know only took 10 or 15 minutes could have been a lot worse it's done now the firmware is up to date on it so we're confident that when we put it on the wall it will pair to the customer's wifi again now is the fun part we're gonna rip the old one off the wall we're gonna put this new one on and we're gonna talk about what other differences now before we take the cover off this we've got to do something regarding safety which is turn the power off nobody wants a crispy electrician lying on their driveway so i'm going to isolate this back of the mains but there are other electricians working on site today because they've been doing a solar install here so i'm going to use my lockout kit today to make sure that nobody else turns the power off while i'm working on the system okay so we are surrounded by other electricians who don't want to be revealed on camera but we have locked out and tagged out so we're now safe to work so i'm just about to cover off this but the first thing that really stands out which is different between these two charging points is this cable this tethered cable on the gen 2 is huge and thick and heavy i think i mentioned it in the original install it is uh not the easiest cable to work with the new one's much thinner and i'll explain why in a bit now the this oh it always feels like you're going to break it when you take these off because they just pop off and the only thing that holds them on is that little star screw at the bottom but it is what it is you just got to pull until it pops off and it is always a little bit scary so this is a barco stubby screwdriver i did do a tool sparks review on this and this is my tool of the day today i've not used it in a while but it's so handy because it's a ratcheting screwdriver so it just makes removing screws and stuff like this really really quick and easy so i'll leave a link below where you can get that and a link to the tool sparks video that i did sort of an in-depth review on it so i'm happy to see that the ip rating of this charging point has not been compromised it's been in for three years but not a drop of water has got into it so that means i installed it well in the first place one thing i do love about the new tesla wall connector is how much more space they give you for the connections this one was just so tight especially when you're doing a three-phase installation they give you hardly any space at all whereas the new one you'll see there is enough space to swing several cats [Music] you may have noticed that i left an exceptionally long loop of cable below this charging point which i didn't need to do i could foresee today happening one day and that's the thing time ebbs by things change technology changes people want stuff to be swapped over so i always like to plan my installs with the thought of if somebody comes back here in a few years time to change something how can i make their life easier in this case i made my own life easier so behind our charging point we have some flora and fauna that have built up i will try and clean this up for our customer because i'm presuming he's going to stick it on ebay for some vw id3 tesla wannabe owner to buy and uh then you know it'll at least get used again because things like this should not be thrown in the bin we should reduce reuse and recycle [Music] question is will the screws line up it doesn't look like they will actually but if i offer up the two back plates together i mean the back plates line up pretty well but actually the screw holes don't line up at all definitely getting too old to be on the tools now [Music] what else do i need when you go back to the van ten times in one day you know that you've had a lack of preparation so when you get to the van think what am i going to need next so i've got things to mark the holes i've got screws plugs i've got a level now i think i've got everything but undoubtedly i've forgotten something brain fog after three o'clock a few moments later i knew i'd forgotten something ear defenders [Music] it's almost as much of a swiss cheese wall as mine which is the same bricks as my house i hate these bricks they're they're the most rubbish bricks that were ever fabricated in the history of brick fabrication they just crumble when you look at them it's like you just gotta cast your eye over them and go i'm gonna drill you and they're like the mortar in between them just like is so rubbish it's crumbles everywhere i think my house is sort of like holding on by a thread at the moment from having drilled six holes in it because the brickwork is so bad anyway brick rant over just because i need more exercise i'd say we've got some new followers from the local um school now who've seen the van watch us on youtube and they've seen the cameraman and they're like oh i want to be in a youtube video as always this job is not as simple as it looked you know customers they think oh you just you know take the old one off put the new one on no worries but there's so much you need to think about like the difference in regulations and safety devices since the original one was installed but now i've hit a real snag which is that the gen 3 does not have a cable entry for an earth cable for the earth electrode so i am now faced with a conundrum and i would love to know what you would do in the comments below my ideal is always to take the cable in below the charger because if you take it in the top inevitably water can run down the cable and go in now obviously we'd be fitting a compression gland it's going to be tightly sealed around the cable so it's it's unlikely but in principle i prefer to always go in underneath than on top however the issue we've got is there are no separate cable entries below apart from the main one so if i take this in the bottom then i cannot take the earth electrode in oh wait i may have just i may have just answered my own question here there is a small gap down in this corner now i think that's a drainage hole what i'm now wondering is is there a little bit where you can drill out at the bottom and get an earth cable in there just next to this i'm tempted to try you know what if you don't ask you don't know so i'm going to check the instructions and see what it says very slow very poor signal one million hours later i'm gonna fall asleep like this when's the elon musk gonna start rolling out the um the old starlink connection i could really do with it right now it'd probably be quicker for me to cycle over to elon musk and ask him personally hello is that elon oh hi thanks for tweets by the way always entertaining just wondering if you know whether we can take an earth wire in the bottom of the gen 3 wall connector stop laughing everyone does that when i say can i take something in the bottom of a charger it's designed for an american system and you don't use earth rods in america what do you mean you don't know what pen fault protection is your elon musk you know everything okay he just hung up on me apparently he doesn't and they've not designed them to take an earth rod in the bottom because stop it it's just not funny okay i'm just going to assume that we can't do it because this is never going to load and i need i've got it you know i've got to get this job done right so we we've come to the consensus elon has responded and said that there is a way to do this without being a complete cowboy you can use the drain hole so that's what we've decided the customer agrees that will work oh i've decided i'm fed up with my own incompetence every time i do a video lately i look like a complete idiot so i'm gonna tidy up my workspace make myself look like a professional and then start filming again now how much do you reckon the customer's gonna get for this on ebay when he sells it i'd like to know your thoughts in the comments below and that takes us to one of the comparison points between these two which is the price i've bought both in the past and i can tell you that they both cost exactly the same amount so they're 460 pounds including v80 obviously they don't sell these anymore they only sell the new ones but the price was the same you just get an upgrade essentially [Music] i finally got the cable actually terminated into the enclosure and now the easy part really connecting the wires in as it's a three phase we've got l1 l2 and l3 so gray is l3 the neutral is the blue and they do give you lots of space in here which is what i really like compared to the old one as you saw it was pretty tight for space l or two is black just tuck a little bit of slack and then shorten that slightly so in case you're wondering what the difference is between three phase and single phase three phase it basically enables you to have the potential to charge up three times faster as opposed to single phase charging point in the uk runs at seven kilowatts a three-phase charger can run at 22 kilowatts now it all depends on the actual on-board charger of the vehicle so the tesla model 3 will only actually charge at a maximum of 11 kilowatts anyway so that's like 16 amps per phase it's not going to really make that much difference between 7 and 11 if you have a three-phase charger but you know it makes a little bit of a difference some versions of the model s and x i believe have a 22 kilowatt on board charger which means that they can use the full 22 kilowatts of charge from a three-phase charging point which is great so some of you eagle-eyed viewers might notice i'm leaving this earth wire disconnected this is the supply earth from the house so it's connected in the consumer unit it's protecting this cable but i'm not connecting into the charging point and that's because the charging point needs to be connected to the tt earth which is the earth electrode that we've put in and that's basically just so that if somebody's standing on the ground and they're touching the car the car and the ground are on the same earth potential there's no possible potential difference because you don't want someone to touch the car and get an electric shock so that's sort of in layman's terms why we put an earth electrode in so all my connections are done now i've just got to screw this cable back to the wall and then we can pop the cover on and i'll show you something clever about this because this funny little square box is quite a clever little device so this is the bit when all the magic happens these four pins in the back here actually go into that little socket there and that's why there is no cabling between the back plate and the front plate because these pins provide the connection between the two and then there's a little pin down here which does the earth connection that goes into that little slot there and so all five conductors are making contact with the front plate without any additional wiring and that just pushes on and it fits nice and snug and then we just got to sit those four screws to secure the cover on now in the little bag where the screws come there is a mysterious cable tie and i doubt if tesla are including cable ties for no reason so let me know in the comments what this cable ties for so now that that's all mounted we can wrap the cable around and it wraps around in a very similar way to the gen 2 wall connector and some people have commented i'm not sure who but they think it looks like a bit of a mess to be honest the way it just you know hangs around the charger but you know there are worse looking charges there are better looking charges it is what it is at the end of the day it's all down to taste that holsters into the side like that which is i think exactly the same as the previous generation and you know it doesn't look don't look too bad now i said to you earlier that i would tell you why this cable is thinner than the previous generation tesla wall connector and if you put them side by side you'll see what i mean the new gen 3 the plug is smaller the cable is much smaller the plug is much bigger on the gen 2 and the cable much thicker and that's because oh i can barely lift it let me put the old gen 2 down before i drop it the reason this new cable is so much thinner is because it's designed for a newer generation of vehicle the old model x and model s and the usa could charge at 80 amps single phase so that's why that big thick cable was needed in certain situations but now those are sort of the older generation of vehicle this is designed to work with the newer generation vehicle like the model 3 and the newer versions the model s and x which charge at a lower rate when it comes to ac charging in the usa this can charge a maximum of 48 amps on single phase in the uk we don't allow that so it's maximum 32 amps single phase or 32 amps per phase in a three-phase installation which this is so this can do seven kilowatt single phase or 22 kilowatt three-phase and this cable is nice and flexible it's a lot thinner easier to work with if you look at the actual writing on the cable it's a six millimeter squared conductor inside it so it's a five core six mil cable and if we look at the old one i think let's have a quick look okay so it actually says it's a six core six mil and it's got five times 0.5 in it as well so it's got more kind of communications in it it seems but it's also got six power cores which is kind of bizarre i don't really understand why that might be let me know in the comments but either way that is a much thicker and heavier cable more difficult to lift and work with and plug into your car so that is one advantage to the new gen 3. so i've removed my padlock and the power is back on managed to avoid getting electrocuted by another electrician which is always a bonus now let's do some tests and talk about the features of this gen 3 charger we have power so we've done an earth loop impedance test at this to see what the resistance of our earth electrode is and the earthing system that we've installed it's 41 ohms which is very decent so i'm happy with that now we're going to do the internal rcd testing and things and then we're going to talk about the other things that are missing from this charging point so now the big question is should you upgrade from the gen 2 to the gen 3. let's do a quick summary of the differences between these two tesla wall connectors first of all features what is the difference well the difference is this has wi-fi connectivity but actually it doesn't really do much at the moment it's not going to appear in your tesla app it's literally just so that it can do a firmware update now whether tesla will eventually incorporate it into the tesla app so that you can see it alongside your vehicle and your powerwall and your tesla solar roof and all that maybe but at the moment there's no guarantees and it's already been out for two years so wi-fi okay it's there but it's not really a benefit as such other features it does have power sharing but the old one had that too it does have the nice smaller cable so there is a benefit to that but all in all in terms of features really there's not a lot that's different from the gen 3 compared to the gen 2. so what about installation requirements well this is better for an installation point of view because it does have type a rcd protection and six milliamp dc protection that means whereas i installed a very big expensive type b rcd here because the old one didn't have type a rcd protection this one does and therefore you only need a type a rcd upstream if the cable needs that rcd protection in terms of things that it doesn't have it doesn't have pen fault protection which you will need if you're on a tncs or a tns earthing system at your property which most properties are so you'll either need a pen fault protection device upstream or an earth electrode like we've got here other things that are great about this from an installation point of view i think it is easier to install apart from the lack of a really easy way to put an earth wire in it is more roomy inside the back plate is nice there's a lot less faffing around so as an installer i'd give it a big thumbs up for ease of install compared to the previous generation so what about price well this was 460 pounds this is 460 pounds so they're exactly the same price aesthetics wise what do you think i would love to know all your thoughts in the comments personally i think this looks a little bit like an alien and it looked kind of cool and quirky at the time i you know i didn't i didn't mind the look of it i thought it was pretty cool this looks even nicer in my opinion but probably a bit more mainstream a little bit more feminine dare i say and just aesthetically more pleasing i love the sort of ipod esque feel to the front of it i'm still not totally sold on the way the cable wraps around but it's not a game changer in terms of speed this charging point is exactly the same speed as the previous one if you're in america you can only charge up 48 amps on this one versus 80 amps for the previous one so if you do have an older generation model x or something that could charge a ridiculous 80 amps single phase and you might want to stick with the old one but for us uk people 32 amps single phase is maximum we're going to get 32 amps across three phases also so 7 or 22 kilowatt charge model 3 you're going to charge at 11 kilowatts max if you've got a three phase system or seven kilowatts on a single face what about availability well these were like hen's teeth a little while ago they were very difficult to get hold of but i do believe that they're fairly plentiful again on the tesla website these are going to be relegated to places like ebay and other dark corners of the internet if you want to get hold of one of these so this will be appearing on ebay at some point very soon in the near future when our customer puts it on there but they are available not too difficult to get hold of it's pouring with rain and the cameraman's getting very wet so we'll make this our final question should i upgrade if it was me personally would i do it would i swap from the gen 2 to the gen 3. um i probably would because it's me and i'm an electrician that's fairly easy for me to do but if it was a case of buying the new charger and paying someone to come out and fit it i probably wouldn't because there are no real benefits to having this other than you've got the latest tesla charger that's it really in terms of functionality there are no current benefits maybe if they roll something interesting out in the future then it would be worth it but right now if it was me i'd probably stick with the old one or get something that's a little bit more smart and has an app connectivity like the hypervolt maybe or the zappy if i've got solar so those are all my thoughts i'd love to hear all of yours in the comments below and if you have enjoyed today's video it really helps when you like and subscribe we do loads of videos about ev charging solar battery storage general life of an electrician stuff as well and we'd love to have you on board as subscribers but either way thank you for watching and have a great day [Music] it's just not funny how do you say it without it being rude

Channel: Artisan Electrics

Views: 52,783

Keywords: artisan electrics, electrician life, tesla charging, tesla model 3, tesla wall charger, tesla wall connector, wall connector, tesla wall connector gen 3, tesla wall connector installation, tesla wall charger installation, tesla wall connector gen 3 vs gen 2, tesla wall connector gen 2, tesla wall connector gen 3 installation guide, tesla wall connector gen 3 troubleshooting, model x, elon musk, home charging, tesla charger, tesla gen 3 wall connector, install wall connector

Id: 0XMhUdPHjlM

Length: 25min 58sec (1558 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2022