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EMW JuiceBox (Open Source 15kW Level 2 Charger) Support

15K views 18 replies 7 participants last post by  zapyourrideguy 
#1 ·
Hello all,

I'm Dorian, an engineer guy with Electric Motor Werks - producer of the JuiceBox 15kW charge station. In case you didn't already know, the JuiceBox is a full-featured J1772 charging station which supplies up to 60A 15kW (operating on 100-240V) to your J1772 vehicle. To sum it up, this means up to 10x faster charging than from a regular household outlet - a good incentive to go 240V! It's built around an Arduino microcontroller - and all of our hardware and software is open source and will be kept that way. The JB (JuiceBox) is inherently mobile and fast, and (can) have Wi-Fi capability. Thus far, about 500 JuiceBox's (many of whom belong to fellow DIY EV members) are out there powering up EVs!

I'd love to hear from all of you any suggestions, possible improvements, cool modifications you've done, assembly stories, etc. you might have!

We also offer a whole variety of other charge systems and EV conversion components, but I'm here to aide in JuiceBox-related discussions. :)'

Thanks!
-Dorian VR

Electric Fiat Spider, BMW 3-series (x2): http://tinyurl.com/7x7oaa2; BMW X5: http://tinyurl.com/7yu23op
DIY 10kW Charger: http://tinyurl.com/73oz2oe and http://www.emotorwerks.com/tech/electronics
Android EV Dashboard: http://tinyurl.com/kc9r8gc
 
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#2 ·
Hey Dorian,
I sent an email to jbsupport email address and haven't gotten a reply. My kit arrived but several of the parts were not there and some instructions make no sense. Are you guys not setup to support people yet?

I'm feeling a bit regretful about my decision to buy it lately but hopefully your support team improves or it's on account of the holidays :/
 
#4 ·
My base kit is on the way to me here in beautiful Santa Cruz!

Would it be a problem to run the supply in the right nipple and the output out the left (reverse of normal)?

The wires would need to cross in the bottom of the your box...but it would make the hard-wire I'm going to do better looking.
 
#11 ·
It would be great if someone from EMW would post here some status on the Juice Box premium shipments! The status on EMW's Juice Box pages hasn't changed other than mentioning the J1772 cables were on back order into Feb. For that reason, I know at least 2 others in addition to me placed orders that did not include J1772 cables.
 
#13 ·
We're waiting on our premium enclosures from China at the moment. Hopefully we'll receive them within a week or two - the tracking data we receive is seldom correct...
But as soon as we get all our parts in, we'll work hard to get them out. I'll definitely post about this again when I know more specifics!

Thanks so much for all your patience!
 
#12 ·
Throughout the EMW pages on Juice Box, and in posts by many current owners, the Juice Box and Juice Box premium are listed as "portable". I went through the build documentation, and the input ground is also wired up to the case, which is great for true safe, portability.

Now I put rubber bumpers all around any design like this so that the box doesn't slide around when placed on a flat surface. Anyone see a problem with adding rubber bumpers to the back side of a Juce Box?
 
#15 · (Edited)
Re: EMW JuiceBox Support, dual 120v question

At our company's main location here in Central NC there are 4 dual 120v outlets reserved for EV charging and 4 parking spaces. (There are often 6EVs, different problem). 3 pairs of these NEMA 5 outlets are each served by a single 20a breaker, one pair by a 30a breaker.

From measurements, two sets of outlets seem to be on a separate side of the 240VAC input (at least their hot leads are 180deg out of phase and show ~240vac rms).

Aside from the comment that perhaps the EVs would be better served by 4 sets of Level 2 EVSEs (ongoing request, these outlets have been in place since 1999!), my smart ED charge rate is limited by the onboard 3.3kw charger at the moment. So best I can draw is around 13.7A which is fine for the 30A circuit, not so fine for the 20A [if another 120V EVSE is plugged in, ed]

I would only wire both ends of the split 240 IF two circuits are available. But, if one leg is pulled out, can the JuiceBox be set to degrade and continue to operate on 120V or will it stop and I have to come out and change to the RV-50A to NEMA 5 adapter? Looks like I would do well to dial down to 10A max current draw for the JB on 240V.

[Ed - looking at build docs, I see that with split 120VAC one hot leg is served from one 120VAC and the other from the 2nd 120VAC on the other side of the 240VAC mains service. So if either 120VAC leg is pulled, then the EVSE AC power is interrupted. Hmm, so this interrupts the power supply - I don't see any battery backup in current design.]

Thanks, Mark
 
#16 ·
Hi,

I recently received my juicebox with the 50-60A J1772, however there are 7 wires (4 hot, 2 pilot, and 1 ground) associated with it rather than the 4 shown in the tutorial. You clarified for me that the blue pilot wire is unused, however that still leaves me with 4 hot wires and only two relay output terminals. What do I do? I am eager to use your product and want to support your mission, but am struggling with the lack of support and instructions considering having recently handed over a good chunk of change.

I am posting my help question here in case anyone else needs to know the answer.
 
#19 ·
I have been using my juicebox to charge my honda conversion for almost a year. Now and again I would have to cycle the breaker feeding the juicebox to start a charge. today it is just cycling its relay on and off on and off. I am using a modular ev power module on the car side; its proxy light is green. juicebox cycles on and off even when I disconnect my charger. Any help on troubleshooting this would be appreciated.
 
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