Installation of Batteries, Test Run!

I reached a major milestone this weekend! Thank goodness for the 3 day holiday! It was appropriately named Labor Day. Let me cover a few things that I accomplished leading up to this weekend before we get to the fun stuff!

During the previous few weekends since my last post, I re-attached the cable running to the tail lights and ran the hv cables from the under the hood to the rear battery box. I also put 50 pounds of pressure in the air shocks as a starting point. I will adjust this to level the truck once the bed is re-installed. I cut some pieces of a rubber mat to place in the bottom of the battery racks to keep the batteries from sitting directly on the steel and give them a small cushion.

On Saturday I went to our local Sam's Club to purchase the batteries. They are Energizer Brand (made by Johnson Controls) 6v golf cart batteries. I got a few strange looks and had to offer some explanations. "What are you going to do with all those batteries?", was the most asked question. I was glad the great employees there loaded them into my truck (many thanks!) or I would have been there all day...followed by a trip to the hospital to fix my back. Each battery weighs 65 lbs. I was dodging thunderstorms and made it into the driveway before the downpour began. Luckily, I had a tarp to throw over the batteries.

After a short break, I unloaded the batteries one at a time, and put them into the racks. I had to make sure they were in a certain pattern, so the cabling would follow a path I worked out on a drawing. Once they were all in, I installed the hold down straps that I made. The day was nearly over by then. Cabling would start on Sunday.

I began making the interconnect cables, a process I believe I covered in an earlier post. It involves a torch, solder, 2/0 welding cable and terminals. All the batteries are wired in series. Half way through the day my son Matt came to help me finish. We also installed a 300A fuse in a box in the middle of the battery pack. This protects the pack if there are shorts within the pack. It was near the end of the day when we had everything wired.

We put the rear axle up on jack stands for testing. I had already previously run through most of the testing (less the HV part) and everything passed. I used my trusty voltmeter to check for voltage at the main contactor. Good! Next, the key was turned to the "on" position. Controller fan running, (check) vacuum pump running..then stops, (check) dc to dc converter operating, (check), radio playing classic rock, (check-a-rooney)!

Next there are 3 conditions to be met in order to drive. A relay box ensures this. First, the key must be on. Second, release the parking brake. Third, foot on the brake pedal (then release). Next, push slowly on the "gas" pedal. The main contactor then "clunks" into place, feeding the high voltage to the controller.

I pressed slowly and the rear wheels began to turn...all good. We let the truck down and proceeded to back out of the garage. No need to use the clutch to start and stop, only to shift gears while underway. I drove once around our pond, then Matt drove around once also. I can only guess that the croaking alligator I heard in the pond was congratulating us on the maiden voyage ( or else he just wanted to eat us ). Either way, it was all good :)

It was a very exciting drive! I was thrilled that everything was working! I would have driven around the block, but I needed to charge the batteries. That about wraps up this blog post! Next on the task list is to put the pickup bed back on the truck...more to come, stay tuned!!

Oh, and one last thing. If you happen to come to see my truck, don't say, "that's a lot of batteries!" I heard that quite a few times throughout the weekend...lol