There are a lot of connections that go into wiring up an electric car (so I have found). A lot of progress has been made over the last week or so and we are coming up to the exciting part where power is applied to the system and a test drive is clearly in sight!
In the time since my last update a safety shutoff switch that has been mounted in the dash which is wired in series with an inertia switch that's now mounted under the hood of the car. This will be connected directly to the contactor to apply pack voltage to the controller and give me the piece of mind to be able to disable the traction pack from within the car and also in the even of a collision. I was able to replace a toggle switch in the dash in place of a toggle switch that is no longer necessary. This gives it a real factor look and feel inside the car.
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Don't mind the extra wires hanging out of the dash. Those belong to the radio! |
I have gotten a few extra parts which have not only enhanced the safety of the system but also improved the aesthetics and physical layout within the car. In my original design I had only a large fuse and contactor to isolate my battery back from the rest of the system. This would leave me in a tight situation if my contactor failed (as in welded itself shut). I picked up a large maintenance switch which allowed me to run my positive pack voltage into a single input and then place my fuse box one of two output posts. I used the second output post on the switch to run to my charger. This cleans up the connections considerably and makes everything under the hood flow. It also allows connections to be traced through easily through the system.
From the above images you can also see my mounting system for the DC/DC converter. I mounted an aluminum plate onto the secondary mounting bracket of my charger and attached the converter. This will allow for easy access to the connections and offer improved cooling as it gets the converter into a position with plenty of airflow around it. The entire assembly is mounted to a larger aluminum plate which fits over the previous gas tank frame. This leaves a large air pocket under the plate which should aid with cooling.
I'll step back for a moment and illustrate the guts inside the fuse box. Originally the positive pack cable ran into the box through a single large fuse through the contactor and out of the box. It also has a bridge from the fuse to a coil and a smaller fuse that is designed to run out to the DC/DC converter. I decided to bring a JLD 404 into the system and so I had a need to apply a shunt to the system. I moved a few things around and used a 60 mm battery bar to mount the shunt in series between the large fuse and the contactor. It's a little tight in the box now but everything fits!
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Before shunt |
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Correction...Don't put your shunt on the positive side of your battery pack. it will damage your meter. Also note that the white wire pictured on the left side of the contactor is actually suppose to be on the right so the DC/DC converter does not run constantly even when the car is off. |
With all the components nestled nicely under the hood the main traction pack cables were pulled through the car and to the controller. I used six gland nuts to protect the cable as it passed through the aluminum plate and then again through the firewall of the car. Finally another set of gland nuts were put in place to exit the rear firewall of the car to allow connection to the controller. Something to note is that when running the cables it was necessary to run them without the crimped ends on the cable as they did not fit through the gland nut caps. Fortunately this was discovered right away and did not cause any problem when pulling the cables through.
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Cables coming through the front into the cabin |
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Exit point for cables out to the controller. |
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Controller connection point (rubber caps have been added since this photo) |
Next work day for the car is Saturday! Hopefully after a few more hours it will be a ready for a test drive! I'll then start buttoning up loose wires and putting some loom around exposed wires to clean things up a bit. Look for another update next week with some video footage of my hopeful test drive!