Hey guys, I got [a] quick repair video for you today this actually belongs to a friend of mine. [this] is a
charging cable [for] an electric vehicle particularly a Chevy volt
[but] it would actually work on just about any home and he had an unfortunate incident with his dog and
So I'm just [going] [to] do a little quick repair video on this today showing you you know how I'm gonna
Tackle fixing this this is actually a three to four hundred dollar piece of equipment [here]
So it's definitely worth giving it a proper fix rather than not checking it in [the] trash, okay?
so here's the mess that we're dealing with
the first thing to do was to clean this up some so I went ahead and cut this thing apart and
I could see some additional damage a few inches down, so I went ahead and trimmed off this whole section
Okay, the next step was to strip the insulation off. I did a few inches on each side
I wasn't sure what to do with these little ropes inside
I'm sure they're there for tensile strength, but I thought about trying to glue these together somehow
but eventually I just decided to cut them off so at this point there were just the five wires to deal with and
Before we get too far along. It's time to add some heat shrink
This is a special all-weather heat shrink that has glue on the inside that forms a permanent seal
It might be a good idea to see what these wires are for the three larger ones are basically power neutral and ground
these are the ones that carry all the heavy current and them there are two smaller wires that allow the car to communicate with the
Charging station, so my plan for repairing these was to offset each of the splices, so they're not at risk of touching each other
So that means cutting some are shorting some wires long so in the end you can see how the three main power wires are arranged
Okay, next it was time to solder the first step was to tin the wires with Solder the next step was to melt the two
ends together
Then I usually go around with some pliers, and I'll make sure there's no pointy edges that might cut through the insulation
Okay, I decided to try something brand new at least to me
I've never used this liquid stuff before normally I use heat shrink or vinyl electrical tape, but since this is used outdoors
I wanted something that would give me a watertight seal just in case the primary heat shrink were to get punctured
So I coated the wires and let this stuff dry for a while
It actually seemed pretty solid but I still went back and added a second coat and since I didn't completely trust this stuff
I decided to use some traditional tape as well just for an extra layer of insulation
Once I was satisfied with the three main wires
I turned my attention to the two control wires, and I used the same soldering technique with them
and I also use the liquid electrical tape.
I decided to use some additional electrical tape on each side here, and this was really for cosmetic purposes only to help reduce the lumpiness.
And now it's time for that main heat shrink
I know somebody will complain that I should use a heat gun
But I don't have one and my last one worked for about an hour before it burned up, and I've never replaced it
so I just used fire it seems to work fine.
Now here's the final product. It's still just a little bit lumpy, but not too bad.
The last thing to do is test this I
Happen to have two electric vehicles in the garage my wife drives the blue leaf here
and she charges it with the 240 volt station I
Have a 120 volt station. Which I rarely use because I often charge at work
We actually have two designated charging Spots at work
Anyway for a proper test. I had to power on my volt and make sure to set the charging power to 12 amps
And then I unplugged my station and plugged in my friends and plugged it into the car and there were no sparks or smoke.
So I guess that was a good start. I checked the instrument cluster, and it did show to be charging without any error messages.
You can see my splice here. I'll let it charge all the way up without any problems,
Okay I am sure there's going to be somebody
Down in the comment section telling me. I did this wrong. How do I know that?
Because there's always somebody down in the comment section telling me I did it wrong.
That's just the nature of YouTube.
But the truth is sometimes are right you know sometimes there are better ways to do things than what I show you and that really wasn't the point of this video though the point was just to show that these types of things.
Can be salvaged they can be repaired and don't belong you know in the trash.
Just because of a you know cable getting messed up, so that was the point I wanna drive home.
But I do hope that you found the video interesting this was not a planned episode this kind of come up spontaneously so I just went ahead and made a quick episode about it, but I have about five episodes actually in production right now and
They're all a little bit more difficult to make than some of my previous ones, so it is taking a while.
And I apologize for that, but I think you're going to appreciate what you see and the weights can be worth it.
And I've got some really neat stuff to show you so I'll see you next time.