Time is running out...

Dang, I had a nice long update written out here and somehow it didn't get saved.  Oh well, you'll just have to deal with this.

I've got 5 days left before the car show, so it's definitely go time.  A week ago I even took a day of vacation to try and catch up because I was falling behind!  A few days ago I admitted to myself it was going to be too risky to try and drive the car all the way to work.  To get all the way in I'd have to have all the batteries in place.  The problem with that is my charger is weeks away from being ready, so I'm stuck with charging 10 at a time with a small charger.  And charging 10 at a time means I'd have to remove the rear batteries.  It's not really feasible to test the car at full voltage, then remove, charge, and replace them.  A friend at work said he could trailer me in to the show, so I think I'll do that and drive it in from the parking lot on 80v (the front battery pack).  That took a lot of pressure off finishing the rear racks and allowed me to switch to wiring.  So that's the plan, I won't drive it from home but should be able to drive in under my own power.

Speaking of batteries, I started charging them this evening.  The charger runs off 12 volts and needs 300 watts to run at max power, so that means I need to supply around 25 amps.  A regular car battery would be drained pretty fast at that rate, but I've got something way better.  The DC-DC converter I got for the car runs great on 120 Vac, and it puts out over 600 watts.  Just had to sacrifice an old PC cable and here you have it!

Only problem is the fan makes a fair amount of noise.  And that's actually an understatement because it sounds like a small vacuum cleaner is running in my kitchen!  Just 5 hours or so of this and I'll be ready for the next 14 batteries...

So to make up for last week, I can finally say it.  Nice rack!

I finally bolted this baby down and she's ready for batteries.  Though I've got a little more to do before that.  Here are a couple pics of the rear racks in process.  This one's all done except for paint.

And here I've got my liquid cooling pump.  I was sure glad to get this all hooked up and not see water leaking out of the controller!

I don't have the pictures yet, but I've got most of the 12v stuff wired up.  That includes the fans, pumps, etc.  All I have left are the contactors and power to the controller.  Once that's done I have the high power cables to build.  Next is putting in batteries, and after that...testing the controller on the real batteries!  Duh duh DUH!  Keep your fingers crossed for me, I'm hoping to do a test drive this weekend.