[Astro]

Hi again,

Just wanted to get some opinions on locating the cars main contactor at the battery pack.

I am hoping to be able to locate my battery pack at the rear of the vehicle in a removable single unit. The idea being that undoing a few bolts would allow the entire battery pack to be removed as a single unit.

So i was thinking, why not put the main contactor in this removable unit?

I see in many builds the main contactor is located in the engine bay. This seems like the most convenient location but when the contactor opens it still leaves the cables from the battery pack to the contactor live with high voltage.
If the contactor was co-located with the battery pack then when the contactor was open the high voltage would be contained to just the battery pack area.

Because i am trying to make the battery pack easily removed for maintenance. Having the contactor inside the removable unit means no hazardous voltages would exist outside the pack, making its removal much easier and safer. (provided the controllers capacitors had been discharged and the pre-charge resistor was switched not permanently connected)

I would also locate the pre-charge contactor and resistor in this removable unit.

So the removable unit would have positive and negative high voltage connections as well as low voltage main contactor and pre-charge contactor coil connections. The low voltage connector would also have the BMS communications circuit in it.

Bad idea?