J1772 to Tesla holster adapter

thingiverse

Introduction ============ This Thing is designed to mount in a J1772 mounting holster, converting it for use with a Tesla charging connector or a J1772 cable with a Tesla J1772 charging adapter connected. This should help simplify a switch from a non-Tesla EV or PHEV to a Tesla, or use of a non-Tesla EVSE if you simply prefer one to Tesla's own Wall Connector. I've tested this design with the Clipper Creek J1772 holster and with a generic one I happened to have on hand. I cannot guarantee that it will work with anything else, but the odds are good. Printing Tips ============= I provide three `.stl` files for this Thing: `j1772-tesla-20.stl`, `j1772-tesla-15.stl`, and `j1772-tesla-10.stl`, which correspond to three different placements of the tab that engages with the notch in the bottom of the Tesla plug or adapter. The `-20` version enables the adapter to be almost fully inserted into the holster, but requires a holster with a fairly deep well. The `-10` version works with much shallower holsters, but leaves the adapter hanging out by about 10mm. The `-15` version places the tab in an intermediate location. If in doubt about which to use, try sticking a Tesla adapter into your J1772 holster and measure the gap between the ridge in the Tesla adapter and the edge of the J1772 holster. If this gap is 5mm or less, you can use the `-20` version; but if it's over 5mm, use a version with progressively shallower placement of the tab (or tweak the `teslaTabHeight` variable and generate a new `.stl` file, as described shortly). In practice, the tab location might not be that important, since the friction grip of the adapter to the Tesla part is fairly tight. Be sure to print with a suitable material for your environment -- I used PETG since my EVSE is mounted outdoors. PETG is also softer than many plastics, and therefore less likely to cause serious wear on the Tesla plug or adapter. Also, although the latch isn't intended to be used frequently (I intend this adapter to be installed once and then left alone), the part does need to flex enough for the latch to clip over the matching hook on the holster. In printing prototypes, the latch generally broke after two or three attachment/detachment procedures. I didn't strengthen the weak point because that would make it harder to flex. There's a notable overhang on the J1772 latch. When I printed without supports, the resulting latch had a lot of drooping strands of filament, which I needed to clip off; but the latch worked fine. When I printed with supports enabled (slicing with Slic3r), the resulting mass of plastic was very difficult to remove and left a less clean overhang -- but perhaps you'll have better luck with supports on your printer, chosen plastic, or slicer. Modifying This Thing ==================== You can modify this Thing using the Thingiverse Customizer feature or by editing the .scad file in OpenSCAD and rebuilding it. Several variables appear near the top of the file, and you can adjust them to tweak the design of the adapter. The variable you're most likely to want or need to modify is `teslaTabHeight`, which sets the position of the tab that engages with the Tesla plug or adapter to keep it from falling out of the holster. The default setting of `20` enables a J1772 plug with an adapter to be inserted almost fully into the adapter; however, if your J1772 holster is particularly shallow, you may need to adjust this value. Most of the remaining variables should not be adjusted, although it's conceivable you'll need to adjust `ringHeight`, `baseHeight`, or `baseWidth` for some holsters. Also, reducing `$fn` will speed up the rendering of the design, at the cost of some smoothness in the curves.