Avcon update

[Ron Freund <rfreund@hpchs.cup.hp.com>]

Hi all;
  Today I spoke with the Avcon connector folks and heard some 
welcome news I wanted to share.
  In about two weeks they will make available to the general
public a new hard-tooled Level 2 conductive charging connector
intended for the conversion market.  They have full compliance 
with the SAE J1772 plus UL approval and listing.  There will be 
two types of connectors, with different mounting ear placement.  
(no details).  In the past, the units that they had sold to EVI 
and others were supposedly "prototypes" and not originally 
intended for the punishment of the 1000's of insertion and 
removal cycles being seen in the field.

Now they have moved to a DuPont 25% glass reinforced nylon 
flame retardant resin FR-50 compound, this after looking closely 
at all of the problems they'd experienced in the last ~6 years.  
They claim to have "driven 2 ton trucks over them" - generally 
beating the $%^& out of them!  What I mean is they've stress
tested them without sacrificing safety features.  Now the 
resultant redesign will become available to us.  They'll reduce 
the prices (YES!!) of level 2 inlets to around $110 each.  
The level 2 connector will be around $175 each, so a matching set 
will be about $285.  


(Bruce Parmenter and I want only the inlet, being conversion owners.
That way we can "tap into" the infrastructure better).

I have requested that the newly assigned part number be emailed
to me upon issue.  I'll communicate it to the EVDL at that time.

And another good piece of news:  they'll be accepting credit cards, 
instead of requiring a purchase order.   

So - fwiw, fyi and ymmv.

Kind Regards,
Ron Freund
83 Jet escort Los Gatos, CA.
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