Making Fake Batteries

Today was a slow day for the Civic, since I'm preparing for EV awareness day tomorrow with the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association. I printed a bunch of flyers and made about 300 business cards for the event. This should be interesting.

I did spend a few hours ordering battery lugs and terminal covers as well as the vacuum pump for the power brake assist.

To get ready for figuring out the battery boxes, picked out the maximum group 31 battery dimensions from the following batteries:

• Optima group 31 yellow top
• Deka 9A31 Intimidator
• Odyssey 2150
  

I made up some fake batteries with foam-core with these dimensions.


Here is a 22x28 sheet of foam core from Fred Meyer. I'm lucky in that with the 22"x28" sheet, I can just fit all the faces for one battery with just a little left over.


Here's one complete foam-core fake battery. I made two of them. I made circles on the top for the terminals that are going to stick up. I was hoping terminal placement for the group 31 batteries was the same, but all three batteries have them in different locations. This will make hold-downs that sit on the edge near the terminals somewhat tricky.


Here's trying to figure out approximate placement in the rear trunk with the batteries. The support that I'll be bolting to the chassis is 1.5" thick, so a 2x4 does well since it has the same thickness for approximating the placement.

Tomorrow: Standing all day in Pioneer Square in Portland, answering the same questions over and over...

Next Up: Bolting up some metal pieces to determine proper battery rack size