Wednesday, May 1, 2013

power cables

Step 18:  Make power cables.  I'm using 2/0 gauge.  The cables are orange, for easy identification.  To save money I painted black cable.  I'm going with the crimp-only crowd in the debate over the best way to make lug connections, copper to copper.  Adhesive lined shrink tubing is put over the cable-lug connection to keep it clean.  Anti oxidant grease is used when bolting lugs down.

Tools acquired: hammer crimper

There will be 8 cables:

  • battery plus to main contactor
  • main contactor to motor plus
  • main contactor to motor controller plus (under car, in rear)
  • mid-battery connection (under car)
  • motor controller output to motor minus (under car)
  • motor armature to motor field (pictured below)
  • battery minus to emergency disconnect switch
  • emergency disconnect switch to motor controller minus