EV Wiring

This is where things start to get exciting.  This is where you string the welding cables, hook up the cables to the motor, but don't hook up the batteries until you're sure you get it right.
The first thing I needed was a shelf to put it all on.
I mounted the shelf directly to the fiberglass trunk area with 6 inch L brackets, 5/16 bolts and large fender washers.  You can see I mounted the pot box (accelerator) and controller fan (they tend to get hot) underneath.  What you can't see is the controller will be mounted on top of a heat sink, which when combined with the fan should keep this one plenty cool.

I needed to drill a hole into the back of the backseat area.  My concern was this might not be strong enough to support over 200lbs of LiFEPO4 batteries.  I thought I'd do a stress test (yes, I had a plan B in case the batteries fell through the seat area.) and use some old silicone cell batteries I have laying around.  These worked good in my Sparrow but I wanted more range - hence the leap into lithium.  I will use these batteries for all my testing.  The Curtis controller will take a lower voltage.  Eventually when everything is working, I will replace the Curtis with the Kilovac 156V controller from my Sparrow and lithium batteries.

Upon closer examination, the thickness of the fiberglass is more than enough to support the weight.

Next was the chore of cutting some more cables, cleaning up the old cables with a wire brush and a coating of Noalox.  This helps insure a good contact and also makes up for the corrosion, lack of conductivity between two unlike metals.  I also received some of my safety EV supplies.  In this picture is a 12V inertia switch - that shuts down the entire 12V system should you experience a crash.  There's also two big red buttons or emergency quick disconnects.  I bought two because the price of a double pole was a $100 more than the price of two single poles.  This will turn the pack into three separate packs, each about 60V each. A good thing to know when you're installing a 100 amp hour pack. There's also a big ceramic fuse that will blow if the amperage goes above 500.  When a controller blows it goes into an amp sucking frenzy.  Talk about rapid acceleration, this would make a Prius look like a go cart!

So here it is all together, the shunt was removed from the Magic Box (positive flow) to the negative flow.  This is because the Blue Window needs it that way.  The shunt can go on either side, it just depends on what type of current you need to tap into for things like - ampmeter, voltmeter, etc.  Most simple wiring diagrams found in EV books will show it on the positive side. In my Sparrow, it was on the negative side - BTW that's a very complicated wiring schematic.