Day 7 - Marching On

Lots of pictures, few words today -- it was a busy and productive (not to mention warm) one!

First things first: the right equipment. Dan showed off his welding helmet; the electronic interior controls automatically shade the visor as needed. And ...

of course it's personalized.


Following a telephone consultation with Bob Batson of EVAmerica, Paul and Afshin finalized the controller mount design and Paul drilled holes in the plastic mounting plate for the controller.

Larry and Peter are measuring the battery boxes for location on the floor of the van.

Lynn is sketching dimensions;
she and Peter also caulked the box seams and cut vinyl liner to fit in the bottoms.

Kevin is shadowing Paul on the controller mounting plate.

Mike is measuring benderboard.

Afshin is RTFMing and taking some notes on his laptop.

Fans salvaged from old computers are being mounted to the plate.

Here are the fans and the racks which elevate the plate.

Final controller assembly. It is crucial to keep the controller cool and have good airflow it. It is possible to purchase a heatsink from Curtis Controller (shown right), but in the absence of that part this was what Paul and Afshin came up with. (Lots of other EV components are pictured where I got this one)

Paul and Kevin are mounting the controller.

Here you can see it in position to the left of the engine bay, with Paul underneath.

The master circuit breaker arrived by overnight mail -- but the switch had broken off in transit. Oy vey! The 250-amp circuit breaker serves as an emergency shut-off for the system. Stay tuned for the solution to this one!

The boxes have been placed and Larry is pondering how best to bolt them to the van's frame.

Dan is welding battery racks. Dan and Bill had stations set up side by side in the machine shop, separated by this red plastic shield, which also allowed me to photograph the process.

Welding close-up.

Drilling holes in the battery box.

The racks are done ...

and so are the lids!

Battery racks ready for priming and painting.

Larry is drilling holes in the large rectangular washers he has fabricated to bolt the boxes on.

Mike is crimping battery cables.

The lids fit on the boxes ...

and the lidded boxes are in the van, ready to bolt in.