Support

I am considering buying the new juicebox retrofit board to get myself started in the OpenEVSE world. I have exactly zero experience with OpenEVSE, and some experience with DIY electronics (ESP-home).

Could someone help me figure out, before I jump in:

* Is that board all-inclusive, or is any additional hardware required?

* Is it compatible with a screen, or at least a button?

* Is it pre-flashed, or do I need to get a programmer too? Which one?

Thanks in advance.

@OpenEVSE Support I opened ticket #88949 for over a month now and have not heard back. I have the same issues with the LEDs not working correctly and 6 no ground faults. Thank you

Just a follow up... I was able to get my V1 upgrade board to connect to our WiFi network.  We have an extender that had gotten into a weird state so rebooting that got the OpenEVSE board connected.  The support note I got suggested updating the WiFi to the Dev release which I did but that did not solve the Earth Ground Check Failed error so it looks like we're going to do a board swap.  He also said that there is an LED fix board to sort that out and I'll be getting one of those also.  Finally, he said that there were multiple variants of the V1 JuiceBox and that's what they are dealing with. 

@openEVSE Support I have a v1 that needs an LED strip. When you say a picture of the lid, do you mean inside? Or are the outside graphics enough? I have this one: 

No, I still have the original JuiceBox LED lights. They used to be a different color each, now all of them have the same color and lighted regardless of the box status. Is that how it should work for the retrofit? I thought the LEDs should stay the same or at least be dependent on the box status. I can say they are slightly changing color, like when the box is off and unconnected to the car, all 3 are a greenish blue color, when the car is charging, all 3 are slightly bluer, but all 3 are always the same color regardless. I have not seen yellow, red, purple or orange since I changed the board, only greenish blue and bluish blue...

I had a look at the Repo and it doesn't appear that anyone is assigned to fixing this.  The post requested the reporter of the bug to provide a code snippet because the person didn't have the hardware to test this. It doesn't sound like there is any firm date for this as a result.  As an old programmer with time on his hands, I may look at the code myself to see what the issue is.  No promises.  I have a Nissan charger that I'm using while my JuiceBox is in the ICU so I'm not feeling any pressure but there might be people out there who have to revert to their JuiceBox boards to keep charging.

From Support:

The No ground error is a false positive each time the station loses power. We are working on a firmware fix to not register an error until the state is present for more than 1 seccond. We are tracking the issue here: https://github.com/lincomatic/open_evse/issues/176

From GitHub:

sorry for the delay in response, just noticed this. i haven't seen this error, and wattzilla has been shipping w/ the current code w/o issue. i have a prototype v6 that you sent me a while back, and it didn't exhibit the error, either, when i hacked it with jumpers for testing. since i don't have hardware to reproduce it, do you want to just give me the code snippet that fixes it on your side?

I would help sort out the bug except that it is unclear which GitHub repo the JuiceBox code is built from.  In addition, from a cursory look at several repos, this bug will probably require someone with some experience with the code to sort out since we're talking 240V.  Putting in a delay into code that monitors for error conditions could lead to potentially dangerous results since a second can make a difference if 240V is shorting out to the case or some such. I've survived being electrocuted at 120V - one would not be so lucky at 240V.  So everyone out there should be very very careful, especially if you run with the case open (no safety interlock on the case!).  

FWIW, I think it is a good thing that the current firmware is extra careful about the Earth Ground check since that Earth/Ground could save your life (or your car's internal charger).  

Finally, this is not a criticism of OpenEVSE but as I mentioned before, there doesn't seem to be a path from the Earth Ground check failed bug to a solution at present so it would be good to get some visibility into what has to happen including the testing - are we looking at a couple of weeks or a couple of months?  I would be willing to test a firmware fix with my currently non-functional JuiceBox Pro since it was stated that no hardware was available for testing.

THANK YOU!!

I have been dreading transitioning this JuiceBox Pro 40 into an OpenEVSE for years.  Thank you sooo much for making it this easy.  Just this weekend I needed to turn down the current and there wasn't a method still working for the original JuiceBox Pro 40 so I was about to order the Advanced kit and build it out in the frame and you have taken all the hard work out of the project.

Tell Chris H. thanks.

We are now a family of 5 OpenEVSE kits for the four EVs and behind me at this moment my wife is writing the scripts to monitor our Virtual Power Plant to only allow charging when we would otherwise send the excess to the grid.  The JuiceBox Pro 40 was going to be a problem in our new energy setup but not any longer.  The same RAPI commands will work on all of them.  GREAT!!  You guys are the best!

Any experience out there with the V2 upgrade?  I'm about to try that next week.  

I am unlucky enough to have a V0, a V1 and a V2. My V0 has been solid as a rock and I don't really care about programmability so I'm going to probably leave that alone (or pass it on).  There was talk of doing an OpenEVSE kit for the V0 but I wonder how much demand for that there would be since that was an early, early adopter model.  It lost network connectivity ages ago and it just seems happy in isolation.

Regarding: "Just this weekend I needed to turn down the current and there wasn't a method still working for the original JuiceBox Pro 40" 

All JuiceBoxes including V0 still have the host or access point mode where you can connect directly to the unit via WiFi and get a web page with settings that you can change like the current level. I have an ancient V0 and it still has this feature.  Same with my V1.  It's not a feature that was advertised a lot especially if you used the Mobile App to do everything but it has been there the whole time.

Thanks for your prior help.  I have wired up the OpenEV board with soldered on screw block terminals and got everything connected as per prior messages.  However when I plug the V0 (solid metal case) into the 240 outlet, nothing happens.  No lights, no click, nothing.  

I have left the metal cover off to watch the board.  

I have not tried to charge my vehicle yet.  

Is there some type of light or other that should be coming on with V0? 

 Also "AC Relay" was not used in this setup, per prior instructions.  

Thanks!