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Despite the cost of the thing, my experience of two small shorts while wiring up the pack - 7.2v only - has scared me sufficiently that I don't want any unfused cabling where it could possibly short out the pack.

At the same time, fusing 100 cells would take days and my usage is likely to be only 30% of real pack capacity, so I can probably stay away from both ends. Anybody want to buy an unused BMS?

Wiring up the pack. After doing 70% of it, I read on evworks that it's a good idea to clean the terminals with a wire brush to remove aluminium oxide. So disconnected all the cells and BMS cabling. A whole day "wasted" - except that it will hopefully perform better with the lower resistance. I was surprised at the change in colour/albedo on some of the terminals, I'd never noticed they were oxidised.

I don't want to pay up for a DC-DC unit until I can see the rest of it working. So I've been using a PC 500w ATX power supply for the 12v that my BMS needs. It may be enough to run the motor controller too, with the back wheels jacked up so I can see them spin. After 2 years of dragging on I would like that.

Unfortunately I mislabelled the outputs so I've been struggling to get the BMS to run on 5v without knowing;...

Motor is in, main cables are crimped. Now testing BMS.

BMS is HiPower OEM. So far it powers up but doesn't collect data, only beeps at me and says theres no connection from the main data module to the data collection modules.

It's applaudable to see so many plug-in vehicles on the roads... but at the public charge; it's a shock. Here's a scenario philisophis electricus:

You are beyond the range of no return... You pull into your strategic public charger to find it occupied by, let's say a Volt. You can not get home, the Volt of course, can. Do you unplug it?

Comments please...