EVTV Friday Show - March 28, 2014

- Karman Ghia update

- New battery straps for Nissan Leaf cells

- New test benches and inverters on their way

- Basic terminal and cable assembly

LiFePO4 ESS - Crimping again - 35mm2 cables

Let's crimp again !  :-)

This sunday, I cut & crimped 35mm2 cables to replace the small doubled ones that could not hold high current too long ...

Now this is much better 

35mm2 copper cable into 35mm2 / 8mm lug

screwed onto the GTI side Tyco Kilovac contactor

and onto the postivie battery pack terminal

First link from the battery pack to the contactor : Done

Since I could not find any red 35mm2 cable, I just put some red tape on both ends to mark it "RED"

Here, all the cables have been replaced by 35mm2 ones; 2 mores: 

- From battery pack negative terminal to the GTI stack negative terminal

- From GTI side Tyco Kilovac contactor to the GTI stack positive terminal

Now I can put the GTI stcak and the chargers at a 1.5m distance from the battery pack and ESS Control Board / EMS - Energy Management System - ; I am planning on putting all these just outside the window to be able to charge at night - low rate - and sleep normaly - all this is in my bedroom :-) - 

GTI side Tyoc Kilovac contactor

GTI stack

Battery pack terminals

LiFePO4 ESS Battery pack

Done - New GTI interconnects for the DIY ESS

I finally found time to make these short and clean interconnects for the Grid Tie Inverters stack and tested them (Video at the end of this post)

After cutting the 2.5mm2 electric wire to the right length, a little bending on each end, and using a good soldering iron, I could easily make the 6 pairs of 8mm lugs + wire interconnects 

A littler piece of thick paper to make a pattern for the next ones

Fits very nicely after a little adjustment  

Soldering quickly , filling solder inside the hole without have the plastic burn !

There is a good contact between the lug and the terminal after screwing the nut

Adding more inverters to the stack

BEFORE : The grid tie inverters already in use and wired

4 brand new ones received recently that will soon be part of the ESS

AFTER : The same stack with the new interconnects

DC Power is ON (GTI Mode) and the first inverter's AC side is switched ON 

Overview of the Grid Tie Inverters stack, Battery Pack, Control Board, and Wattson in the back

The whole stack is ON (DC & AC) and after long minutes of test, nothing is heating up (wires, lugs, connections) 

Net usage is low

A little video of the ESS fully using its 6 GTIs (out of 8, 2 not wired yet) going up to 1200W +



BTW, this is what I was watching on Youtube at the same time:  Daft Punk - Get Lucky



ESS overview

and this is Wattson Anywhere's Graphs for this good test sunday (click screen capture for direct link to my live graph)