So I fell back on my experience as an electrician oh-so-many years ago and ran a 1¼ pvc conduit under the car.
I used my plasma cutter to make a nice round hole for the pvc male adapter to go up through the floor behind where the back seat used to reside.
An LB fitting enabled me to bend the cables in a tight 90° turn.
Of course everything I do on this project ends up needing a fancy bracket or something fabricated. All it takes is a welder, a grinder, and lots of time.
I used a 90° sweep to run the cables up into the engine compartment - oops, MOTOR compartment
The cables terminate into an Anderson Connector so that the rear battery pack can safely be disconnected from the system if necessary.
4 comments:
Hey man - how durable is PVC conduit? I like that it's not conductive, but at the same time it seems ill-suited for that sort of use. Maybe you know better than I, but what about some sort of armored metal conduit? Seems like it might be tougher and more heat-proof, at the expense of being conductive.
Hey Ari - That is schedule 40 pvc and is quite thick and very durable. The cable also has thick insulation. The PVC is basically to add more protection from road hazards.
Steel conduit would be overkill and is also very heavy. I don't need any more weight :) Heat should not be a problem either - no hot exhaust to worry about.
I just found this blog yesterday, and have been reading through with great interest. Overall looks very nice, and I definitely approve of using a good looking car rather than the usual VW Rabbit or such.
I'm afraid I do agree with ari about the PVC though. Even though that stuff is fairly thick, particularly when cold it can be very brittle, it wouldn't take much impact at all to shatter it.
I'd use at least thinwall EMT, or better yet, rigid aluminum conduit (1" x 10' for $35 at Grainger)
Franklin,
Thanks for your comments.
The PVC I used is the gray electrical variety. I know that the white sprinkler PVC is very brittle, but that is different stuff.
When I was an electrician, we used the gray schedule 40 in some pretty hostile outdoor locations. I know some other EVs have also used this PVC so I feel confident about using it. Of course I plan to post here about any problems I encounter with it.
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