[TEV]

Nicely done. I hope you will be able to drive it very soon.

[Yukon_Shane]

Looks really good Pete.

I'm driving mine a little bit more now and it's alot of fun. It'll be great to see you on the road.

[PeterH]

Thanks for the positive motivation guys. I'm working on wiring things up today. Had to come in to shut down the computer... thunderstorm rolling in.

Pete

[Yabert]

Really nice and clean build Peter.
I like your conversion.

[PeterH]

Hi there... time for another update.

Still haven't applied power to the systems yet. Working on wiring up the battery boxes. I have 3 of the 5 done and hope to have the last two finished before the day is over.

Ran into a problem last night. In box number 3, three of the batteries sit in a row short-side by short side-side. I hadn't measured the distance between terminals in that configuration until it came time. For some dumb reason I guess I thought the would work out to be the same distance. Guess again... you can see the problem:



I only needed to bridge two sets of cell terminals like this. Since I'm using the braided straps I bought from the EVTV folks, I have a pile of the bare copper straps that came with the batteries. So here is what I did:



I took 2 of them apart and alternately layered them up into one longer version with a 5/16th bolt in the joint to hold them tightly together. My logic with this is that they are intended to be used for this purpose anyway, so I should be able to use them like this. Please let me know if you think this is going to fail for some reason!

Once together and with new insulation they look like this. Just test fitting it on the bench in this shot. When installed they also have a nord-lock washer to keep things nice and tight.



Once installed in the battery box, this is how they look.



I am having a bit of trouble making sure that back row of batteries is secure. I've been cramming in shims between the last cell and the insulation to make them all a tight fit in the other boxes. I cut an aluminum plate to go next to the cell so there wasn't a point souce of pressure on the cell. That seems to work well. I think I'll be using a cut down plastic cutting board in this box.

I also cover the finished cells with a sheet of 1/16th inch think rubber across the top of all of the cells and between the lid and all the cables. Just to protect against anything being dropped into the box when I'm installing or removing the lids.

Oh, and here is a nice reminder... I was running that big cable from one end of the box to the other when I dropped the end and it ever so briefly touched a terminal at the other end of the box and completed a closed circuit. Big spark and splash of molten steel. I hope to NEVER do that again! This is what it did to the bolt in the terminal:



I checked the cell voltages immediately after that and they are all still at 3.29 VDC. Whew!

Pete

[Ziggythewiz]

Yeah, would be nice if they could have considered both possible configurations when sizing the cells. I was looking at some options and it looks like 60 AH connectors fit end-end for 40 AH cells, may be true for some of the larger ones.

Don't see why they couldn't have just centered the posts so that end-end and side-side would be the same for all cases.

[dladd]

hey, I've got 2 extra braided straps from evworks, these ones here, which are for the 130ah CALB cells end to end. I needed 4, but the shipping was the same if I bought 6 (shipping for 4 cost just about as much as the parts cost!) so i just ordered 6. I don't need them, so if you like I could send them to you. Though what you have done certainly looks like it will work fine.

[PeterH]

Originally Posted by dladd

hey, I've got 2 extra braided straps from evworks, these ones here, which are for the 130ah CALB cells end to end. I needed 4, but the shipping was the same if I bought 6 (shipping for 4 cost just about as much as the parts cost!) so i just ordered 6. I don't need them, so if you like I could send them to you. Though what you have done certainly looks like it will work fine.

Hi there... wish I had asked this question BEFORE I finished up with the battery wiring. I'd have probably bought those from you. Thanks for the offer anyway...

I was hoping to apply powe to the main systems over the weekend. However, I got side tracked by all of the details of wiring the insturmentation so I'm still working on that. Besides. with the first sunny day in weeks, I had to spend time on other spring-time chores.

Hopefully, I'll have the instrucments wired up correctly sometime this week.

Thanks,
Pete

[jbird]

Peter. Great build. Keep up the good work.

[PeterH]

Thursday, May 10, 2012.

I applied power to the system today from the main battery pack. Not everything worked as expected.

The good news is that I didn't let any smoke out... the bad news is that my Mini-BMS system lights up as expected but it is sounding an alarm continuously. Don't know why just yet.

My Soliton Jr. isn't behaving as expected. It is putting out an error signal to my "check engine" light on the dash. I'll be retracing all of the wiring tomorrow morning.

I plugged in my GE Watt Station and it seemed to work properly. However, while the Elcon powered up, I can't really tell if it was charging or not. The cooling fans were on but when I checked the voltage of the battery pack, it was the same as before the charger was powered up. I was expecting at least a visible rise in voltage.

So... tomorrow it is back to the meter and wiring diagrams for the individual components to see if I've wired something incorrectly. Still, I feel fortunate that nothing truely bad happened.

Pete