WARNING: Extension Cords

And if there is no mention of material used in the cable, CCA or otherwise, how can you find out?

 

In general, maybe just don't buy products from Amazon when quality and safety are important. It's become overrun with foreign sellers making fake "brands" to sell their low quality products. And even for products from legitimate brands, counterfeiting is rampant on Amazon, and as far as I know they still don't do much to prevent it. Finally the widespread gaming of reviews makes it hard to determine what is actually a good quality product.

Here's a specific example of how you might end up with a counterfeit product from Amazon. An unscrupulous seller could send their counterfeit version of a product into the Fulfilled by Amazon program. As long as it looks vaguely like the real product and is labeled correctly, it will probably go into the same bin as all the other inventory of that product. Then, when you go to buy it, even if you buy an item that's "sold by and shipped from Amazon.com", you will get a product randomly pulled from the bin which might be the real thing or might be a counterfeit item that was sent in.

Fake reviews are a huge problem with these fake brands. Even if a review has the verified purchase tag, it can't be trusted since that can be faked. The seller (or someone working on their behalf) can create fake amazon accounts that buy their product. The fake accounts pay real money, but the seller doesn't need to ship the product, and the seller can refund whoever paid the fake accounts outside of Amazon. Then the fake account can leave a good review, and it will show up as a verified purchase. The only cost to the seller is Amazon's transaction fees (and whatever the review faking service charges for farming fake accounts), which is a small price to pay for a "verified" five star review. Notice how many reviews after a page of "top" reviews are just one sentence, maybe even complete with typos or grammatical errors.

Another way to game the review system is to pay off people who give a bad review. I left a bad review on one of these "fake brand" products once. I knew I was buying a product that was clearly a knockoff of a brand name product, but I thought it was worth a chance because it had 2000+ positive reviews. Of course when I got it, it didn't work as well as the brand name item. I left a negative review, and I got a phone call (!) from someone a few hours later offering me a $10 credit on my account plus a full refund and offered to send a replacement product if I wanted to try it again. They asked (but didn't require) me to change my review, but I feel like most people would change their review under these circumstances. Paying off people who leave lower reviews is a small cost when a few hundred or thousand good reviews could sell tens of thousands of items. Maybe that's just great customer service, but if you are using reviews to judge the quality of a product you can't really compare when one company is doing this and another isn't.

For things like extension cords I try to stick to buying from physical stores that carry products from brands that have a real business presence in the US (or online versions of those stores). If in doubt you can also check for UL certification and look up the product in the UL database. UL takes fake certifications extremely seriously, although it might take them a while to find out if someone starts importing products with fake certification on a small scale.

Lowe's has a good 12 gauge 15 foot extension cord. It's not the cheapest (around $35 I think), but it works well. And for 50+ feet it's easy to find 12 gauge cords in any hardware store.

Monoprice.com carries 15A rated, UL listed 14AWG cords in 6 and 10 foot lengths, which is great if you need just a tiny bit more length. But I'd personally chose the 15 foot 12 AWG cord over a 10 foot 14 AWG cord.

 

I have several Safety issues with Extension cords, several can be minimized by working with Rob43 so he does not give you his standard product.

1) Every outlet/plug combo is a weak point, a dangerous point, and a potential for fire. Toyota strongly discourages extension cords since they ‘know’ that someone will manage to set fire to their house/car/family members and blame Toyota. Almost all 120 volt extension cords are rated for 15 amps at best. Even if the wires are thick, the plug and outlet are rated at 15 Amps. (Rob43 buys outlets rated at 20 Amps, but he cares) As such, the outlet/plug is where fires are most likely to start. If you bought a 12/3 or better (10/3 is better) cord the fire is unlikely to start in the middle unless you cut it. So one 50 foot cord is much safer than two 25 foot cords!

2) Rob43 puts a Warning label or two on the NEMA 5-20R end of his cable warning you this is NOT 120 volts, like it looks. If you add a 50 foot extension cord, the warning is 50 feet away and unread. If you must use an extension cord, MUCH better to use a 240 volt cord, so the only point that looks like 120 volts, has the warning label. But this still adds extra outlet/plug pairs, but rated at higher Amperage. So it is several ways safer than using a 120 volt extension cord.

3) (I have not asked Rob43 about this but let’s pretend he really cares about not burning down your house/car/ family members) The best cable Rob43 could make you was one the length of the extension cord you were going to buy. This way you skip one Outlet/plug pair, the only plug needing a warning label is labeled by Rob43 and he uses copper based cable, not Aluminum. Obviously Rob43 would charge more for a 37.5 foot (or whatever YOU need) than for his standard 3 foot adapter, but it would be money well spent on safety.

4) If money is no object, or you need the advanced features, a hard wired EVSE is even safer, no outlets or plugs until you are at the car itself.

 

it isn't that big a deal to find a proper extension cord, just don't cheap out on your safety

 

I'm guessing that this power drop also happens with a remote run that any electrician installs? Let's say there is a detached garage 100 feet away from the main house and panel, and a 50A 240v is necessary for an L2 installation there. Unless copper and a significant gauge is used, are we talking about the same less formula?

 

is aluminum legal in any state?

 

I do know its used heavily in overhead power lines, so its at least legal for that use.

I also don't see why it wouldn't be legal for other uses. My understanding is that aluminum wiring is fine as long as its installed and handled properly. However, most people don't because they are used to copper wiring.

However, for extension cords it does seem like you should go with a thicker gauge for a CCA one than you would choose for a pure copper cord.

 

Call me wildly optimistic, but I expect an electrician to use cable sized for the load expected. Sadly we can not expect car owners to use the right extension cord. We can preach "Use thick copper wire and heavy duty plugs." all day but if 14/2 is 87 cents cheaper, they will burn down their house to save that 87 cents.

I support and encourage Rob43's attempts, but I don't hold out hope we won't have extension cord fires.

 

Bayco KW-130 Cord Storage Reel with Center Spin Handle, 150-Feet - Walmart.com

This is one of my all time fave products. Should be on the self for under $8. Also works great for ropes, hoses and even chains. Buy 2. Keeps long cords from getting all twisted. Twist when rolling out or up is what kills cords, not when they are in use at close to or even over their max rating. Also keeps your hands clean, and tends to keep cords much cleaner since you can gently just lay them down, VS lots of dragging and unrolling all over the ground.

IMO the big danger is not the cord, but where the cord plugs into. I've spend decades in construction and other adventures where cords are frequently taxed far beyond ratings, and worst thing that happens is breaker keeps tripping. However, that was always plugging INTO a fairly new and professionally installed system. I'd be much more wary pulling into an old knob and tube wired house that was rigged decades ago and probably has something building nests inside the wall.

BTW, how many amps does charging a Prime pull, maxed out? Some big construction firms are now requiring 20amp cords, of which about 100ft will fit on spool in link. I recommend the cords with the little lights in the end plug to let you know you are "live" and plugged in at the other end.

 

So, "on paper", I can fully charge at max rate with a cheap-O $25 100ft 15amp? What is the least amount of amps I can use to charge with standard household 110V?

Suppose for some reason all I have is 7Amp gen like this? Would it work? Would it cause pain to little generator? Anything not too fancy to tell the Gen "just give me about 4 amps, no hurry, don't hurt yourself"?

 

The lowest you can set is 8A, unless you find an EVSE that can set a lower limit.

The YouTube channel TFL had a hard time getting a Tesla to charge from a generator. The grounding is not quite right.

Luckily the Prime has an extremely efficient, quiet, and powerful generator built in! It's even better than a premium Honda generator, because it's a Toyota generator.

 

These reply’s are all bad advice:

My 2018 Prius Prime came with a paper that was attached to the charging cable it specifically says: Connecting the charging cable to an extension chord is strictly PROHIBITED. The extension chord may overheat and does not contain a GFCI. The leak detection function of the CCID (Charging Circuit Interrupting Device) may not operate correctly. The CCID is the box that has the 3 lights on it.