Cases Putting The Case Back Together

[murankar]

My how my mind changes. I was cleaning the work bench and area today. Saw the old seahorse case on the shelf. Pulled out dusted it off opened it and cleaned it out.

Not much was in there just some dirt and dust from sitting around. Oh I that plastic primer for adhesives is peeling off. I don't think I preped the plastic well enough for it.

I have some sub floor (1/4 in luan) from a house I did a few years ago. I don't remember which job. Anyhow it was big enough to cut down to fit in the seahourse. It took a bit of time to get it to fit and look fairly decent around the edges. The bottom of the case has four lugs molded into it. These lugs are around M10 size based on the tap I have. I didn't tap it yet but I am going to, I think. I don't know if I want to tap it or use an m10 with course threads for plastic. The base plate needs to hold the weight of the power supply. What I am not sure of is how to secure the power supply. I have see people use use 3M grey and it help just fine. That stuff is rated at 35lbs of holding. For now I will keep the free wood but when the money is there I will upgrade the wood to either ash or oak ply. I am thinking oak with a gloss finish. High gloss finish.

The PL6 a.different story. I may have to cut a channel in the base to accommodate a "leg" that's on the back end of the charger. Thus leg stretches the width of the unit and give a tilt to it also. If the channel idea works it will allow me to mount the charger with 3M grey also.

Now for the fun part. So the discharger is needing to be finished. I figured I would cram that into this case also. Oh I got a large Seahourse won't be any issues for room. I have mounted the trim lots to the deck. I have to work out the resistors. I have to solve how I want to mount them in the case. I need to be able to move a lot of air for cooling.

Since ill be adding 4S packs to my rig I will need to test out the bank be for committing it to the inside of the case. My big issue for heat is with the 6S packs. I really need to do a seven or eight resistor load for 6S. That way the resistors will be able to handle the watts better. If I was to change my load bank in would go 8 8 ohm resistors in case any one wants to know. That's for a different article

I need to plan the arduino install along with the screen. See I still have the code base. Which more than likely I don't when I will need to down load the backup from Google drive. Which means I need to re download the font file as well. I will have some time ahead of me to solve these issues.

I will get a pic or two tomorrow after a get a few more things together on the case.

 

[murankar]

Below are the images thus far. I have only spent about 4 working hours on this rebuild. What I failed to mention earlier is why. After having my charging stuff setup in the car now for a year I found something out. My rear window lets in to much direct sunlight. The sun was just beating the neck out of the electronics. So I figured since I am reworking my solar station I figured I might as well rework this also. Nice thing about this project is very little to no money needs to be spent to complete this project.

As I was looking at this project I wanted to add my load bank project to this. I figured it would complement that over all finished product. I still have some concerns about the resistors on 6S but those will get solved over time. All I need to worry about is pushing enough air over the load bank to keep things cool while on 6S. So why the issue on 6S? Wattage is the issue. This load bank is only rated for 500 watts of energy burn off, the produced wattage of 6S at 1 ohm is rough 625 watts of energy burn off. So in theory I have exceeded the passive cooling limits of the resistors. Solution to this is to add copious amounts of mechanical cooling, ie fans or liquid cooling. I went fans. One thing I may spring for is maybe two squirrel cage fans. Anyhow more in this later.

Back to the case at hand. The following picture is just what I managed to get done today. Minus the deck cutting (the outline shape), that i did sunday evening. Today was routing the rectangle for the bump controller, the fan holes and the trim pots. Under the bump it is a piece of lexan. My reasoning was I thought the unit would sit lower but hey I am happy with what I got. Lexan also provides a better surface for sticky back Velcro to stick to over wood. A side benefit is that I can pull off the bump and look inside at the Chargery 1500 display.

The knobs on the right are for the load bank. If I need to trim out the voltage reading of the arduino I can. Sometimes the ADC on the arduino is not that accurate. So by adding in trim pots I can adjust the voltage reading as needed.

To the left of the bump is the 110 input for the Power Supply. Below that will be two binding posts. When running on solar I will connect to the battery bank via the binding posts. Now i have to swap the power plug from the PSU to the solar port. I don't think that will be that big of a deal. One thing to note; the bump controller and the PL series charger need acommon ground. To solve this the XT90 plug has both the bump and pl6 leads soldered together. It makes for a fat connector but at least the two units are sharing power and grounds.





Next two pictures showy intentions as to the placement of the load bank. I only have one fan for display purposes but you get the idea. I think I might go with the first option. Which means that two big fans between the two small fans. The screen for the arduino will go center between the small fans (this maybe the location of the screen regardless of which option I choose). Then the charge board would go to the right of the bump.

The second option I would put the load bank to the right of the bump and the charge boards below the bump and screen center between the fans. I need to find a panel balance plug for the load bank. Again more on this in the other article.





Here is my inside set up for right now. What I have to work on next is making this perminate. What's missing in the pick is the lexan base. So this case has 4 posts molded into it. Each lug is almost perfect for an M6 fastener. So if I can cut a piece of lexan to fit then I can mount the psu and the charger as the sit. This also shows what space I have for the load bank. The load bank will more than likely be a part of the deck lid. We shall see what is in store.



This is just a shot of the post or lug. There are 4 of them .


If I can find a squirrel cage that can move a ton of air on 12v I hope to reduce my fan count by 1. So instead of three i'll have 2. It will allow me to keep a more clean look too. I am not looking forward to carving out two more large holes in the deck lid. I am not planning lights at this time. Last time did and it really wasn't all that. Yeah at first it was neat now no am just like "um okay". Doesnt mean I won't, just not right now.

Any questions or suggestions just post up.

 

[murankar]

Today was the day I made the base plate. I started with a piece of 1/2 lexan that had to be cut to size. All I had was a drag knife cutter for plastic sheets. It took a few minutes but it got the job done. Just remember to score both sides before snapping the sheet. I also mounted the PSU and charger to the base plate. I did not take pics of the end of day progress, I will add them tomorrow sometime.

This pic just shows the to slotted holes for the M6 bolts and the square hole is for the base of the PL6. It has a tilt while sitting flat. So to help level it out a bit I cut a pass through in the base plate.



What you can't see is why I took the pic. This pic and the next one are basically the same thing. One of the reasons for the base plate was to give a nice flat base. I didn't want to worry about the lugs getting in the way. It also allows for any wires to run underneath and it provides a better mounting surface over the seahorse case. What I had intended was to show how I prepared the surface of the lexan. Just like any plastic you have to prep the surface for adhesives to work correctly. In this case the 3M forever stuck needs a proper surface. I took my brand new Porter Cable dual action rotary sander and sanded the surface. I used a marker and outlined the PSU so I would know what to sand and what not to sand. After that was done I cleaned it and the PSU bottom with IPA.






This is how I applied the 3M forever stuck tape. I did three strips and cut out one screw head. Peel the red back, line up and bobs your uncle. PSU forever stuck to the base plate.



Only thing to mention here is I did not pay attention to the lower mounting hole in relation to where I stuck the PSU. My two issues is that the head of the mounting screw is right against the PSU. Ill try and add a pic to show what I mean and if I want to switch over to solar its going to be a little project. I will solve that issue but for now it is what it is. Again ill show that tomorrow or when ever I get a chance to work on it again.



Not sure what I want to attack next. What I need to do is break down the load bank project to its pieces parts and get them ready to go in the case. What I think is going to happen is the load bank will sit to the right of the PL6 and bump controller. My para boards will go below the bump and the arduino screen next to the right fan . Once that's all solved I have to work out the wiring for the fans, arduino and trim pots. I do know i will be hot gluing the wire runs to the deck lid.

What will have to happen at some point is the power for the small electronics will need to run on 12v Period. So I either have to find my second regulator i have or buy a new one. They're (ha I know how to use it right) fairly cheap. Why? Because the PSU will be pumping 32VDC to the charger. So I have to convert down to 12v. The one thing I do not like about the chargery is that the three additional plugs you get are not independently controlled . What ever the PSU is set at, that's what all four outputs give. Its a minor thing really.

Enough of that. For now the major placement stuff is done. Base plate is made and installed. Next part who knows, wiring and or possibly cutting a hole for the arduino screen.

 

[murankar]

I want to put some info out on the PL6 for those who might be looking or just want to know.

The powerlab series chargers can be connected together. All you have to do is link the two PL6's or two PL8's with a servo lead (double female). So any single PL series charger can be a dual channel charger if you wish.

Here is the best part. If you got the cash and a charging rig to support it the bump controller can control up to 4 PL6's or PL8's. Now to get really crazy you could control 2 Pl6 duo (If They make those) or two PL8 duos. Each of those are 2 chargers each. Its bad enough that If you want to run a PL8 Duo at full max you need to separate PSU's and two outlets that are.on different circuits of your house. A 2000 watt generator can barely do it.