[Planecrazy]

Originally Posted by bennelson

Hey Steve,

The cabling is fine inside the conduit. Insulation is unimportant. Wires and cables are fine at any temperature except hot.

I probably should have been more specific in my use of the word "insulation." I was using the word to describe the protection (or lack thereof) that the plastic conduit provides under the car against road debris and scraping against the pavement, versus the amount of protection afforded by keeping the wiring inside the car body.

Originally Posted by bennelson

Since this car originally had an exhaust pipe running right down the middle, I simply put the conduit where that was. That is HIGHER than the bottom of the car, because of the exhaust "tunnel".

I suspected that you might have done that. If you look again at the original picture it looks like the original conduit was hanging below that point, where it would have been dangerously exposed to high spots on the road or any road debris that could have contacted it and created havoc for you.

Originally Posted by bennelson

Running conduit inside the car would take up extra space, and there is not good straight line to do it. Flexible conduit is a possibility, but it is very expensive, whereas 2" pipe was about $3 for ten feet. Also, I would have to fish everything through the firewall if I ran it inside.

Conduit makes it nice and easy to have everything together, without having to go around corners and through firewalls. Clean and simple, and out of the way.

I suspected this was the reason you did it that way. I would probably do the same, except I would reconsider using a metal conduit (like large diameter plumbing pipe and/or boxing up the tunnel to provide extra protection from the "outside world."

Bear in mind that most homes use metal conduit (not thick enough for this purpose) to prevent the wires from too easily being compromised, and with very few exceptions ALL automotive wiring is done either inside the vehicle or run through areas of the frame that provide protection if the wires are outside the cabin. When talking about high voltage/amperage cables in an electric vehicle it becomes much more important to protect/insulate those cables from road hazards and dangers associated with possible crashes.

Originally Posted by bennelson

EDIT:
On Tom's EV Neon, we actually talked about flipping over the heat shield in the exhaust tunnel to act as an undercover for the conduit. If your conduit, up UNDER and IN your car is getting whacked, you have bigger problems than protecting your cabling.

PS - somebody please remind me in a few days to fix the leak in my driver side mirror! It's letting rain into the passenger compartment!

PPS - Come to think of it, I could run the audio out from the DVD player to the audio in on the stereo and play YouTube video's audio through the car stereo.

As your Electro-Metro is a work in progress it's nice to see you going back from time to time and upgrading things you've done differently in the past. You're providing great inspiration and setting an excellent example for those who plan to follow your lead.

Regards,