Review of the Wallbox Pulsar Max electric vehicle charger (UK version)

This is a video review of the Wallbox  Pulsar Max electric vehicle charger. The Wallbox Pulsar Max is a tethered only charger, so what that means is you've got a cable coming  out the bottom to your charge plug at the other end. They don't do a socketed version  because it's such a small compact unit. But after using EV chargers for many years,  I much prefer a tethered charger. It's a lot more convenient as the cable is already there.  You don't have to get your cable out of the car and you don

't have to put it back in your  car at the end of your charging session. In this case, this is a type 2 plug on the end for  vehicles with the type 2 charging port, but if I want to charge a type 1 vehicle then I just use an  adaptor. This particular unit is a single phase, so 7.4 kilowatt, 32 amp with a type 2 connector as  you've seen. These are also available with a type 1 connector and also for the type 2 versions  available in three-phase 11 or 22 kilowatt. This unit has a five meter tether

ed cable there,  but there are also options to have a seven meter cable. The unit is compliant with the new  smart charge point regulations. It has PEN fault detection as well, so you don't require  an earth rod and they have a 3 year warranty. The Wallbox Pulsar Max units also supports  solar. So you do need a little bit of additional hardware which goes in your consumer unit,  but if you have solar panels on your house, then you can charge your electric vehicle  only on the solar generated ele

ctricity. They also support load balancing. So if you've got  two or multiple EVs, with multiple car chargers, then it will balance the load between them all  and it's also got something called 'Power Boost'. So if the demand of the house increases,  then it will reduce the current to the charger and then when the house load reduces,  it will then increase the load to the vehicle. The lights on the charger are looking rather washed out through the camera and  are probably looking white to you, b

ut in real life this is all bright green. It's  just not coming through like that on my camera. So jumping back in time, this is the box when it's  new. So let's have a look at what you get inside. That's just packaging. and then this is what they call the tool kit. So in here we've got the installation guide. This is the holster, so the wall bracket which  allows the type 2 connector to plug into. Here we've got "user details inside - do not  discard". I have already had a look at this, so cut

the um label there. I can't understand  really what this card is. It just seems to be a barcode to the app, but anyway that will probably  become clear later on when the unit is installed. And then in here we've got the screws and fixings. So there is another grommet, which I would imagine  is for rear entry, because I can already see it exists there when you're having bottom entry  for your incoming mains cable. Two wall plugs, some screws with pozidrive heads, so three  larger screws, sorry ye

ah, three larger screws, two smaller screws. So that will be for mounting  the charge unit and then also the holster. And then some small screws here, which  will be for mounting the inner cover and two tiny little screws there  which will be for holding the outer frame and probably in the inner cover,  I'm not sure, anyway there's two there. and then this is the unit itself these are a little bit bigger than the  original Pulsar Plus unit, which I'll show you in a minute and then we've got a ch

arge  cable there with a type 2 plug on the end. Interestingly they've redesigned this rubber cap and it now goes internally, which  I've never seen one like that before. Normally a rubber cap would be externally,  which would then protect the connector if you were to drop it onto the ground, particularly if  you're dropping on a hard surface, whereas this connector this sorry, this rubber cap, isn't  giving you any protection around the edge, but let's see whether that fits inside the  holster.

Well it does. That's clever, that's very clever. So what they've now done is replace the  external rubber cap which stopped you using this and come up with this internal rubber cap. I've  never seen anyone else doing that. So then that still allows access to that knockout in the top  which the holster grips. So that's very clever. As to whether you really need it, I'm not  sure because when it's in there anyway it is weatherproof. So whether you do really need to  make these pins watertight, I'

m not sure. It can only help, but it's just one more thing to do.  You've got to put that in before you put that in the holster and it does make that a little bit  more awkward to put in, but anyway, maybe it's better when this is all mounted on a wall.  But yeah, very clever, very clever idea, but anyway we'll see what that's like in reality  when this is all installed and mounted up. and in terms of size this new Pulsar  Max is larger than the original Pulsar Plus, but if I just put that  side

by side there, you can see it is rather bigger but it's still one of the  more compact, neatest wall chargers on the market and the original Pulsar Plus uses these external  rubber caps on your type 2 connector here but that does stop you putting it  into the holster with the cap on, so consequently they're just left hanging all  the time. But this new cap, a new internal cap, does mean that that now works  with the cap, which is nice. So this new Pulsar Max charger is very similar to the previ

ous generation Pulsar  Plus. It's just slightly scaled up. You've still got bottom cable entry there and rear  cable entry there, if you want it and you'll also see it now comes with a mounting frame. So am  I going to be able to do this one-handed..yep. So now, you mount that on the wall first. So  insulation is a lot easier and then the unit will then just drop down and slide onto that  mounting frame. So much easier to install. And then to access the inside, this is all greatly  improved as w

ell. Previously the two halves snap together and once it was snapped shut, it was  very difficult to release it. They did provide you with a tool, which is basically like a little  credit card, a bit of plastic, which you could get in between the join and crack them open. But  once it was shut, it was really really tight and I've done it before and actually cracked the  plastic trying to open them back up. Whereas now, you just get this external frame hiding the  fixings. That's going to be much

easier to release and then you've got fixings around here to get  inside. So let me go and get a Torx screwdriver. So these are T20. So you have two T20 Torx screws  fitted from the factory in the packaging and two are removed and they're in the little  fixings bag. So let's just remove these. So while this does externally look like a scaled  up Pulsar Plus, it is obviously an all-new design and there's also a lot more space in here to  work and getting your cables terminated up there. So there

's your rear entry, if you want to use  it. That's all hard plastic moulded into the case. So if you were to use that, you'd have to  drill this out and fit that other rubber grommet which again is showed you is in that bag or use um bottom entry here straight  up into your terminations up there. You've got live, one neutral PE and PE2  there and then you've got a ribbon cable here going to the circuit board which is  mounted in the case here. So you could unplug that if you needed to. This is p

retty  light, so I suspect you wouldn't need to. So overall, it's a much easier installation and  because this is now snapping onto the mounting frame, obviously you put your screws in  there to mount that on the wall first, there's no holes in the case, so this is all kept  waterproof. Much easier just screwing that to the wall and then dropping the connector down onto  it, making terminations, putting the lid on and it's all nice and waterproof and actually in  terms of waterproofing, you've g

ot this rubber seal all the way around here. So yeah, you  can see that's overall a much better design. So I'm not going to cover the installation of this  because obviously an electrician will be doing that, but if you are an installer, I'll quickly  just show you the installation manual here. So uh let me just look at the information  you might want to see... so here we are, we've got the 7.4kW model, 11kW and 22kW. Obviously to use the 11 and 22kW  you need three-phase electricity. Your cable

selection is up to 13 square  millimeters, so that must be the incoming supply cable. External RCCB type A Residual current protection DC 6mA and then here we've got the part number structure some safety warnings here's the tools required, a hammer...really?  err just putting in the wall plugs I guess drill, pencil, flat blade  screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver actually pozidrive, not Phillips cutting pliers, T20 and T25 Torx, tape  measure, utility knife, spirit level and then there's the fixi

ngs  which are in the jiffy bag and then obviously you mount your wall plate up wall plate mountings again take the cover off to get to the internals there drop it onto the wall plate this is if you've got rear cable connection where  you would come in through the back panel there here's your connections which you can pause the video if you  want to have a closer look at that and then you've got a dip switch  there which you can fix the current um not very often you would want to be doing  that

actually and then you simply close it up. So yeah on the terms of that,  in the UK be using 32 amp uh then mounting the plug holder and then registering the charger in the app and that's it by the looks of it, there we go. One thing to bear in mind when you're installing  this is just the access you need. So when you're snapping the charger unit down onto the mounting  plate at the back you've got these two T15 Torx screws either side there to hold the unit onto the  back plate and then when you

're done, you put the cover plate on and then you've got the T20 Torx  screw at the bottom there just to hold that on. Wallbox do provide some half decent screws and  wall plugs, which is nice to see, because so many manufacturers just use the cheapest of  cheap wall plugs and you end up throwing them away every time. So these can be used. These  require an 8mm hole if you want to use them. One small issue it's a very minor gripe though is  the screws that hold the holster are countersunk, where

as the surface in there that you're  screwing down on is flat, so ideally a flathead screw would be better but you can obviously  use a cup washer or use your own fittings. However the other thing that would be nice,  it would be great if there was a flat surface on this somewhere so you could use a spirit  level. Ideally a flat surface on the bottom and then it will allow you to get this mounted  perfectly horizontally, but it's not a big issue, you can just do this by eye but all the  surfaces

of the holster here are all rounded. So I was wrong. You cannot use the rubber cap  in the end if you're going to use the holster, just like the previous generation Pulsar  Plus. While it does sort of fit in there it doesn't hang down properly and  it actually pushes the rubber cap off its cord. So the rubber caps are to  be used if you're not using the holster. If you're just going to use the  holster just put that there, like that and if you're not using the holster the way the  charger is de

signed, like the original version it is tapered, so you can coil the cable around  here and leave your connector hanging. Obviously you would coil the cable up, but you would  leave it connect your connector hanging like that and in those scenarios you would want to  just make it weatherproof with the rubber cap. So when you've had your wall charger installed,  straight off the bat this will run like a dumb wall charger. It will run at 32 amp 7.4 kilowatt  or whatever the dip switch has been set

to inside. So if I just plug this into a vehicle the vehicle will start charging... its doing the communications with the  vehicle and there we go, now it is charging but of course you're going to  want to use the smart features, so at this point you're going to want to  install the Wallbox app on your phone. In your user manual on page 30, is  a QR code to your app store so you can download the my Wallbox app for both  Apple or Google and your user details card seems to be only the same, just 

a QR code to get you that app. So when you've installed the  Wallbox app, I've already got it running on the phone because I've  already got those Pulsar Plus units but you then go into the app and at  this point you can press the plus to add a new charger and then you  can scan the barcode on the side and that's basically going to enter the  serial number for you and then you can add it. So now the charger has been added to the app,  it's now going to connect to it using Bluetooth which we jus

t select 'pair' there we go, that's now going to communicate  with the charging unit on Bluetooth so we will just confirm some of the details there so the next prompt is to enable Cloud  connection. So that's basically connecting the unit to your Wi-Fi. That's  if you have Wi-Fi that reaches where your Wallbox is installed. So I'm  just going to add this one to the Wi-Fi. So you enter your Wi-Fi password and then the Pulsar Max will connect to your Wi-Fi, but you've  also got the Bluetooth conne

ctivity as well so when that's done it will then prompt you if there's  any firmer updates and most likely that will be the case. There will always be  a firmware update to get when you unpack a new unit. So we can just go ahead now  and install those software updates. Installing these software  updates can take quite a while, so you'll probably just want to  walk away and leave it at this point but you'll notice when they've been  done because the charge unit will reboot and these led, the stat

us  LED lights will change and flash and when it's solid green like that  it's been rebooted and ready to use. So now the unit has updated its software and  rebooted, I can see I've now got the Pulsar Max here in my list of available chargers. So I can  select it and it's going to connect to the unit. So the things you can do in the app here is you  can adjust the current on the unit if you want to... anything from 6 amp, all the way around to  32 amp. if I can get that back to 32, there we go.

You can lock it and when it's locked the  LEDs are yellow on the unit. You can unlock it and they go back to green. If you have cheap rate overnight electricity  on your energy tariff, you can add a schedule and we can make it charge at any time you  like, but in this case we're just going to say 12:30 to 4:30, which is the Octopus Go time  and we can say every day and add to schedule. So now the unit is locked and will  only charge between those times. If you want to delete the schedule you  ca

n just click on it and say delete and now that's deleted and will charge instantly as soon as you've plugged  the cable into your vehicle and then at the bottom of the app here we've  got your energy insights. So this is your charging stats, all your charging sessions  and costs and you can look at it on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. I've got no information  here because this is a newly installed charger, so there hasn't been any charging sessions  yet, but if you want to enter your correct

electricity cost, you go into settings,  configuration and advanced options I think, yeah and here you can put in the  price of your energy which in this case, uh I don't know what it is, it's  about 38 pence I think, but anyway I'll have to dig out the bill to have a look at that and  then we can put it in the right price there. Under Settings there's various things you can  do. Under Advanced Options you can also change the status of the halo LED lights. You need to  be communicating with it

locally over Bluetooth, which at the moment I'm on Wi-Fi, so I'm just  going to switch over to a Bluetooth connection and what you can do is you can turn off the halo  light. If you don't want this glowing on the front of your house, you can turn that off and say  save and then I think the unit does a reboot but it basically then turns off this light and  this light will only come on when, there it goes turned off now, so the light will only come on  when you plug in the vehicle for a few second

s. So I'll just test this now. As you can see the  halo light is off, so we'll get the charge cable and put that into this Renault Kangoo van and  then as you can see, straight away the halo light comes on and then after a few seconds  that will go off until the status changes. So this is something new, as you can  see when I plugged the van in there, the the charger went into a standby mode and  didn't actually start charging and up on the app we've got this new screen which is part of the new 

UK regulation when it comes to smart chargers and part of those term terms and conditions that are  accepted when I joined the app to the charger and it says here "Action Delayed.. the UK regulator  asked to delay changes to energy demand..your action will take place in the next 10 minutes" So basically it's delayed  the charging of the vehicle. If I wait, it will start charging in 10  minutes but I can just press skip here and then that's going to send the action to the  charger there and the

vehicle is now charging but this is something that all UK smart  charges now have to do and comply with, so they're all going to be  the same in terms of that. But I've now stopped the charge,  so I'll put the cable back. I got a notification to my mobile,  the vehicle has stopped charging and as we can see, halo lights gone off  and it's all gone back to green on the app. The new regulations which came out in June 2022  in the UK is all about matching the demands of electric vehicle charging to

the grid and a  charger such as this will be compliant with that and as a customer you can then take advantage  of cheap rate overnight electricity and use these new tariffs such as "Intelligent" from  Octopus. So if you want to know more about the regulations, I'll put a link to some further  information in the video description below. This is why I like the Wallbox products,  because the app is very simple and everything you need from a smart wall charger  is here ,you've just got your schedu

ling, you've got your stats if you want to use  that and you can lock it and unlock it and you can adjust the current. It's all very  simple and you get those notifications. If you've got that additional hardware and you've  got solar panels, that is all under upgrades, but I don't have any of that hardware so none  of this is applicable for me in this case, but if you had solar panels then you've  got full solar integration and you can decide to only charge your car when you've  got excess sola

r energy being generated and you can also do load balancing if  you had multiple chargers on one site. I'll quickly run through some of  the other things you've got here... This is where you can change the naming of  your charger and your country and time zone under connectivity you can turn Wi-Fi  off, if you wanted to do that. So there would be no Wi-Fi connections to  that charger, so it would only be Bluetooth between your mobile and  the unit, so only local connectivity and under Advanced O

ptions, this is  where you can control that halo light, as I've already showed you. You've got private charge protection by auto  lock and you've got an auto lock timeout. I've never used that so I'm assuming that  is a function that when you disconnect, you can set the charger to automatically go  into the lock to stop anyone else accessing it after you have used it and under here you  can change your energy cost for that tracking. I do like these Wallbox units. They're just easy  to use, styli

sh, very simple good looking design. They do come in different colours as well and  in my case, all I do is set the scheduler up, so it charges on cheap rate overnight electricity  and I just plug in and walk away. I never have to open the app. All the scheduling is done with  inside the unit rather than within our vehicles. So it's just a case of plug-in, wait till  12:30, this will switch on, charge the vehicle, switches off at 4:30. We get notifications to  the phones and we just don't don't

open the app, we just don't need too, so very simple and easy to  use and just occasionally, once every few months, I'll open the app and look for a firmware  upgrade and install those, if that's required. So these Pulsar Max units are very  similar to the previous generation Pulsar Plus but they just comply  with the new UK regulations that the charging can be delayed to  help with the grid balancing. The unit is that little bit bigger but as far as functionality goes, its exactly  the same as

the previous generation. So I hope you found this  video useful. If you have, please do click the thumbs up button. That  really does help and if you want to know more about electric cars subscribe to the  channel and I'll see you on the next video.