Well, due to the usual delays of business travel, pulled muscle, Thanksgiving and shopping for Christmas, not much was done until this weekend.
I was able to trim the battery boxes to a lower height – making a much better fit in the various compartments. Apparently, the trick is to use a carbide blade with 60 to 80 bits in the power saw. Worked great!
I also started working on the battery interconnects. I’m looking into flat braided copper cable, with silver-solder for the ends. However, I’m not happy with the way the ends have worked out – I don’t think they are flat enough yet. This will take some tinkering to figure out.
Battery Interconnect sitting in the Silver Solder
I got a brainstorm – since I’m concerned about the contact between the cable and the battery, the easy thing is to solder a piece of flat copper to the copper braid! And since the batteries came with about 3 pounds of copper interconnect, I’m in great shape! Wheeee!
Another way of getting the copper end is to use copper pipe; feed the braid 1/2 way into a short section of pipe and then pound it flat. Solder if your inclined.