Painting, Drilling, odds and ends

I have finished the painting on the front battery racks and have begun the process of figuring out the mounting of the rear battery boxes. Here are some shots of the finished battery racks.

This rack will be mounted to the firewall and will hold (8) TS 160AH batteries

This rack will be mounted in the bumper area and will also hold (8) TS 160AH batteries

Quite some time ago, my buddy James made two angle iron frames to go around the holes I cut in the hatch floor. We also cut  and bent a bunch of aluminum for the battery boxes which will hang from the frame. I have also cut a couple pieces of steel to help stiffen the hatch floor around the frame so the boxes don't just drop out of the car if I hit a bump or hit the brakes hard. These boxes will hold the remaining cells. One will hold 20 and the other will hold 8. If you are playing along, that is a total of 44 batteries at 3.2V/cell and a total pack voltage of 140.8 volts. This is a 22 Kilowatt pack which should get me about 65+ miles of range at 60mph. I do not plan on pushing them that far because it will significantly reduce the life of the cells. My commute is 22 miles one way and I can charge at work, so I will only be using about 40% of the pack at a time on a regular basis. I recently assembled the battery boxes and took some photos.

Rear most battery box which holds (8) TS 160AH batteries

As you can see, my boxes are a bit different than what many people have done. The batteries stick out of the top by a couple inches. I designed it this way for a couple reasons. The boxes would hang too low and cause clearance issues if I set the batteries all the way in them. I am still concerned about this box since it is the closest to the back of the car and whether it may scrape going in or out of a steep driveway. The other thing it does is makes it a little easier to take a cell out if I need to test it or replace it. I am hoping I will not have to do this at all, but that was the idea. Many people cover their boxes which I think is a hold over from the lead acid days, or if they live in a very cold climate, it helps with keeping the cells warm. These cells only vent in an over charge situation and I have designed my charging system to avoid that as much as possible. Also, I live in SoCal, so the temperature shouldn't really be a problem. I will add some sort of strapping over the batteries to keep them in the boxes in the event of an accident. Here are some shots of the large battery box. It will weigh in at over 250 lbs.

Bottom of large battery box - 24 screws and nylon lock nuts

Top view of large battery box

Batteries have found their home

A nice yellow glow of happiness in their new home

I forgot to take a picture, but over the top of the screw heads at the bottom of the boxes, I have a couple pieces of aluminum to make a nice flat surface for all the batteries to sit on. You can see them in the above picture on the left side.

Over the next couple weeks I hope to finish the drilling and painting of the battery box frames and get those installed in the car along with the front battery racks. After that I think I will start working on mounting the component board and figuring out the layout of the components which will be on the component board. I think I still have 250+ hours of work ahead of me, but one by one I am getting things crossed off the giant to do list.