2010-02-27

Mounting battery boxes

It has been a long pause again in my blog - again. The main reason is that blog update stands not on the top of my priorities list among family, main job, and actually working on HR-EV. I reckon if I would have worked normal working hours it would have taken me around 4 months. But now we are approaching 2nd anniversary of the project. Anyway, it's good that it is moving.

This time I want to show the mounting of battery boxes. Apologies for bad quality photos taken from my mobile because camera died when I needed it and I've been to busy to look for another camera.
The battery boxes are mounted on two 20x20x3 stainless steel angles: one in front bottom and one in rear top.

I used most of the car's stock bolt places on the chassis to fasten front rail using just one additional which was welded in. Rear rail was fastened to bottom sheet of the car where the spare tire is placed.
Here is the picture of one box mounted on the rails.
As you may possibly see the front rail is basically hanging on 4 20x3mm stainless steel bars bolted on top to chassis and bent around the angle bar at the bottom and welded to it. This construction allows the angle to swing a bit which is good as you don't have to be dead precise when making these rails. Being very precise in garage conditions is quite difficult. Lateral stability of this bar is achieved by the fact that boxes are bolted to it and boxes themselves are fastened at rear. The other stability element is the 0.8mm steel cover which is bolted to car and to small legs which were formed from the 20x3 bars bent around the angle ( you can see these three legs on the photo above).
Here is the picture showing the rear of the box and I hope you can see the angle bar in dark top left corner of the photo.


Here is the view from inside the car's trunk where the spare wheel is placed.

You can see 4 bolts caps in a row. That's how the rear bar is attached. Simple, isn't it? Well there are 2 additional long bolts on both sides securing the very ends of the rear rail angle. These are not visible on this photo.
On the above photo there are 4 cut opening providing access to boxes terminals to interconnect them together. You can see couple of LEDs lit up on the left which were shot when BCMS was scanning the cells.

Below are couple of very crappy photos which taken with the same mobile camera. The sad fact for the hobby project is that it is rarely possible to work in daylight as in winter night is starting early and job is usually done after main work. I will re-take with proper camera and place here. I promise :)
Here is the view from front left with all battery boxes in place. You can see the thick cable running prepared to be connected.

Here is dark view from the back bottom view of the batteries (that's how you define darkness :)

Here is the dark view of the batteries on the front rail when viewed from the car front.

Here should be photo of the boxes with protective steel sheet installed but I was too tired to remember to take a picture with it. Next time, when I bring the car on the lift again.

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