I am planning on moving the battery in eddy to the trunk so being the hardcore DIYer I am I decided to make my own box. I had originally planned on using aluminum but I read in a rule book here --> http://www.asnw.org that battery boxes have to be non conductive to be legal so I figured I try something different. I started looking around our shop and I found a whole bunch of sheets of airplane floor panel material that boeing gave to us a while ago (they give us lots of stuff for some reason). This stuff is 3/8" thick mylar (sp) honeycomb with woven kevlar on the outside (an engineer out at boeing told me they use the same processes to make the floor panel as indy/f1 teams use to make nosecones). It has the highest stiffness to weight ratio of any material I have ever worked with. I think a whole sheet weighs about 6 lbs (4'x8') and has no flex whatsoever. So I made a battery box out of it. I bent some scrap alum up and glued it all together with some polyurethane construction adhesive (sp). It is obviously unfinished and very crude looking at the moment. I will have a top made out of the same stuff and sealed by a strip of 1/2" one sided foam. I will drill some holes and use grometts (sp, I hate spelling) for the cables and the vent tube. I am undecided on how I will hold the top on, I'm thinking some little destacos or something, I'll see what we got.





I will clean up the excess glue and paint the whole thing black. What do you guys think? Is this a bad idea? Good? any suggestions? Also, is it safe to ground to the mounting bolts of the box? Should I run a ground wire up to the front stock ground location? Please tell me what you think, good or bad.

Ben

Edit: the box weighs 2 lbs at the moment.


[Modified by Ben Ogle, 6:57 AM 9/15/2002]

 

looks great

you can just use a strap to hold/seal the top, a strap that goes all the way around the box.

I like your DIY motivation

 

Looks good. I was planning a similar project sor the near future. I don't have access to aircraft-grade materials but I have gone to a local plastics company and looked at various types of sheet plastic. I think ABS or Nylon will work fine.

I plan to epoxy it together instead of using screws so I can keep the walls thinner to save weight. I am going to use a compact dry-cell battery so it will lay down in the box, and the whole thing will fit in the spare tire well, under the floor board.

I was thinking about using some sort of acrylic top, but I'm not sure yet. And I was thinking about several latches around the top like you would find on the front of a tool box. What are the faseners you are reffering to?

I am also curious if I need to ground the battery back to the front, or if I can just pick up a good conneciton to the chasis in the trunk.

How do you plan on connecting the new battery wire to the existing leads that come of the terminal under the hood? I haven't figured that one out yet. There are a couple wires that would need to be crimped together, which might get a little messy. Is there a crimp-on "post" that you could just use the existing terminal with?

 

What's wrong with a marine-type battery box? Not metal, but they do seem to be thick plastic... Not heavy either.

 

DeStacos are like the fastners on a tool box but more heavy duty (and more weight).

For the power wire I was thinking of something like a stereo distribution box mounted in the engine bay (like the guys with subs use), btu I am also not sure.

for your project, hope it goes well.

Marine boxes cost money and I am cheap. I also like to make things myself.

ben

 

I'm familiar with that stuff - we used to buy pieces of scrap materials from Boeing's surplus outlet to make skateboards. That didn't work, as I recall, but it seems like a good material for that use... Interesting experiment!

Kirk