Our customer is a construction company based in Winchester. They have outdoor parking for staff with two electric vehicle charging points available. In order to keep these up-to-date and working they need a connection to the internet, however, they do not have WiFi capability, only 2G mobile data – and the area has no coverage. This is how we resolved this issue... 

After discovering the limitations of the units we spoke with the vendor who provided them, who informed us that they could be hard-wired via RJ45, however, the port was hidden inside the unit which meant they would need to have an ethernet cable ran through ducting and then up inside the unit, which would have been a very time consuming and costly route. 

We were able to remove the front panel of the chargers to gain access to the internals and realised we just about had enough room to fit an external RJ45 port to the side of the unit, and run a short cable to the hidden internal port. 

After approving the works with the client, and ensuring that appropriate waterproof parts were sourced to ensure no ingress of moisture to the units, we arranged the installation. Here are some images of how the final product looked upon completion:

We provided the customer with a custom-length cable to connect this to an external port on the other side of the car park that we had previously installed. This allowed them to simply connect an ethernet cable to the units, complete the updates, and then disconnect the cable when not in use.