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Old 03-06-2010, 03:36 PM   #1
7.3Ford
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Finished Battery Box

I finished my battery box to hold six Trojan T-105. The box is made out 3/8 plywood with rubber shower pan liner on the in side to contain any over flow. I used stainless steel bolts to take power from inside to out side, so the box is sealed except for air vents going to outside.

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Old 03-06-2010, 03:48 PM   #2
radioattic
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Sweet! Did you have to fortify the bottom of the storage area?
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Old 03-06-2010, 03:53 PM   #3
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Sweet! Did you have to fortify the bottom of the storage area?
I didn't, the 400lbs are spread over almost 4 square feet. The load is also in the middle.
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Old 03-06-2010, 04:25 PM   #4
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That is a good job. They should last a good while.
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Old 03-06-2010, 06:36 PM   #5
clarkandsheila
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Looks good but a couple of points; replace the S.S. bolts with silicon bronze or brass including the nuts and washers. Both are 70-80% copper. S.S. compared to these two metals is a poor conductor. If you are pulling only light loads and have the large bank for long use there may not be a problem. If you are running a large inverter through these bolts you may have a good size volt drop which will = heat and power loss. One way to check it is to run your loads and clip a voltmeter to the cable lugs on each side of the bolt. You should see only a few millivolts on the meter. Much more and you are losing power heating up the bolts. The inverter will also see slightly lower input voltage and they can be sensitive to that.

The other is to run one of the output conductors, either neg. or pos. to the other end of the bank. This will help even out the draw and the recharge between the batteries.

Just a suggestion.

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Old 03-07-2010, 01:45 AM   #6
Ozz
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nice job, you do good work
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Old 03-07-2010, 09:00 AM   #7
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John,
Wow! That is nice. I want to go to something similar. So now I'll have a good plan to follow. I notice you used only black wiring inside the box. Is that because you had a lot of black cable?

Thanks for the really nice pictures.
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Old 03-07-2010, 03:07 PM   #8
7.3Ford
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quote:Originally posted by HamRad

John,
Wow! That is nice. I want to go to something similar. So now I'll have a good plan to follow. I notice you used only black wiring inside the box. Is that because you had a lot of black cable?
Dennis,

I just got 20 feet of copper 2/0 cable from Lowes ($58.00). They didn't have any other color. I got wire ends from Northern Arizona Wind & Sun, Inc. I put the 2500 Watt SunForce Pro (Pure Sine Wave) Inverter in today, didn't have time to take pictures. I got it from Amazon ($599), comes with wireless remote.
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Old 03-07-2010, 03:14 PM   #9
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Quote:
quote:Originally posted by clarkandsheila

Looks good but a couple of points; replace the S.S. bolts with silicon bronze or brass including the nuts and washers. Both are 70-80% copper. S.S. compared to these two metals is a poor conductor. If you are pulling only light loads and have the large bank for long use there may not be a problem. If you are running a large inverter through these bolts you may have a good size volt drop which will = heat and power loss. One way to check it is to run your loads and clip a voltmeter to the cable lugs on each side of the bolt. You should see only a few millivolts on the meter. Much more and you are losing power heating up the bolts. The inverter will also see slightly lower input voltage and they can be sensitive to that.

The other is to run one of the output conductors, either neg. or pos. to the other end of the bank. This will help even out the draw and the recharge between the batteries.
I will have to check that, I don't think 3/4" run of SS 3/8" bolt is going to drop any, but I will load up there inverter and see what I get. So far I can't get the inverter hot enough to turn on the fans, but didn't have a lot of time to test thing, before I had to take the Monty back to storage.
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Old 03-08-2010, 12:35 AM   #10
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For future reference, as Clark pointed out, stainless steel is poor conductor, so consider replacing with copper. Also, welding supply places sell multi-strand wire that not only comes in black and red, it's very easy to bend compared to regular wire. I also have some reservations about having the outputs being in contact with a flammable substance (painted wood), unless they are isolated with nonconducting heat resistant material.
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Old 03-11-2010, 02:53 PM   #11
7.3Ford
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quote:Originally posted by clarkandsheila

Looks good but a couple of points; replace the S.S. bolts with silicon bronze or brass including the nuts and washers. Both are 70-80% copper. S.S. compared to these two metals is a poor conductor.
Well I got a chance to run some load today (space heater). Running the space heater for about 5 minutes, the bolts started getting warm, so that answers the question about SS. I tried Lowes, they didn't have anything so I ordered Silicon Bronze hardware via the Internet.

Everything else stayed cool, so that should take care of things.
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Old 03-11-2010, 04:48 PM   #12
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John,
The price for the pure sine wave 2500 watt inverter is a good one. I thought the pure sine stuff was much more expensive. I'll have to check out Amazon for those things.

Thanks for info.
Dennis
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Old 03-12-2010, 04:36 AM   #13
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I bought mine from Back Woods Solar, good company with tons of Battery, Inverter, Solar stuff

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