Charger Arrives

I received the charger. It's an Elcon 2KW charger with profile for 45 off Sky Energy cells.

The vacuum pump also arrived along with fuses, contactors, cable etc.

Tomorrow I am getting a steel fabricator in to measure up for battery boxes and motor mount.

I just got confirmation form the certification engineer that I don't need to use a big red switch. The new version of NCOP14 allows for isolation of the battery via 2 contactors operated from the ignition switch.

Parts have also arrived for my battery management system. It is a processor based system using a PIC chip for each cell, mounted externally from the cells, 16 per board. The master does coulomb counting and shows SOC for the pack and remaining distance to travel.

Batteries

The batteries arrived just before Christmas. 45 off Sky Energy 100AH cells. I spent a few hours bolting them into groups of 5 using the mounting plates provided.

Its pretty scary wielding pieces of uninsulated metal around the terminals of these cells as they can put out over 1000 amps each.

I have now finished my open source DC controller and it is all set to be tested at high voltage.

I am waiting on fuses and contactors before wiring up the whole battery pack.

For a BMS I am going to use another open source project from http://www.batteryvehiclesociety.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1245