Has anyone put the battery under the cowl?

M

MmmSugar

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Has anyone put a battery under the cowl, if so what's the safest way to go about it, I don't want my arse in flames!! -Emily
 
arse in flames ::) only if I eat Mexican ;D I built a box under the hump of the seat,,and made sure the battery(lead acid) vent tube was pointing south
 
Order the gel battery off of ebay and get it for cheap. Otherwise you will pay way too much from a battery store.
 
If your cowl is metal like mine, I highly recommend putting caps over the battery terminals. Mine has a finger's thickness of clearance and I'm still going to insulate it in case of a crash. Don't want the wrinkled sheet metal arcing across the terminals while my carbs puke gas all over the ground.

+1 on using an SLA battery so you can lay it down. That way you don't need an enormous cowl to cover it. Definitely make a tray with a hold-down strap contraption, and put some kind of rubber liner so it doesn't get beat to death.
 
Ditto the pan underneath and extending the vent tube. I'd also fasten a strap to keep from sliding. Also make sure there is no metal under the seat the terminals can contact if the battery does slide around.

On a side note , can you post pics of how you made your pvc seat pan or at least detail the process a bit?
 
Thanx for the info, I've been checking out SLA gel batteries on ebay, and of course they don't tell you the size. The prices seems reasonable anywhere from $70-$100. Does anyone have any pics of trays they built?

Reinhard-I'm going to try and make another seat out of carbon fiber or fiber glass. So, I'm going to scrap my PVC pipe seatpan experiment. Here are some pics. I put the PVC pipe in the kitchen oven until I could bend it. Yes, it will stink up the kitchen and I don't want to receive any hate mail from your wives! Then I took the torch to it to melt the pieces together and form it to the frame. It took me all day, and if you decide you want to experiment too please do it outside the vapors are nasty.

Top of the seatpan, excuse the mess I had foam glued to it that I sanded off.
DSC_0077.jpg

Bottom
DSC_0064.jpg
 
Check out Speedcell batteries as well. Theyre a bit pricey. The 120 amp is around 150 i believe. The flip side is they dont weigh much at all, about a pound for the afore mentioned battery. Also they are made from mil-spec super duper somethin or other cells... Long story short when ruptured they dont catch fire or go boom. Not sure if that helps any just throwin my 2 pennies in the pot.
 
Here's my set-up. I made the pan from 22 gauge sheet metal, bent on a handbrake and pop-riveted together. It's simply bolted in.
 
I have not been able to find speedcell under $170, but it seems pretty amazing only 1.7 lbs! I'm going to do further investigation on this, before I commit.

I really like the simplicity of the tray you made Reinhard, I never thought of using rivets. This will help a lot since I have no welding skills...yet!
 
gizmoe639 said:
Check out Speedcell batteries as well. Theyre a bit pricey. The 120 amp is around 150 i believe. The flip side is they dont weigh much at all, about a pound for the afore mentioned battery. Also they are made from mil-spec super duper somethin or other cells... Long story short when ruptured they dont catch fire or go boom. Not sure if that helps any just throwin my 2 pennies in the pot.
Click to expand...

Don't let the marketing fool you. They're A123 cells, the very same cells used in Dewalt cordless drills and a myriad of other applications.

http://www.a123systems.com/
 
Wingspan said:
Don't let the marketing fool you. They're A123 cells, the very same cells used in Dewalt cordless drills and a myriad of other applications.

http://www.a123systems.com/
Click to expand...

Yea, I figured...sounded way to good to be true. Thank you, Wingspan, for the heads up!
 
MmmSugar said:
Yea, I figured...sounded way to good to be true. Thank you, Wingspan, for the heads up!
Click to expand...

Please don't misunderstand my comment, the A123 cells are excellent and I am not bashing the Speedcell packs. However, IMO their claims of the cells being some super-duper military battery are more marketing than reality. A123 supplies those same cells for MANY applications ranging from cordless power tools to R/C models to military applications.
 
has anyone selfbuilt a a123systems style cell and managed to charge it from stator? it'd be great to hear from someone who's gotten it working as a viable SLA alternative..
 
I believe some of the guys over on http://www.customfighters.com/forums/ have done some of those, its worth a search or asking a question.
 
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