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[Keith]

Yes, 3V works fine, just tried it. I have seen that if the SOC is not high, the contactor will drop out if there is no current detected. The BMS thinks there might be a problem with the current sensor so it opens the contactor and calibrates it, but doesn't reclose it. Charge or discharge seems to work but not just check pack voltage with no current unless fully charged.

[laurentzeroS2016]

Hello everyone
I come back to you originalspacerob about the waterproof protection of power supplies.
I made a small home installation (craft) to mount that we can ride in the rain with non waterproof food (and be able to charge in the rain)
laurent

[originalspacerob]

Very nice cover solution. Looks like it works well. Thanks also Zerocool for the update on your project. Great progress. It looks like Harbor freight multimeters are a necessity with the home built chargers, lol. They work good enough which is great. Cant beat them with a free coupon and put them everywhere one might be needed.


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[ZEROCOOL]

yep it's not bad for being free it's a little off but every voltmeter I have gives a different reading. if I put 113 in the sketch I get 114 from the voltmeter so what ever I want my flatpack to be at  I just have to make sure I enter something a volt lower in the sketch 

[togo]

>... It looks like Harbor freight multimeters are a necessity with the home built chargers, lol. ...

I like these, they fit in a shirt pocket, and seem to give more consistent results:

http://halted.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=20985&czuid=1512087071111

They also measure capacitance, and they turn themselves off, both good features.

[ZEROCOOL]

Gave up on the Osh Park PCB, even with 2oz copper just not enuff so I made my own. It's a work in progress still but will take 6-14 AWG wire, I can get 2 8 AWG onto 1 lug for connecting the flatpacks but it's difficult. They are panduit cd35-36sl-qy, 2 hole mechanical lugs 600v 50 amps. mounted to 1/8 thick FR4 unclad PCB material. The middle lug has to have some thin plastic or something on top between the ground and can connections I'm still working that out. Not sure if it's needed but I have seen schottky diodes mentioned in several of the diy flatpack charger threads so thought it would not hurt to add some so i'm putting 1 across the plus & minus outputs on both of the connectors I made. And the 10 ton hydraulic crimper I used for my Anderson SBS75X connector. Got it on ebay, some come with 8 set's or 9 set's of dies this 1 has 9 set's and includes the 8 AWG die. The #10 die was used on the black 8 AWG and left nice flat crimp the #8 die was used on the red 8 AWG and left a curved crimp. Also used 10 AWG Turnigy silicone wire  with Anderson pp45 connectors for input and Acer superworm 8 AWG silicone wire for the outputs. For extra safety i'm probably going to put something between each of the lugs maybe a small nylon bolt so they can't touch if they did happen to move a little, also have some 3 1/2 inch heatshrink I could cover the hole thing with.



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[willbrunner]

Hi ZEROCOOL,
Just curious why the 2oz copper wasn't sufficient.  Are you running the output from multiple power supplies through the PCB?

[ZEROCOOL]

Hi will, having the pcb made with 2oz copper makes the thickness of the pcb half thickness of 1oz. The pcb fits very loosely and having bad contact.
Then I was having trouble getting 8 awg wire on it, the 2oz copper might have been ok but it's just foil and very very thin. I had planned to add more copper to
them either soldier some copper bar or copper wire directly to them thats why 1 photo a page back shows were I removed material to expose the full length of the
copper.
I have only 2 of these flatpack chargers, each is connected it's own separate power input 240v with nothing else on those circuits.
The outputs to the motorcycles battery are connected together at the 2 pcb's I made, positive to positive and negative to negative, I still have not tried
charging with them connected together yet, been sick and to cold.

[originalspacerob]

Very nice work on your connections and wiring. Should hold up very nice and give you the ability to unplug if needed.


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[ZEROCOOL]

thanks, I have revised the connector a little more it now has m5 nylon bolts cut to just short little stubbs between each copper lug so no chance of them moving and the whole thing will be protected with some 3" heatshrink when done, might even have the whole setup in a nice really well ventilated box of some sort. I did get 2 8 AWG wires on 1 lug just had to keep installing 1 wire at a time and tighten the screw smashing the wire until both wires would fit, smash cram smash cram smash cram.  i'll get a pic of that loaded up soon i'm still sick and I am intalling a 240v  breaker sub panel with 3 double 15 amp breakers. 1 to each flatpack and 1 for the on board charger got a Tripp-Lite C-13 to 5-15p 14 AWG 15A going to cut the 5-15p and hook up to my sup panel .
COLD 28 F want to RIDE it my birthday and I'm sick

[jhaggerty]

Hi There,

This thread is rather old but I wanted to share my experience using two of these units that Rob graciously gave to me for my electric motorcycle project/build.

I am using them stacked in parallel inside of a 3D printed Nylon back housing (nylon for temperature resistance) with a 10 gauge 3wire inlet cable and 8 gauge output DC wires. The unit is controlled with a Leonardo Canbus using modified code from Remmie over on Endlessphere. Previously I was using a PLA version of the housing but the PCB shelves warped a little due to overheating.

When trying to control the amperage limit of both chargers at once I ran into trouble with what I think is a communication error. One unit would start to current limit and the other would go full tilt, then they would swap. So instead I only have CAN into the bottom unit and I let the top one go full tilt. Then I set the default voltage of the bottom unit to well below pack voltage at max discharge so that if the charger is plugged in without CAN it only draws 9 amps (the top unit's max). Then I use the arduino to up the voltage of the bottom unit to full pack voltage and have it current limit to 4 amps for a total of 13 amps DC side which should be under 15 amps AC on a 110V circuit at 94% efficiency.

On 240 it will push 32 to 33 amps quite nicely. Overall I am extremely happy with the performance of these units for next to nothing.

[togo]

Haha, that's not a Zero 2013+, what's going on in that picture?

Do you have a Zero drivetrain in there, Sevcon, Z-Force motor, etc?