Saturday, October 4, 2008

Not the way to do it.


I got back from a business trip late Friday night and though a little jet lagged, went to work on the car late Saturday morning. While I was out two boxes arrived - one with the charger port and wire and the other with 13 BEQ1s.
I decided to work on the charger port. I went with twist lock cables rated at 20 amps at 220 volts. the charger port is called an 'inlet" - like an outlet, but with the male connector inset. The connector won't be live, so having the connectors exposed is not a problem. I also mounted a remote indicator for the Zivan charger beside the charger port. This way you'll know how the charger is doing without having to snoop around under the hood.
Looks good don't it?
Well, it wasn't easy. My recommendation is to mount the indicator at least a 1/4 inch farther away from the latch release (that black button thing you see to the right of the port). I didn't think the whole thing through (I blame the jet lag) and mounted the indicator too close to the latch. I had to stick a washer behind the latch release mechanism so that it didn't protrude so far, then cut off the latch on the door assembly, since it hit the side of the indicator and wouldn't close, then had to rig up the bump stops with rubber cap extensions so that the door would pop open when released.
Could have been an easy job if I had thought it through. Took me a couple hours to get the door to work. Needless to say, the wiring didn't get done.

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