Gluing gadgets to the battery case?

[jdege]

I have a pair of Epoch 48V 100Ah LiFePO4 batteries that I'll be installing on my boat to drive a pair of Elco 9.9 outboards.

Currently their on a bench in my basement while I test things out.

Given that these are for a boat, they're going to need to be slid into odd corners with difficult access. The usual practice of sitting on a shelf connected to devices mounted on a plywood panel on a wall isn't going to work.

And I'm in Minnesota, and these will need to be removed for the winter.

These don't need to connect to a lot. For each battery:

• 2/0 cables, positive and negative, to the motor
• Positive and negative from the charger's charging harness
• The shunt for the Victron BMV-712 needs a high current connection to the negative terminal, has a small gauge wire that connects to the positive, and has an RJ12 cable that runs to the remote display.
• There are two RJ45 connections, one to the charger and the other to the CAN bus.

I haven't installed the shunt, yet. The lugs on the motor and charger cables don't fit over the terminals on the shunt (though they fit the battery terminals fine.) And I've been unsure where to mount them.

Thinking about them, and the general problems of dealing with installing 100 pound batteries on a boat, I've an idea I'd like to bounce.

I'm considering cutting a piece of 5mm marine plywood to fit over the top of the battery, with cutouts for the terminal, and then either either hot gluing it to the top of the case or padding it with rubber tool drawer liner and holding it down with Velcro.

I could then screw the shunt to the plywood, and a pair of covered distribution blocks. I could then connect the terminals and shunt and blocks with bus bars, and then connect the charger and the motor cables to the distribution blocks. Add insulating boots over the terminals themselves and heat shrink over any exposed parts of the bus bars, and the whole thing would be electrically insulated.

I'm thinking that I could also screw in some zip tie saddle mounts to provide strain relief for the cables.

Thoughts?

Would you go with Velcro or hot glue?

 

[Q-Dog]

I would want to be able to remove the batteries without having to disconnect a bunch of network and power cables. Basically, disconnect the batteries and pull them out ... everything else stays behind.

In a boat I would also want to have EVERY cable secured to structure which can make moving or removing them a bit more challenging.

 

[jdege]

The question is one of clearance. There isn't room to disconnect cables from the batteries with the batteries in place.

I'm thinking fastening the cables to the bulkhead, and fastening the cables to the battery, and providing enough slack between to pull the batteries out where there's room to access them.