Lighting up Bolt EV's charging port
Posted by Wesley on
Rechargeable LED dog collar
When I have to charge my Bolt EV in the dark, such as outdoor charging in the middle of the night, the lack of illumination on the charging port makes it hard to plug the charging cable correctly. I saw a video about fixing this with an LED strip, so I decided to try it myself as well. I bought an LED dog collar online for about six bucks (KRW 6,900) that would get the job done.
Charging the collar via USB cable
The collar had a Micro-USB port for charging, and came with a short cable to facilitate it. After I finished charging it (the indicator turned green, from red) I went down to the parking lot.
Cutting up the tube to fit the charging port
The version I bought had ample length (70cm) and it turned out to be more than enough. I ended up cutting 32.5cm of the tube, so I would have only needed to buy the 50cm version. After pushing the excess fiber-optic strand back into the tube, I reinstalled the coupling and closed the loop. The resulting collar fit into the charging port firmly.
Charging port illumination: off (left) and on (right)
Normally, I would leave the illumination off, but when I need to charge in the dark I just need to push a button to light up the charging port. The illumination supposedly lasts up to 6 hours in continuous use, so it would be a long time until I need to recharge it.
Plugging in a 7kW Level 2 charger (left) and 50kW CCS DCFC charger (right)
ADDED: Some people have wondered if the tube would get in the way of plugging in the charger. As you can see here, both types of plugs fit in without any issues.