[thingstodo]

I got the Gigavac contactor ( received a while ago) installed in the bus bar holes that I made a few weeks ago, in the High Voltage Junction Box (HVJB). It's the second one, that connects the main battery power to the controller. That's the top part of the first picture that's attached. The contactor is/will be controlled by the key switch on the car.

I crimped connectors onto smaller wires to get the Low Voltage Junction Box (LVJB) done. The terminals that I wanted to use were difficult to mount on the backplate and required small labels to keep things straight. These small bolts work better. Its a bit of work to crimp on ring connectors, but it's secure and easy to follow, like a larger version of the schematic.

I have updated the HVJB/ LVJB summary. It's up to Rev 2 but still does not contain build instructions. I think I repeated some stuff. It will require more work. It`s too big to attach as a .doc or as a .pdf ... so I guess I won`t post it?

Battery cables from the chev sprint. I had 8 battery cables (sized #2) of 30 inch length from another project. These can be used between HVJB to controller, HVJB to battery pack, and between the battery packs. Then I have 2 cables with lugs (badly corroded, but salvageable) 72 inch #00 as well. So I'm down to several 6 - 8 inch cables that must be cut and assembled to connect the batteries in one pack to each other through fuses.

I have an experiment to try. High quality electrically insulated tools have multiple layers that are different colors. So if you cut through the outter Red or Orange jacket, you see a bright Yellow beneath and know that the insulation was damaged. It needs repair or replacement. I have not been able to locate multi-layer heat-shrink ... but I have an idea. The base layer would be yellow electrical tape. Then I can use the Black heatshrink that I have a large roll of. And lastly, bright orange electrical tape.

So I started with the wrench that fits the bolts on my fuses. I actually used two layers of yellow, then the heat shrink, then two layers of orange. It bulks the wrench up. And I need to figure out where it should end so that the wrench still works as a wrench ... I covered the whole thing and cut out the insulation that was in the way. That's not the right way to do it!

I used a meter probe connected through a 6 ohm power resistor to a variac on the tape and an alligator clip on the other side to connect to the metal on the wrench. It passes! I boosted the variac as high as it would go, just over 140 VAC. All OK. Then I used all of the UPS batteries that I have from a previous project, in series to et 360 VDC nominal (about 375 actual). And it still passes!

So I continued and added one small socket wrench, a small crescent wrench, two screwdriver shanks and two more wrenches. I didn't bother testing the insulation on each. The electrical tape wrapper states that one wrap is good for 1000 VDC. So I guess 4 layers is severe over-kill. I'm OK with that.

The battery cable crimper and #00 lugs took a bit of experimenting to find out which dies would give me a good solid crimp. Everything on the dies is in square mm and the lugs are in cable gauge. The large Heat shrink fits well over the cable and lugs, it shrinks down OK. And works well as electrical insulation to 140 VAC (I didn't test to 360 VDC because I forgot).
The already hard-to-bend battery cable is even less flexible with the heat shrink shrunk. That's not good news. Maybe I can shrink some if it in place in the car AFTER the cable is routed and bent? We'll see.

The existing/recycled battery cables are not #00. They vary from #6 to #4. There were a few lugs on these cables that did not appear to be on very solidly. Another couple were crimped with a hammer crimper (it puts a big dent in the lug and the cable beneath). They were on solidly, but I used the crimper on them anyway. The largest heat shrink that I have fit over most of the lugs and was shrunk down to cover the bared copper (recycled cables) and the lugs up to the `flat part`that makes electrical contact with the battery terminals. It took some experimenting, but there were no big surprises.

One things that I ought to mention - I understand why the crimp dies list sqaure mm instead of wire gauge! I had to use different sized dies on the light duty lugs and the heavy duty lugs for the same cables size. That made sense when I thought about it. Light and heavy are different in the thickness of the copper. BUT .. different heavy duty lugs (maybe different manufacturers?) ALSO required different dies. That one is a bit harder to swallow.

The smaller heat shrink that I bought a bunch of seems to work OK over the crimped cable ends on the small gauge (#12 and #14) wire ... even when you forget to put the short tube of heat shrink on BEFORE you crimp the connector on. The heat shrink drops from about 3/8 diameter to be snug around a #14 un-stripped wire (insulation still on).

Now if only I had found different colors of heat shrink for cheap ...