[jhornbr225]

I loaded up Marty the other day, and took him over to the welder's house. We ground around the brace, and knocked it loose from the frame. He was then able to weld it back a little further and the battery now fits where it is supposed to. There was also a 90° bracket going to the side fender from the battery tray that was broken loose. So we patched that up as well.

I've been doing some thinking on the batteries, and how to parallel them up. I've drawn it up in CAD, and determined the best rotation of the batteries for easier wiring.

I've also been doing some research into capacitive discharge stud welding. The existing busbars inside the batteries are about .050" thick, from what I can measure with my metal calipers, being careful not to short any cells. If I could have someone CD weld some studs onto the busbars, then I would not have to do any dremel work. If I had some 1/4"-20 studs welded to the existing busbars, I could just run the cables in between the cells to parallel them up. That would save a bunch of time and hassle.

I've reached out to a few places and friends locally to see if they have the capability, or know someone who has the equipment to do that. First I contacted a local fabricator house. I've had them do some work for me before. I know they have a laser to cut metal, but I'm not sure they have a CD stud welder. I also reached out to a friend who runs an auto body shop. I'm sure he's got a small one to pull dents, but I'm not sure if his would be large enough to land a 1/4-20 stud. Lastly I contacted my cousin who owns an HVAC repair business. He runs ductwork, but again, I'm not sure if he would have anything big enough.

Another crazy thought I had today was to not parallel them up at all. Basically have two separate sets of batteries, each with their own BMS. The negative of each set could tie together at the Alltrax, but there would only be one positive cable down to the fuse, but it would be long enough to reach the positive side of either string. I did purchase two BMS's to start with. Since the BMW connectors are so easy to plug in and out, I could have one set of batteries be active, and have the other set be idle/able to charge. If you are running the first set of batteries, and they get low, it would be easy to flip the seat up and move the plug over to the other set of batteries. In that case, two voltmeters in the dash would be nice, one for each set. Also some relay logic would be required to make sure the current active set of batteries/BMS combo would be the one that could shut off the keyswitch in the event of an undervoltage. I would also only want the voltmeters to light up if the keyswitch was on. But an undervoltage event shouldn't cut off the voltmeters either, just the Alltrax controller. There are a few negatives to that method though. Having a second set of batteries, I'd have to make it easy enough so that the wife would be able to swap the cable. Even if the idle set needed charged, it's still capable of releasing a ton of energy in the event of a mishap. Also I'd be carrying around 96 extra pounds of dead weight.