Mounting the Batmon Boards

The next step involved preparing all the mounting hardware for the BatMon boards that sit on top of each battery. These boards monitor the voltage on each battery and signal back to the charger or the controller if there is an undervoltage (<10.8V) or overvoltage (based on temperature) condition.

The Belktronix kit comes with a bag of tie-wrap mounting pads and instructions to cut the pads in half to hold the BatMon boards to each battery.


Here's one BatMon board and its mounting pieces. The temperature sensor for overvoltage protection is on the end of the wire extending out the top of the picture. The instructions say to cut the tie-wrap mounting pads in half. I found that the remaining plastic tabs on the top of the mounting pads didn't really hold the BatMon boards that well, so I used wire cutters to form-fit the edge of the plastic tabs to the electronics on the board.


Here is the board mounted between the plastic tabs. Notice that the tab on the right just has a diagonal chamfer taken out to accomodate the green LED. The tab on the left needed a bit more work to fit between the red LED and the optoisolator.


Here are all the tie-wrap mounting pads from the kit with form-fit cut tabs, ready for BatMon installation. The smaller mounting pads near the top of the pile hold the temperature sensors onto the battery for proper sensing.