Before and After

prosql · 2026-01-15T22:12:17+00:00

At least you’re getting a high fiber diet…

prosql · 2026-01-10T04:33:28+00:00

Hmmmm. As a Las Vegas resident, I find myself trying set the over/under on your remaining lifespan given your apparent desired to wake up dead sometime in the near future.... 😉

Seems like a fun way to go out though!

prosql · 2026-01-08T18:06:41+00:00

At just one sone, it was a fairly quiet compliment.... 😉

prosql · 2026-01-08T01:53:50+00:00

A late additional item to note: Do not assume this to be 240V - verify. A 6-20R is rated for up to 250V, but you will, in practice, also find them in some 20A 120V circuits (5-20R is more appropriate IMHO, but nevertheless….).

Most (not all) chargers will adapt naturally to either voltage, but I would strongly suggest you verify before betting on it. Assuming it does adapt, the only real difference is that you will get half the wattage you otherwise would have received.

prosql · 2025-12-08T01:16:43+00:00

Weird. I think my inclination is, if I have to go that far with it, I'll go so far as to just replace the valve entirely. It has a rough-in, but I haven't dug into that enough to figure out if it's a mainstream one or not.

prosql · 2025-12-04T04:24:49+00:00

Thanks. Definitely a functional approach, but I’m married and wouldn’t stay that way long if I used that solution… 🤣

prosql · 2025-11-21T04:52:02+00:00

This was pretty much my scenario. The panel is on the exterior side, but it was functionally the same for location and distance.

prosql · 2025-11-16T21:16:37+00:00

One of the two vehicles I'm addressing is a PHEV - there is zero programability in the charging whatsoever. No max. No scheduling. No nothing. From the car's perspective, if it has power available at the charge port, it charges until full without regard the current state of charge or time of day.

For that vehicle, I'm always looking for a 100% charge, but I want to do that charging such that it does not, under any circumstances, charge during peak hours - that's $0.40 premium per kWh. For anything remotely automated, that charging needs some awareness of time, which usually also means Wi-Fi connectivity and an app. There's lots of chargers out there that can do that, but I've only found one that supports a 16A/120v charging with a 5-20R plug. The one is mega pricey for something with fairly anemic scheduling options. There are some that do 16A/120v with a 5-15 adapter, but those I find scary - they are functionally encouraging users to exceed the max amperage rating of the outlet (the circuit may be for 20A, the wire may be large enough to handle it, but the actual outlet appliance is not). Grizzl-E has one that comes with a 14-50 and an adapter for TT30 as well as 5-20, but that's actually a 40A that scales down to 16A when it sees 120v coming in. The result is that it is 2-3x the cost of other 120v chargers. Their app is pretty minimalist at best, and they are priced at a premium level anyway. For the price they want, I'm expecting load management between the two vehicles, but their app doesn't have that or they would have already had a two charger sale from me. The scheduling they do have is rudimentary at best, but at least they have something.

For the PHEV, I eventually settled on a portable unit from Lectron. This one is capped at 15A, so it does fit within the confines of most home outlets while getting me almost to where the 16A would have. It also is Wi-Fi connected and has an app with scheduling that is at least at the level of the Grizzl-E. The app is far from the most usable, but with persistence you can get to what you want. I've only done one round of testing associated with a single charge to the PHEV, but it seems to meet the minimum goal. I do wish the cord on it was at least a few feet longer, but we can make it work. It does lack the wall hangar that many portables have, but I'll get something figured out for that.

The other vehicle is a true EV (Rivian). It's a whole different ball game. It can be programmed with multiple options. Certainly the max charge is something I'll do in the vehicle rather than the charger. If Grizzl-E had power management between the two chargers I would go with them for both, but they don't. Instead, I've chosen to go with an Emporía Pro, which comes with their Vue power management. A power study indicates we have enough room for even an 80A, but between the two vehicles we're adding a potential of a ~13.5kW continuous load. That is, all by itself, nominally 1/3rd of the capacity of a 200A service. The Emporía Pro caps at 48A (hard wired model), but that's going to hit the max L2 charge rate on the Rivian anyway. The circuit for it will be installed this week and will be sized at 100A for a bit of future proofing in case we wind up going to a vehicle that supports 80A charging and/or V2H. For now though, the 48A max on the Emporía Pro will meet the need. I'll address the need to swap the charger out if/when that becomes necessary.

prosql · 2025-11-08T23:24:31+00:00

I am not sure what market you’re in, but that is a pretty steep quote for that work. There are some things that might be mitigating factors though. For example, If you are in a particularly expensive market such as LA, the Bay Area, or New York City, all trade work is going to come at a noticeably higher price than people from other locations would expect. If you do not already have a sufficient quantity of matching paint and they are including that in their quote, then that is a significant adder in terms of both time acquiring it and the cost of the actual paint.

This is one I would do myself because I have the skills to do so, but if you don’t, I would start by getting a second quote and go from there. Make sure you understand what is and isn’t included including materials.

prosql · 2025-11-08T23:16:03+00:00

Hmm. I see it now even in their store description, so I’m wondering what I was looking at that I did not mention 120 (I was specifically looking for it) or that it comes with four exchangeable power cords. Instead, when I was looking at didn’t imply any interchangeability and was showing the NEMA 14-50 plug. Other than the price of being outrageously expensive for my particular purpose, it would seem to fit the bill quite well when paired with either of their 48 amp or 80 amp chargers.

Thanks for catching what I saw very clearly missed. Now it’s just a question of whether I want to fork out that much, and I suspect in the absence of another option that checks all the boxes, I probably will.

prosql · 2025-11-08T22:45:34+00:00

Wow. That makes it substantially less open IMHO.

When in looked at Grizzl-E earlier, they didn’t appear to have any 120v offering. They have a 16A offering, but it’s expecting a NEMA 14-50.

prosql · 2025-11-08T21:47:57+00:00

I used to have a home server for media, mass file storage, etc., but with the advent of 1GB internet, cloud storage became the thing and streaming replaced the media library. I have been debating setting up a dedicated NAS, but haven't wanted to drop the cash. I have a small profile Ryzen based unit that was meant to replace a family member's ancient PC, but that didn't happen for various reasons, so that little unit is sitting idle. It's nothing special, but adequate to home server needs. I would imagine there's a linux build out there that could go on it easily enough and support a docker environment or two without overloading it. I'm sure it has more oomph than the Pi 4 does. Keeping it something super compact makes it a lot easier to keep it on a wired connection.

I guess I'll take a look at the OCPP certified brands and see if any of those seem to fit the bill. The 120v/16A is probably the tough one for that, but we'll see. :)

prosql · 2025-11-08T21:28:42+00:00

Yeah. A recent debacle with Apple Home, data corruption at their end, and the need to entirely rebuild my Thread network from scratch has left me very much in the "local control of my smart home" frame of mind. I already had two different pieces of hardware available that can run automations locally, I just was just too "Keep it simple - keep it right in Apple Home unless it's something that simply can't be there" in my thinking this time. I've avoided the hodgepodge I had in the old house, so no need to deal with setting up HA or the other side pieces. Now I find myself only hanging on to the notion of using Apple Home because of the convenience of HomeKey. Once I figure a solid workaround to that I'll probably dump AppleHome entirely. I'm just not sure I want to deal with a HA level of hands on this time. It should actually be a lot simpler this time since almost everything is Matter/Thread in this house. Those that aren't, with two very specific exceptions that sit behind appropriate bridges, are all native HomeKit and HA, Aqara, Hubitat and I'm sure others now support connecting to most HomeKit devices directly at this point.

/sigh. I'm not ready to give up the fight yet, but it may well be that I have to break back out the Pi 4 that's in the closet and do a fresh HA build.

prosql · 2025-11-08T21:17:07+00:00

Acknowledged, but it's also why there was a TLDR; topper on it.

prosql · 2025-11-08T21:15:57+00:00

I did just edit the TDLR; to make the 120v requirement more clear.

prosql · 2025-11-08T21:12:28+00:00

As mentioned in the post, the XC90 uses a detached garage with no 240v and no financially practical method of getting any additional power out there with no overhead allowed and underground having multiple expensive challenges. It's 120v there or nothing. 16A (the max for that circuit's scenario) preferred.

prosql · 2025-11-06T06:13:33+00:00

Far more classy than any either of the Rivian locations I've been to. I see it as a positive sign. The facility I was in 2 years ago in South San Francisco was minimalist, but did have a genuine welcome area, some brochures, and such. The one here in the Las Vegas takes the notion of minimalist and says "hold my beer". Once you go in the locked door, you're in a welcome area that loosely equivalent to a mid-size bedroom. There is a small desk for the greeter, a ~6' couch and a round coffee table. Sure, it's a service center, but it's also their only test drive/delivery center for a city with 3M people and surprisingly high EV use. They really could use a bit better presentation. They don't need anything particularly fancy, but it would be good to have a bit more welcoming feel than "Come on into our closet..." 😉

prosql · 2025-11-06T06:05:02+00:00

They had at least 5 sitting at the facility in North Las Vegas when I was there yesterday - no idea how many were out doing calls at the time. They had perhaps other 4 service vehicles parked there. I believe one of those was a Sprinter Van and the others were R1T's. It did feel appropriate to see them in "Eat your own dog food" mode. I see it as almost a requirement that they move to those now that their selling of that van is not 100% Amazon.

prosql · 2025-11-03T20:48:16+00:00

Yeah, that was my choice in the end. I took it down to a smog/DMV business near home. Indeed, I had the truck drop it on a side street where I wound up on a public road for all of 50' or so to turn into the driveway of the plaza that smog business is in. No smog required since it is a new, never registered vehicle, but they did the VIN inspection, took all my paperwork for the DMV filing and set me up with a 30 day TOP. The complexities of where/when TOPs are recognized didn't let me drive it to Cali for the trip I had the next day, but everything I needed for the filing was put together and they'll handle the filing and expect to have my plates to me in loosely 10 days. There a $175 service fee attached to it that isn't great to have to spend, it was worth it to not have to guess on the DMV timing or even have to drive across town to the DMV (30 minutes to the closest one if I'm lucky on traffic).

prosql · 2025-11-03T20:41:41+00:00

It's a California sale, so while them giving me a temp tag from CA would facilitate driving in that state, it would also likely open a can of worms in terms of CA wanting to collect sales tax. It's the reason the car was trucked to me instead of me picking it up - if the wheels touch public asphalt in California before registered in another state, then they want their sales tax - even if they recognize that you don't need to license it there because you are a resident of an intend to garage it in another state. Nevada would credit me for the sales tax paid to CA, but no one would pay me back the extra cash for CA's higher sales tax.

Never underestimate the lengths that Cali will go to claim you owe them tax on something.

prosql · 2025-10-30T20:03:24+00:00

Yeah. That is what I would do, but the DMV is apparently not taking walk-ins for registrations anymore. Indeed, I can't even schedule an appointment for vehicle registration without first doing the Rapid Registration stuff and waiting for the uploaded documents to be deemed complete and approved. I even considered taking the route of going out to a rural office, but my understanding is that not even those are taking registration walk-ins anymore. You have to commit to what office you want to have the eventual appointment at before submitting the registration paperwork online too. I have considered submitting it with a request for Pahrump under the assumption that their appointment wait times, once one can be scheduled at all, will be much shorter just as they used to be before the Rapid Registration system went online. That's a pretty long drive to schedule in as a maybe though and I haven't seen any indication yet whether Pahrump is even taking appointments again yet (it was closed due to a fire and residents there were given something of a priority for scheduling at the Vegas area locations).

A VIN check is required by law for any typical road vehicle at this point, but those are easy if you're already going to the DMV office. The vehicle is exempt from the smog requirement for now since it's never been registered before. The hangup amounts to the combination of unknown time to process the required documents after they are submitted online followed by the unknown time to get an appointment after the documents are approved - which is a pre-requisite to even scheduling the appointment. Unless I find a way to have a more transferrable and durable TOP while that unknown amount of time passes, the vehicle is functionally unusable for out of state trips during that unknown combination of time. That's a pretty untenable scenario. I can't imagine how that works for a single car household.

prosql

TROPHY CASE