Battery rack in the tail, Part 3

16 Jan 2011 Battery rack in the tail, Part 3

Update 20210918: I ended up removing all this and installing the earthx LiFePO4 battery on the firewall.  Very light, and with a much simpler wiring run.

Moving from the subaru engine to the lycoming I don’t need two batteries, so I’ve rebuilt the battery rack in the tail for a the third, and hopefully final time.

It’s much cleaner with only one battery, as you can imagine.

Here you can see the tray, which is made of one piece of 0.063″ aluminum sheet with some angle to provide stiffness and make the frame to hold the battery.

The small fuse block on the left is for two circuits, both the front and back powerlet adapters (http://www.rv8.ch/article.php?story=20060712160534333) for phone charging, GPS power, etc. The reason I kept them “always hot” is to allow me to charge the battery using these ports. They are protected with a 10 amp fuse, and I have two spares in the fuse block.

Here is the standard “hand grenade” battery contactor. The connections to the battery are AWG 4 welding cable with nice connectors bought from B&C (http://www.bandc.biz/). The cable bringing the power to the front is a long AWG 2 welding cable. It’s very flexible,and the case is very tough and flame resistant. Got it here: http://www.weldingtool.eu/

This top view shows the flush mounted torx screws that are used to attach the battery tray to the fuselage. I have four flush 10-32 flush screws, and 4 10-32 bolts. You can also see the ground bolt for the battery. I also attached this bolt to one of the longerons in the fuselage for extra ground, but I really doubt this will make any difference.

Here you can see two things that I added mainly for piece of mind. The first is the Adel clamp that helps route the right rudder cable so that it does not get hung on any of the wiring or the battery contactor. Also, I added a bit of delrin plastic on the mount near the battery contactor to protect the cable from any possible abrasion. Severe overkill here, but it will help me sleep better.

A few extra shots from different angles so that as much as possible is visible.

A few more pictures with the battery here: http://www.rv8.ch/article.php/20110116211310888