Menke Projects

Willie had two old Juicebox units laying in a pile in his Partybarn, and suggested I might look at them to see why they don't work.  Both were 60 amp units which means the wiring would handle 14,000 watts.  (BIG cables...the size of garden hoses!) Here is a YouTube titled EMotorWerks JuiceBox Premium - a Build Manual This is the exact unit.  https://youtu.be/SScYZKV7iDc My first step was to open both of the units and look for any obvious damage, but both are very clean inside and there is no evidence of any burning or overheating.  The cables were another story, with a heavy layer of black grime, calling for a spray bottle of cleaner and a Scotchbright pad.  Now they look like new cables. On to the power plugs.  One is sealed, but the other had screws and when I inspected the internals, the ground prong was bent so the little screw could contact the big black 240 volt prong (internally).  I removed it and bent it back into shape, and for good mea...

I now have both of Willie's 12V wooden power boxes containing mostly dead 260 AH LiFePO4 cells, plus a spare cell.  The 4 cells in the box I got yesterday are all dead, reading only a few millivolts. Since Scott Little and Willie had previously worked with a load of dead cells from the Escort, I looked at his messages, and here is what I found (so far): Mar 31, 2018, 1:28 PM to William , me I have not had good luck so far with the super-dead 260’s…ones that have <0.01v initial voltage.   I first tried a 50A charge rate and that cell got up to 3.3 volts but hung there and started to get hot instead of going up to 3.7.   I disconnected it and, by the next morning, the voltage was less than 1 volt just due to self-discharge. A second 260 was charged with a constant-current supply set to 10A.  After the voltage got above 3.0, I disconnected it and observed a similar self-discharge rate.   I then charged it again t...