[EVDL] NEMA 14-50 Receptacles for EVSE, EV Charging

[Tom Jones via EV]

Hi Cor,

Your recent posts on the EVDL made me thing you might be able to answer 
a question for me.


Do you know anyone that can repair a JuiceBox?

I have two that became very flakey on WiFi and failed a short time later.

I looked into replacing one WiFi module but the part was no longer 
available, and the rework was more than I could handle.


So, if you have any suggestions, that would be great.

Thanks,

Tom Jones

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Re: [EVDL] Sticky EV Problem

[Tom Jones via EV]

Thanks Cor,
That reminded me that the only time I have used "Marine grade" heat 
shrink was in that box. That tubing does have an adhesive lining. That 
must have been what migrated.

Tom

On 12/15/2022 8:01 PM, Cor van de Water via EV wrote:

Tom,
Did you use heatshrink on the cables?
I know of many types of Heat Shrink that has heat activated glue
inside to adhere to the cable it is crimped onto, maybe that glue
migrated to the wire strands?
Alternatively, maybe the cable insulation expelled something, possibly
under high temp, which then dried on the connections?
Cor.

On Thu, Dec 15, 2022 at 2:10 PM Tom Jones via EV  wrote:

I have a conversion that has been on the road since 2009. It has a Zilla
1kLV and a Warp9 for propulsion. The traction pack consists of 44 CALB
180 Ah cells for about 150 volts.

The Zilla, hairball, two contactors, breaker and a shunt have been in an
aluminum box for all those years. I recently had reason to open the box
and check connections and see if there was anything going wrong. The box
is not water tight but the contents were dry and generally very clean,
there were no signs of any problems.

When I took apart some of the high current connections, I found them to
be covered with a very sticky clear film. That film was very hard to
remove. Acetone and a lot of rubbing did a fair job of cleaning the
contacts. But, it was not easy. Only the high current contacts had this
problem. Inside the box, no other surface had the sticky film.

So, here is my question, does anyone on this list have any idea about
how that sticky film developed? Or, has anyone else ever seen this issue?

Tom Jones
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[EVDL] Sticky EV Problem

[Tom Jones via EV]

I have a conversion that has been on the road since 2009. It has a Zilla 
1kLV and a Warp9 for propulsion. The traction pack consists of 44 CALB 
180 Ah cells for about 150 volts.


The Zilla, hairball, two contactors, breaker and a shunt have been in an 
aluminum box for all those years. I recently had reason to open the box 
and check connections and see if there was anything going wrong. The box 
is not water tight but the contents were dry and generally very clean, 
there were no signs of any problems.


When I took apart some of the high current connections, I found them to 
be covered with a very sticky clear film. That film was very hard to 
remove. Acetone and a lot of rubbing did a fair job of cleaning the 
contacts. But, it was not easy. Only the high current contacts had this 
problem. Inside the box, no other surface had the sticky film.


So, here is my question, does anyone on this list have any idea about 
how that sticky film developed? Or, has anyone else ever seen this issue?


Tom Jones
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Re: [EVDL] Lithium Ion buddy pairing? (Was electriccarpartscompany.com?)

[Tom Jones via EV]

I really have to beg to differ about CALBs.
My Focus has 45 CA180 cells that have been on the road for about five 
years without BMS. Once a year, sometimes twice, I pump a few amp hours 
into the lowest cells with with a radio control type charger.

That usually involves about five cells.
I do have a homemade battery monitor with a display, expanded voltage 
scale, that I use to keep a eye on the pack while driving. And, I do 
datalog each cell all the time while driving and charging. In the 
charging sweet spot, about 3.4 volts, all 45 cells are in a tight range 
of about 25 mV. I consider that basically magic!
My battery monitor also will stop the J1772 if any single cell voltage 
gets too high.

So, that my experience with CALB cells,

Tom



On 8/6/2018 7:51 PM, Alan Arrison via EV wrote:
I guarantee that the inferior Chinese cells will change capacity as 
they are cycled and not by just a few percent.


Running them without a BMS is a recipe for disaster. Damaged cells at 
best, a fire at worst.


All the Chinese cells are junk, especially the CALBS.

Al




On 8/6/2018 7:48 PM, David Nelson via EV wrote:
On Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Tom Hudson via EV 
 wrote:

Those two were ZERO VOLTS, and show ZERO OHMS resistance.

Is this a common failure mode of lithium-ions (or the CALB 
modules)?  I'm
thinking that I'd better set up some kind of fusing between the 
buddy pairs
because if one of the pair fails in this way, it's going to present 
a dead

short to its buddy -- and nothing good is going to come of that.

I don't know how common of a failure mode that is but I suspect it
could happen. If they were placed upside down (terminals facing down)
there is evidence that that has corroded the internal contacts to the
terminal bolts but that caused an open circuit situation, not a dead
short.

Internally the cells are made up of several layers which are
"buddy-paired" at the terminals. I put 20 buddy pairs of TS-LFP100AHA
cells in my Gizmo back in January 2010 and they are still going
strong. While the probability of any given cell failing goes up with
the number of cells I claim that a 200Ah cell made up of the same size
materials as the 100Ah cells would also have a higher probability of
failure. Definitely give each cell a cycle test and if you have the
time a capacity test. I would recommend that you then pair them up
where the capacity of the pairs ends up being nearly identical. I did
a rudimentary version of this for my Gizmo and it has worked out just
fine.

Some claim that you have to have the cells at exactly the same SOC
before connecting the buddy pairs. Theoretically this doesn't make
sense and I have also tested it and practice shows it really doesn't
matter. As long as their voltages are similar the initial current
isn't that great. Somewhere in the EVDL archives I posted the numbers
from one of my tests of this. IIRC it maxed at ~100A for a second or
so and quickly dropped to below 20A or so. Charging the cell pair to
3.4V or discharging to 2.8V or so brings the two cells in line with
each other.

The 100% SOC resting voltage of LFP cells from CALB and TS is 3.38V.
Make sure you aren't hammering the cells with 3.6+V on every charge
trying to equalize them. A good set of cells doesn't drift that fast.
I have been running my pack top balanced without attached BMS boards
for several years with no issues. I recently sold the Gizmo and I
don't trust the new owner to be able to be the "human BMS" so I am
going to be reinstalling the BMS boards I have. Furthermore, it is an
unknown how much the cells will drift as they age. They have been fine
so far but I'm not driving it now so can't do my annual voltage check.
I've been charging to 3.465V/cell with my Zivan chargers and the
resting voltage with no load after 12hours has been 3.36V so I know
I'm not overcharging them.

HTH,



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Re: [EVDL] Juicebox contactor problem

[Tom Jones via EV]

I also have a JuiceBox and it has always cycled the main relay when you 
reset the unit, or apply power. The relay is closed for a very short 
time. The relay is cycled if the EVSE is connected to the car or not. 
Mine was a kit and I have had it for some time now but I recall that 
characteristic being mentioned in the kit documentation.


I look at it as a very simple functional test. Yes, the main relay can 
be activated, if you hear it close and open.


Tom

On 1/31/2016 9:49 AM, Rush Dougherty via EV wrote:

Hi all,

A friend has a Juicebox, one of the earlier ones, and when he plugged the power
cord in, I heard a thunk, thunk, like the contactor was engaging and
disengaging. I asked him if that was new and he said nope, whenever I plug it in
it does that. So I guess it was doing a contactor test.

Then I thought, is the J1772 plug must be hot when that happens? I plugged my
meter into the hot leads of the J1772, plugged in the power cord and heard the
thunk, the meter jumped to 220, heard another thunk and the meter went back to
zero.

Do you people that have a Juicebox experience the same sequence of thunk, thunk
when you initially plug the EVSE into a power source?

Rush Dougherty
Tucson AZ 85719




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Re: [EVDL] Emotorworks (Juicebox) lack of customer support

[Tom Jones via EV]

I received my Juicebox about eighteen months ago. Mine has the case that 
looks like a very big battery. I did make some small hardware and 
firmware changes but only because that's what I like to do. And Valery 
Miftakhov was very responsive and helpful when I had questions. In fact, 
I use Valery's code for the display in other projects.


My Juicebox has been working very well since I received it.

Tom Jones

On 10/17/2015 7:41 PM, Chris Tromley via EV wrote:

On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 4:06 PM, Ken Olum via EV  wrote:


At the end of June I bought the JuiceBox 40 Pro EVSE from Emotorwerks.
I paid $600, and I think that's enough that I'm entitled to a little
customer support.  But I've 4 sent requests to their support address and
never received a satisfactory answer.  In some cases I got a reply, but
the reply was "so-and-so is the expert on this and will get back to you
and answer your question" and then I never heard from so-and-so.


​Thinking more about this, there are other products that have no official
tech support.  They rely ​on an active and enthusiastic online community,
sometimes backed up by a company representative or two.  I personally have
had fair-to-good results from this kind of arrangement (free antivirus
programs, etc.).  I see there is a Juicebox support thread on
DIYElectricCar.

​Has anyone had good or inadequate results with Juicebox support using this
approach?

Chris​
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