Saturday, November 1, 2008

Remote charge indicator


I didn't have a lot of time to mess with the car this weekend, but got a bit done on Saturday. I've been having troubles with balancing the battery pack (one battery in the top rack is overcharged), and it occurred to me that this may be an answer to another problem. On and off, I've been looking for suitable wiring to extend the temperature sensor and remote LED for the Zivan so they reach to the back of the car. Since a battery up front is running hot, I could put the sensor on it and only have to extend the LED indicator. The LED is 3 color, so it needs 3 wires. I guesstimated I needed to add 6 feet so I cut 7 feet of 4 pair , doubled up the leads for less resistance and soldered them to the original cable. I put in a pull string when I pushed the 220 volt cable through the PVC pipe that acts as the wiring conduit, so pulling in this cable was pretty easy... I should have cut 8 feet, though because I only had about 6 inches to work with when soldering the wiring to the LED.
It all worked out though. It looks pretty slick as the whole cap lights up with the LED, though you can't really see this in the picture because of the flash. One thing I found out - the indicator is disabled on the charger when you plug in the remote. Would be nice if they both worked.

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