I like the thing you're doing, if you would like some help on future projects. Like modifying those battery boards with the right angle connectors, I have soldering and desoldering equipment to make that job easy. Let me know and keep having fun
As an IT guy, and a car guy. I gotta say man. Dont change your delivery style. It does NOT go unnoticed the amount of time and work you put into the projects as well as the editing. Dont fall into the RUclips trap of putting out a video a week. Keep on the pace you have, its working great. Great work
I'm very confident he's in debt after this. He's probably barely staying afloat, even with the sponsor, 300k subs, patreon, and other sources of money.
It might work great but if he's basing his primary income from RUclips, he sort of has to "Chase the Algorithm." So long as his patrons can subsidize him to not be dependent on AdSense, then it can work to go at his pace.
@@nicki8731 Based on other youtubers who make their income amounts known, I'm not so sure? Shop Nation, for example makes ~100k/yr between adsense and sponsors with fewer subscribers, releasing bi-weekly. Plus patreon, plus Under Dunn. idk. certainly this is expensive, but for all we know, this is all just a hobby on top of non-youtube income?
I'm currently paralyzed to inactivity on three car projects, so keep doing what you're doing! It's inspiring me to get my ass off the couch and get some work done, learn new skills, break some tools. Edit: signed up on your patreon link! Worth every penny.
The trick is to break out of logical progression and do what ever you feel like doing. I am currently carpeting the trunk of my 70 Cadillac. Instead of all the more important things. Its low drag. Low effort, low sweat.
For me, the more I think about my projects the more I get paralyzed. If you force yourself to get out there and do something, even if it's minor, you'll get the big things done too. You can do it!
Howdy from a fellow EV battery designer. Unfortunately, I bring bad news: the paralleled cell voltage monitoring system you're using is dangerous to use. The connecting wires between each cell must be able to source considerably more current than those small wires can handle. Imagine the following scenario: one cell in one module gets weak. You then pull 100 amps through the pack. Since the weak cell is connected with the OEM bus bars, its voltage is going to drop considerably. This causes two problems: 1): A several volt drop occurs across the BMS wire (from the good cells to the bad cell), which can easily burn the wire; and 2) Since the BMS is measuring the combined voltage of four modules, it won't detect this failing cell (the good cells will mask it); and 3) since you aren't detecting weak cells, the remaining good cells in parallel are going to get worked harder, causing them to degrade faster (a positive feedback loop). Obviously you didn't design this system (you mentioned you purchased it from someone else), but I strongly encourage you to either A): Add high current busbars between each paralleled cell, so that it can handle the peak pack current (this is infeasible in your design), or B): Get a separate cell voltage monitor for each module (4x more parts).
Note that some people try a third option - limiting current by adding series resistors (e.g. on those PCBs) - but that only solves item #1 (in my previous post). Items #2 and #3 remain an issue.
The boards are effectively internally fused so... i think you can expect a particularly bad cell subgroup with high compensation current to just fall off the cell voltage monitoring and compensation as the fuse triggers and then worse things can happen, as bad cells can become prone to be reverse biased by forced series current, which is a cause for super degradation of already degraded cells. It crossed my mind when watching, but ultimately i don't have experience in large series-parallel banks.
Another EV battery designer here, yep there is an danger here, as you pointed it out. Also I worry about High voltage isolation with the cooling plates/thermal pad he's using, hope their rated as the same that was specd in the original pack.
Was hoping I misunderstood the design while watching but as I understand it this is really a significant issue :( Having built an EV battery and having seen some crazy battery fires I really hope this gets addressed safely!
Awesome Build! I was a battery thermal management engineer at my previous company and I specialized in the design and manufacturing of cold plates for several OEM battery packs (Ford, Stellantis, Rivian, etc). I think your approach is well thought out, but be very careful of leaks. Your joints are not brazed or welded so they may fail after being pressure and thermally cycled over time (Even though they do not leak at operating pressure). Luckily your flow path is very non-restrictive so you will have a low system pressure drop if you run your cold plates in parrallel (1 Shared inlet for all plates, 1 shared outlets for all plates). If you run the cooling plates in series, you will definitely risk a higher pressure drop causing bursting plates and you'll also see a much worse cooling performance on your last module in the linear chain (Linear meaning that the outlet of one cold plate feeds into the inlet of the next and so on). Thermal adhesive padding was an excellent idea and A better DIY method for cold plates is to use "Aluminum flat extruded microchannel tubing". These can be bought relatively cheaply from Alibaba or a local supplier. You would need to make a custom manifold for each end of the tube, but the tube naturally wont leak or burst from the coolant pressure so it is much safer and more reliable. It also naturally has a well distributed flow path so cooling is rather even across each individual module and across all modules as a complete system. The manifold can be welded or brazed to the pipe to form a leak free joint that will hold up over time. For your specific batteries and power output, you can expect to use a ~16gpm pump for the entire system. a higher output pump will be better, but definitely louder
You solved SO many engineering problems here. For their Leaf car, in contrast, Nissan DIDN'T solve all the issues that you did; they left their modules air-cooled. I believe your solutions will bring you long-lasting battery capacity. You did an outstanding job making these things and an outstanding job explaining what you did. This is why we all keep coming back for your videos. Brilliant!
Anyone who's tried to quick charge a Leaf (both first and second gen) will understand after the second and third quick charge why active cooling is important.
@@Tomazack I don't even need to try and quick charge a Leaf to know why active cooling is important. I just need to look at the climate. The Nissan Leaf would be a PERFECT car for my driving needs, EXCEPT I have winter and having the battery just stay at below freezing temperatures isn't going to cut it. Okay to technically that's active heating, but it's the same system that does the active cooling.
@@dizzy2020 Surely Nissan can do a version of the Leaf that has active heating & cooling and isn't that much more expensive, though. That's a car that would yes cost more but also suddenly work "well enough" for a lot more people meaning much larger potential sales. I don't need fast charging, but I do need the battery to warm itself during winter.
@@dizzy2020 It's an automotive vehicle sold in the USA. They should design it to withstand any and all possible environments anywhere in the USA from the severe sub-freezing winter temps up north to the literal desert of Nevada. Just because they only sold it in one region does not mean it won't change owners and be taken to a different region.
not even 4 hours ago I was at work thinking to myself "haven't seen something from this channel for a while. Even this old tony has a new video. I hope he didn't burn down the shop with those batteries..."
The factor commercial was seriously the BEST humor I’ve seen on RUclips in ages. I never listen to adds. I listened to this one! Hahahahaha. Awesome. Yup. I’m sold and will try Factor.
Thanks for showing your struggles. Sometimes progress on my projects suffer because of the fear of getting something expensive wrong. It's reassuring seeing you persevere and even if after a slight break, move forward and find success. Thanks for sharing your passions!
Of all the styles of "showing progress of personal projects" I've seen, I like your style of real-time-cut-into-rapidfire-snippets style of timelapse the best.
your ability to just tackle any sort of project is very inspiring. i love the way u film edit and talk in the videos. dont fall into the pitfalls of youtube and think we need a video a week. quality over quantity
Definitely have the right idea towards the epoxy for the cooling plates but surface prep for gluing is super important especially for aluminum. To do it well, I'd recommend sanding the surface with a midgrade sand paper then cleaning with isopropyl alcohol and letting it evaporate before applying the epoxy. The idea is you want to remove surface contaminates and give the glue more surface area to hold onto with the surface roughness.
Yeah honestly the current design gives me no confidence at all, hopefully he did more prep work and, I don't think leak testing by submerging in almost no water is a good approach, I'd have run water through with some pressure and flow, it and if possible varied the temperature of the water to see how the glue handles thermal expansion, personally I'd have used a lot of counter-sunk screws along the whole edge going into threaded holes on the other side with a flexible o-ring in a channel around the edge
@@KriLL325783 yeah I agree, and that would work too, but I've had good experiences with epoxying aluminum even in demanding structural applications to other materials and itself but surface prep is key. I've run tests on good prep vs washed with water vs no prep and the difference is significant in terms of the bond strength. Also I don't imagine that with coolant flowing though it that the thermal expansion will really be an issue but I don't know what these batteries are rated for.
Been watching you for some years now, from all "YT mechanics" you got THE BEST quality of production. Like, when you see the section with fast cuts of welding/drilling/tightening etc. I just imagine how long it takes, positioning the camera everytime differently and then cutting it into sections. This is really getting the viewer deep into the process without boring to death with long sections were nothing happens. Amazing job. Give this man more subs and views, this project alone makes it worth, not to mention all your other stuff that's awesome
Those boards putting the cells in parallel are PRICEY! FYI, the connector on those boards is JAE Electronics part number MX84B028NF1, in case you want to make your own boards at significant savings. They are available from DigiKey and Mouser.
PLEASE READ THIS, AGING WHEELS! You've built a very, very dangerous battery here, because you DO NOT have any way to isolate the parallel modules from each other!! If you suffer any single cell failure, this battery WILL NOT BE PROTECTED BY YOUR BMS! In the case of one cell going short, all that will happen is that the fuse on the breakout board will blow, the bad cell will fall out of monitoring, and most likely suffer a THERMAL RUNAWAY POWERED BY THE OTHER PARALLEL MODULES, that your BMS WILL NOT be able to shut down! Whenever you parallel modules with multiple series cells inside, you need to use a separate contactor on each parallel string. That's why you never see this configuration of cells in production EVs.
This problem arises because if a cell goes short (or starts leaking a lot of current), the nominal voltage of that module will drop by one cell and it will essentially turn into a 7-series module with a resistor in series. Since that 7-series module is hard-wired in parallel with several 8-series modules, uncontrolled current will flow from the good modules into the bad one. The failed cell will produce uncontrolled heat, and the non-failed cells might see an overvoltage condition of up to 4,8 V/cell if the failure occurs at a high state of charge. The BMS might notice that the temperature is rising, or that the cell voltages are too high, but it will be unable to terminate the connection between the modules since they're literally bolted together. I repeat: Your BMS **WILL NOT PROTECT YOU FROM A THERMAL RUNAWAY IN YOUR CURRENT BATTERY CONFIGURATION!** I just want you to be aware of this.
Agreed. All cells must be capable of being isolated individually for the battery to be safe, and lithium ion cells should never be monitored as a group.
I felt every moment of stress and difficulty. This is real. For those of you who haven't created something from scratch in their lives... this is exactly how it is. It's frustrating but highly rewarding when you're done.
Just love that whole "It's clear so if something goes wrong I can see inside to see if there is smoke or something." and was just waiting for a *foreshadowing* prompt to pop up.
I really hope we still get videos of the rest of the battery box construction because I do really love your working montages, I just love your videos in general, I probably rewatch a dozen videos a week
Those EVWest adapters/harness boards can be made extremely easily and cheaply. Just superficially, I think that the materials cost per unit is about $5 (mostly in the big honking connector) and then you can get the boards made for $20/20.
the evwest boards cost 44 for one. so 20 bucks to make one would kinda fit in that. it's not thousands he could save on them though, more like half a grand.
Maybe I got the setup wrong, but to me those boards look like a fire hazard. The packs have multiple cells and are in parallel. The PCBs now connect the individual cells in parallel with thin wires. There are fuses, which protects the wires, but those fuses are the issue. With only one BMS and those paralleled cells the BMS won’t notice when a fuse is blown, but a given cell is now unmonitored and can overcharge. Furthermore it absolutely will over- or undercharge, since a bad cell is likely the reason why the fuse was blown in the first place. If the individual cells are not paralleled with big bus bars they have to be monitored separately.
Man I've been watching you for the last 7 years... gotta say, you've improved immensely from rebuilding a carburetor to a full blown EV car!! that's cool as hell and you should be proud of the work you've done up to this point!!!
I really appreciate the effort put into this EV conversion. Why do easy all tesla parts, when you can pick one part and painful build everything around one of it feature. It impressive, i like it
The other thing to think about is if he used Tesla stuff, there's a good chance he would void the warranties of the equipment just trying to fix stuff. This way, he knows what's in there because he put it in there. Just like Jared Pink: He _Is_ the Warranty.
This is just incredible. I’m so glad that I found your channel and I’m looking forward to going through your back catalog on this ridiculous project. The breakdown of the different types of automotive batteries sold me on your channel. You just happen to go to the perfect level of depth for me.
I really appreciate that you keep it real and f up at least as much as the common person does. If you edit out some of it you should consider a bloopers supercut video. 😂
Dude, your engineering genius is Apollo 13, 1970 "improvise and and make it work when no one has ever conceived of this before" level amazing. And you made it pretty.
Dude I respect the enthusiasm and positivity so much. I have the same attitude of "do it now and figure the rest out later" and 80% of the time it does mean undoing half and starting all over...good to see a big-time youtuber doing the same.
11:35 even if it was structural you could've used the battery to replace this role by connecting it to the structural part and using it as a stressed member like everyone seems to be doing nowadays. This would also improve chassis rigidity and handling of the car.
@Robert, I seriously doubt epoxy will work on aluminum for a hermetic seal. Even if you get one to seal temporarily, (pun?) the temco (temperature expansion coefficient) of aluminum and it's propensity to have have a tough oxide coating on all surfaces exposed to air means the epoxy joint will eventually fail. You'd need to weld the perimeter to solve this.
"Is this overcomplicated? No, its just complicated" is such a great quote. but within your build everything has a purpose and there is a purpose for everything.
and here i was thinking your presentation style couldn’t get any better… you’re doing a fantastic job. i love the delivery, commentary and editing. it’s brilliant. ❤
I used to think that electric vehicles were embarrassingly simple. Watching you overcoming these struggles, made me see even more clearly, the brilliance of internal combustion engines, and their actual relative simplicity.
As an electrical engineer, I salute you. I wouldn't have the patience and dedication to design such a car like this. Would probably throw something decent-ish together with off-the-shelf parts... but this... man
While I understand almost nothing of this, the amount of time and intellect that you put into this is incredible. Add to that your brilliant humour, these are must-watch.
This represents SO MUCH WORK! Truly impressive. The day of the four-wheel skids approacheth. Also, additional thumbs ups's's's: Resume/presume and Mahogany.
...it might be better in the future to use a glue like 3M window weld to hold the cooling plates together, and rely on the clamping pressure of the threaded rods to keep them pulled tight.
@@rogersmith7396 I'm not sure the specific product, but I would say 'no good' on aluminum, under pressure, carrying liquid and with vibration. That big aluminum sheet has to grow a lot when it gets hot.
@@rogersmith7396 What product are you talking about, specifically? Henkel/Loctite makes PL. It's just their line of construction adhesives. (but I've never seen it on a pickup truck) They have plenty of bonding epoxies for aluminum in Aerospace and Automotive lines that would hold up just fine. Id be a little iffy about G10 (and I use it a lot!) but I don't know how hot the plate gets. Gougeon Brothers has a very good technical department that is able to answer questions about their products suitability for oddball projects. Robert might have contacted them, but I didn't see him sanding the epoxy into the surface like they would recommend....
Wow $1000 for those 4 paralleling boards? Are those grey connectors made of platinum or something? Also you definitely need to secure those together. The inter-board connectors are not going to do well in vibration.
You doing this I bet has changed multiple people's minds about EVs. Before I bet they thought it was techy, but this is very much more into the mechanical stuff and you show the modularity and custom stuff you can do
That core support front crossmember is structural lol... pretty important for crashes... but you have inserted a giant block that will negate all crumple zone up front so.... send it I guess.
Sometimes I feel like it’s hard to capture the magnitude of work, struggle, and frustration of a project like this that feels likes it’s constantly fighting you. But you did a beautiful job expressing it in this video, and the battery box looks great too. Keep up the good work, you’ll get it done!
Needs handles or lift points (how else do you plan to get it into and out of that car?). Needs lights (you plan to see into it in the dark?). Integrate and get it figured out now and when you make the others you're doing that as part of routine assembly. You go to school on the first one. The rest are just jobs. Best EV conversions on YT. Well done.
As someone who's been trained in fabrication, and especially non-ferrous fabrication such as aluminium, getting better at alu TIG welding will 100% pay off you plan to do it a lot more. Keep it at Robert, we all started somewhere.
Please, pay attention to this detail about coolant (it goes for ethylene glycol mixture, but can be true for some others). Water has a bigger "drop" then coolant, which means your radiator can be watertight, but may not be coolant-tight. I know you tested it under pressure to be sure, but test it with coolant as well. Maybe to go with waterless?
For some perspective. Powertrain intigration into a vehicle chassis that was not designed for it is hard. This takes OEM's years, 100's of millions of dollars, and thousands of people to design a vehicle. Your are doing this as a one-man-band. Your doing awesome, keep up the hard work!
Is that Battery box getting its own contactors & MSD? With 4 battery boxes to join up & two motors, that's a lot of scary orange ropes going in a lot of different directions and they take up a fair bit of room. Good to plan where they go and where the breaks are positioned in advance.
@@agingwheels Unfortunately, US federal code requires no voltage above 60 volts be present 5 seconds after a collision. This applies to home built as well as production EVs. For the safety of you and first responders. This means two contactors, a service plug, and a fuse for each box. I will look up the source and post a link as soon as I find it.
Just be careful with how you wire the cell taps to the BMS. You shouldn't have a disconnect, fuse or contactor within a single grouping to the BMS, as you would get high voltages across the taps as they open/close and that lets the smoke out of the BMS. Replacement Smoke is available, but very hard to install. I think I like the idea of those parallel BMS PCBs, but do you need to balance all the cells between the parallel modules before you connect them? You're getting modules from multiple vehicles which will each have different SoC and SoH, could be a nightmare...
@@GrayRaceCat Interesting, that would then need some sort of impact sensor included in the interlock? The modules are 57.6v each, so would that require a break between the two banks in the 8 module boxes (4p32s 115v) or is it enough to have the outputs of the box isolated? Contactors rated for those current levels will not be cheap.
@@drumbrakes On later cars folks are taking advantage of the Airbag System or using the inertial fuel pump cut off to cut 12vdc power to the contactors. On early cars you would have to get creative. If I understand the standard correctly, isolating the HV to the inside of the battery boxes with contactors is sufficient, the fuse is extra insurance in case a contactor is 'welded' closed or the box has been punctured.
I love this project and your dedication to it. Keep the doors unlocked on the Escape when your driving it and don't park it indoors, that battery box could be explosive.
It's weird to see products you help manufacture end up in a video! My company makes the gray sockets mounted on the circuit board, and the plugs that go into it from the wiring harness. You're doing awesome work, Robert!
This would all be so much simpler in the timeline where all you gotta do is throw a General Atomics Mk XVII mini-reactor in there and plumb up the liquid sodium.
I can't say how much I appreciate you showing the random hiccups that inevitably happen during a project and give us a sense for how much time a project actually took. It's immensely comforting compared to seeing a project seem to go smoothly on RUclips only for it to turn into a bear when I attempt it myself.
Man I'm wanting to make my old F350 a hybrid, and it looks like that is going to be more work than I was hoping for. For those battery breakout boards, what is included with that? If it's just the board and 4 connectors it would probably be cheaper (and faster) for you to just have some PCB's made and you populate them yourself for the other battery boxes. Plus you wouldn't have to string 4 of them together. I could probably do it for you real quick if you aren't familiar with that.
It's the boards and the wiring harnesses. I probably could've done it myself, but I didn't want to design yet another thing. Plus, there are worse places to spend money than EVWest
I can totally relate with your feelings on thinking its overcomplicated, i built an off grid solar setup for my in laws and built a system with 25kw in solar panels, 150kwh in lifepo4 storage, and i built all the racking for the solar (which power tilts to track the sun btw) built all the battery myself from 280ah cells, 10 16s packs each with their own bms, each pack took a full 10 hour day to assemble properly. Batteries take SO much longer than you can even imagine to build
💻🚗🙌 As someone who shares your passion for both IT and cars, I have to commend you on your delivery style. It's evident that you put a tremendous amount of time and effort into your projects and editing. I appreciate that you prioritize quality over quantity and resist the pressure to churn out videos on a weekly basis. Keep up the fantastic work, as it's clearly paying off. Your dedication shines through, and your content is top-notch. Great job! 👏👍🔥
Instead of having a simple bend in the bus bar you could do a double "offset" bend so that the + and - bus bars are at the same angle (parallel to the side of the battery modules). In theory its as easy as putting another bend the other way the correct distance apart from the first. Although i guess in practice the place where the bend needs to happen might be in the "main" part of the bar which means the bend would span the entire length. Just a thought to make it look neater.
After watching so many RUclips tutorial videos about trading I was still making looses until Mrs Jenna started managing my investment's now I make $50,567 weekly. God bless Mrs Jenna she been a blessing to my family.
I think I'm blessed because if not I wouldn't have met someone who is as spectacular as expert Mrs Jenna. I think that she is the best broker I ever seen
DUDE. $1500 for a copper bus bar??? Did it NEED to be laser-cut? Granted, you most likely know way more than me on such matters, but why couldn't you just, i dunno, JIG-SAW out the shape you needed from some strapping and then file it to shape to finish??? I mean, you don't seem to be strapped for cash in the slightest (congrats on your success my dude) but still. Can you please address this in a future video for us ludites? Wouldn't CABLES with freaking crimped lugs would have worked just as well??? Love your content btw, and I eagerly await to be enlightened.
When Doug Demuro meets the fabricator...LOL! Great videos and it's refreshing seeing someone who experiences as many issues as I do when designing and building projects. Nothing ever works out ideally. Keep on, keeping on!
I would recommend as an (EV service technician) that you wear leather over gloves on your HV safety gloves. Just to help prevent pin holes and cuts on very expensive gloves. It also helps keep the very high voltage from making a road trip through your body.
18:45 …that’s why I love your channel…I respect you for your honesty and transparency so much. When I watched Zacks Hummer Videos, I knew it was expensive, but he never gave us the numbers for the CNC cuts. It feels like I’m watching a good friend rather than a RUclips guy.
I am not a car person at all, but man you've got me hooked! Your style is hilarious and informative, and is actually making me interested in these older wheels. Thanks for the awesome content.
I don’t like EVs, but I like Robert. I will continue to watch. Watching his evolving engineering prowess during this project makes me wonder that if Tesla had engineers like him, they would’ve been able to produce a much more viable and interesting vehicle.
This channel is a great source of education..... For all the RUclips experts that want to just convert all ICE vehicles to EVs, Since of course that's, so simple to do cost effectively.....
I'm sure it's been said here already, but in case it hasn't @6:54 : Aluminium is super gummy, and needs at least a little cutting fluid/lubricant to make sure it doesn't stir-weld to the bit. WD-40 is a fantastic option, as is isopropyl alcohol (sans fire risk...). You also usually want single flute cutters as it gives much more room for the chip to dislodge. I'm sure folks with flood coolant capable machines are rolling their eyes, but for us schmos with hobby grade cnc's the above works a treat!
Use code AGINGWHEELS50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3JBxZfN!
Hey as long as your ok.. you take as much time as you need to do it like you want! Thanks for the video
What’s the coupon code for the turkey?
It is coming closer to fruition - I cant wait to see it run.
I like the thing you're doing, if you would like some help on future projects. Like modifying those battery boards with the right angle connectors, I have soldering and desoldering equipment to make that job easy. Let me know and keep having fun
did i just witness u place that top cooling plate on without removing the protective film on that thermal pad 20:23
As an IT guy, and a car guy. I gotta say man. Dont change your delivery style. It does NOT go unnoticed the amount of time and work you put into the projects as well as the editing. Dont fall into the RUclips trap of putting out a video a week. Keep on the pace you have, its working great. Great work
I'm very confident he's in debt after this. He's probably barely staying afloat, even with the sponsor, 300k subs, patreon, and other sources of money.
It might work great but if he's basing his primary income from RUclips, he sort of has to "Chase the Algorithm." So long as his patrons can subsidize him to not be dependent on AdSense, then it can work to go at his pace.
@@danielseelye6005 yeah, you said it better. The reason people upload once a week is to pay their rent and grow their channel.
@@nicki8731 Based on other youtubers who make their income amounts known, I'm not so sure? Shop Nation, for example makes ~100k/yr between adsense and sponsors with fewer subscribers, releasing bi-weekly. Plus patreon, plus Under Dunn. idk. certainly this is expensive, but for all we know, this is all just a hobby on top of non-youtube income?
Hey me too, I think we are his target audience. I agree with you, don't change keep it genuine please.
Did you good folks notice the compassion and relief when he caught this baby bird? This guy has a big heart for sure
Indeed.
The presume joke is just top tier gold
That deadpan delivery is money
yea, that one caught me totally off guard
How did you commented 1 day ago when the video got published 4 hours ago ????
@@veanny2005 Patreon :) Link under the vid
Laughed so hard
I really appreciate that you remind us how long it all takes without making us feel that pain.
he's finding out why everyone does not make there own ev cause it's hard plain and simple
This project legitimately can land you a job designing EVs. Your dedication is incredible
We are watching a guy go through the entire technical evolution of an EV. It's amazing.
I would drive one with proud!
Everything about this is incredible.. except for the EVs themselves.. they suck
So that he could no longer be his own boss, but work for the profit of corporate stakeholders. Sounds like great deal.
Pretty sure you need an actual degree to land a job like that 😂😂😂
I'm currently paralyzed to inactivity on three car projects, so keep doing what you're doing! It's inspiring me to get my ass off the couch and get some work done, learn new skills, break some tools. Edit: signed up on your patreon link! Worth every penny.
The trick is to break out of logical progression and do what ever you feel like doing. I am currently carpeting the trunk of my 70 Cadillac. Instead of all the more important things. Its low drag. Low effort, low sweat.
For me, the more I think about my projects the more I get paralyzed. If you force yourself to get out there and do something, even if it's minor, you'll get the big things done too. You can do it!
Set a Tesla or Hyundai on fire. It's not only a project, it's a public service.
The number one killer for batteries is heat. So having cooling, even if not strictly necessary, is very good to have!
And apparently in winter, cold.
I think you've perfectly captured how hard it is to design something from scratch. No manual, just a bunch of trial and error. Great job, great video
Your level of commitment and patience is insane.
Thats what his wife said at the divorce hearing.
I love how I can only understand half of what he's saying, but I still love to watch.
Howdy from a fellow EV battery designer. Unfortunately, I bring bad news: the paralleled cell voltage monitoring system you're using is dangerous to use. The connecting wires between each cell must be able to source considerably more current than those small wires can handle. Imagine the following scenario: one cell in one module gets weak. You then pull 100 amps through the pack. Since the weak cell is connected with the OEM bus bars, its voltage is going to drop considerably. This causes two problems: 1): A several volt drop occurs across the BMS wire (from the good cells to the bad cell), which can easily burn the wire; and 2) Since the BMS is measuring the combined voltage of four modules, it won't detect this failing cell (the good cells will mask it); and 3) since you aren't detecting weak cells, the remaining good cells in parallel are going to get worked harder, causing them to degrade faster (a positive feedback loop). Obviously you didn't design this system (you mentioned you purchased it from someone else), but I strongly encourage you to either A): Add high current busbars between each paralleled cell, so that it can handle the peak pack current (this is infeasible in your design), or B): Get a separate cell voltage monitor for each module (4x more parts).
Note that some people try a third option - limiting current by adding series resistors (e.g. on those PCBs) - but that only solves item #1 (in my previous post). Items #2 and #3 remain an issue.
i know nothing about EV battery design, but have my comment for visibility. hopefully he sees this.
The boards are effectively internally fused so... i think you can expect a particularly bad cell subgroup with high compensation current to just fall off the cell voltage monitoring and compensation as the fuse triggers and then worse things can happen, as bad cells can become prone to be reverse biased by forced series current, which is a cause for super degradation of already degraded cells. It crossed my mind when watching, but ultimately i don't have experience in large series-parallel banks.
Another EV battery designer here, yep there is an danger here, as you pointed it out. Also I worry about High voltage isolation with the cooling plates/thermal pad he's using, hope their rated as the same that was specd in the original pack.
Was hoping I misunderstood the design while watching but as I understand it this is really a significant issue :( Having built an EV battery and having seen some crazy battery fires I really hope this gets addressed safely!
Awesome Build! I was a battery thermal management engineer at my previous company and I specialized in the design and manufacturing of cold plates for several OEM battery packs (Ford, Stellantis, Rivian, etc). I think your approach is well thought out, but be very careful of leaks. Your joints are not brazed or welded so they may fail after being pressure and thermally cycled over time (Even though they do not leak at operating pressure). Luckily your flow path is very non-restrictive so you will have a low system pressure drop if you run your cold plates in parrallel (1 Shared inlet for all plates, 1 shared outlets for all plates). If you run the cooling plates in series, you will definitely risk a higher pressure drop causing bursting plates and you'll also see a much worse cooling performance on your last module in the linear chain (Linear meaning that the outlet of one cold plate feeds into the inlet of the next and so on). Thermal adhesive padding was an excellent idea and
A better DIY method for cold plates is to use "Aluminum flat extruded microchannel tubing". These can be bought relatively cheaply from Alibaba or a local supplier. You would need to make a custom manifold for each end of the tube, but the tube naturally wont leak or burst from the coolant pressure so it is much safer and more reliable. It also naturally has a well distributed flow path so cooling is rather even across each individual module and across all modules as a complete system. The manifold can be welded or brazed to the pipe to form a leak free joint that will hold up over time.
For your specific batteries and power output, you can expect to use a ~16gpm pump for the entire system. a higher output pump will be better, but definitely louder
Nice detailed comment.
I'm torn between dying to see this project finished and never wanting this build series to end.
You can say that again.
You can probably have both seeing the end of this series then the bus series would start up again
@@aidenpommee766 was just gonna say the sooner this ends the sooner the bus starts
The fact that you face all of these difficulties and setbacks but keep going, making something interesting and cool, is really something. 🙂
You solved SO many engineering problems here. For their Leaf car, in contrast, Nissan DIDN'T solve all the issues that you did; they left their modules air-cooled. I believe your solutions will bring you long-lasting battery capacity. You did an outstanding job making these things and an outstanding job explaining what you did. This is why we all keep coming back for your videos. Brilliant!
Anyone who's tried to quick charge a Leaf (both first and second gen) will understand after the second and third quick charge why active cooling is important.
@@Tomazack truth.
@@Tomazack I don't even need to try and quick charge a Leaf to know why active cooling is important. I just need to look at the climate. The Nissan Leaf would be a PERFECT car for my driving needs, EXCEPT I have winter and having the battery just stay at below freezing temperatures isn't going to cut it.
Okay to technically that's active heating, but it's the same system that does the active cooling.
@@dizzy2020 Surely Nissan can do a version of the Leaf that has active heating & cooling and isn't that much more expensive, though. That's a car that would yes cost more but also suddenly work "well enough" for a lot more people meaning much larger potential sales.
I don't need fast charging, but I do need the battery to warm itself during winter.
@@dizzy2020 It's an automotive vehicle sold in the USA. They should design it to withstand any and all possible environments anywhere in the USA from the severe sub-freezing winter temps up north to the literal desert of Nevada. Just because they only sold it in one region does not mean it won't change owners and be taken to a different region.
I tip my hat to you, Robert, for having the patience to do this. And you are so good for explaining the process of creating such complex hardware.
Yes the turkeys are amazing. And everyone can see that you are well fed on Factor.
not even 4 hours ago I was at work thinking to myself "haven't seen something from this channel for a while. Even this old tony has a new video. I hope he didn't burn down the shop with those batteries..."
Same I was binging old aging wheels videos yesterday night hoping for an update on the escape lol
IKR!!!!!
The factor commercial was seriously the BEST humor I’ve seen on RUclips in ages. I never listen to adds. I listened to this one! Hahahahaha. Awesome. Yup. I’m sold and will try Factor.
Thanks for showing your struggles. Sometimes progress on my projects suffer because of the fear of getting something expensive wrong. It's reassuring seeing you persevere and even if after a slight break, move forward and find success. Thanks for sharing your passions!
It might help though if his tools didn't seem to be made of finest chineseum
Of all the styles of "showing progress of personal projects" I've seen, I like your style of real-time-cut-into-rapidfire-snippets style of timelapse the best.
Always a great day when a new Aging Wheels video drops!
your ability to just tackle any sort of project is very inspiring. i love the way u film edit and talk in the videos. dont fall into the pitfalls of youtube and think we need a video a week. quality over quantity
Definitely have the right idea towards the epoxy for the cooling plates but surface prep for gluing is super important especially for aluminum. To do it well, I'd recommend sanding the surface with a midgrade sand paper then cleaning with isopropyl alcohol and letting it evaporate before applying the epoxy. The idea is you want to remove surface contaminates and give the glue more surface area to hold onto with the surface roughness.
i just hope that preparation was done off camera. otherwise we will see a revisit after the first bumpy roads.
Yeah honestly the current design gives me no confidence at all, hopefully he did more prep work and, I don't think leak testing by submerging in almost no water is a good approach, I'd have run water through with some pressure and flow, it and if possible varied the temperature of the water to see how the glue handles thermal expansion, personally I'd have used a lot of counter-sunk screws along the whole edge going into threaded holes on the other side with a flexible o-ring in a channel around the edge
I’d have just used aluminium instead 🤪
@@KriLL325783 yeah I agree, and that would work too, but I've had good experiences with epoxying aluminum even in demanding structural applications to other materials and itself but surface prep is key. I've run tests on good prep vs washed with water vs no prep and the difference is significant in terms of the bond strength. Also I don't imagine that with coolant flowing though it that the thermal expansion will really be an issue but I don't know what these batteries are rated for.
Yeah i don't think that epoxy job is gonna hold up for long, but thumbs are pressed
Been watching you for some years now, from all "YT mechanics" you got THE BEST quality of production. Like, when you see the section with fast cuts of welding/drilling/tightening etc. I just imagine how long it takes, positioning the camera everytime differently and then cutting it into sections. This is really getting the viewer deep into the process without boring to death with long sections were nothing happens. Amazing job. Give this man more subs and views, this project alone makes it worth, not to mention all your other stuff that's awesome
WatchWesWork, ViceGripGarage, Diesel Creek, countless other people who aren't propagandists just aren't on your radar, huh? Troglodyte.
7:13 I felt that “I’m going to take the rest of the day off” in my soul. R&D can be brutal
Those boards putting the cells in parallel are PRICEY! FYI, the connector on those boards is JAE Electronics part number MX84B028NF1, in case you want to make your own boards at significant savings. They are available from DigiKey and Mouser.
PLEASE READ THIS, AGING WHEELS! You've built a very, very dangerous battery here, because you DO NOT have any way to isolate the parallel modules from each other!! If you suffer any single cell failure, this battery WILL NOT BE PROTECTED BY YOUR BMS! In the case of one cell going short, all that will happen is that the fuse on the breakout board will blow, the bad cell will fall out of monitoring, and most likely suffer a THERMAL RUNAWAY POWERED BY THE OTHER PARALLEL MODULES, that your BMS WILL NOT be able to shut down!
Whenever you parallel modules with multiple series cells inside, you need to use a separate contactor on each parallel string. That's why you never see this configuration of cells in production EVs.
This problem arises because if a cell goes short (or starts leaking a lot of current), the nominal voltage of that module will drop by one cell and it will essentially turn into a 7-series module with a resistor in series. Since that 7-series module is hard-wired in parallel with several 8-series modules, uncontrolled current will flow from the good modules into the bad one. The failed cell will produce uncontrolled heat, and the non-failed cells might see an overvoltage condition of up to 4,8 V/cell if the failure occurs at a high state of charge. The BMS might notice that the temperature is rising, or that the cell voltages are too high, but it will be unable to terminate the connection between the modules since they're literally bolted together.
I repeat: Your BMS **WILL NOT PROTECT YOU FROM A THERMAL RUNAWAY IN YOUR CURRENT BATTERY CONFIGURATION!**
I just want you to be aware of this.
Agreed. All cells must be capable of being isolated individually for the battery to be safe, and lithium ion cells should never be monitored as a group.
I felt every moment of stress and difficulty. This is real. For those of you who haven't created something from scratch in their lives... this is exactly how it is. It's frustrating but highly rewarding when you're done.
Just love that whole "It's clear so if something goes wrong I can see inside to see if there is smoke or something." and was just waiting for a *foreshadowing* prompt to pop up.
I really hope we still get videos of the rest of the battery box construction because I do really love your working montages, I just love your videos in general, I probably rewatch a dozen videos a week
Those EVWest adapters/harness boards can be made extremely easily and cheaply. Just superficially, I think that the materials cost per unit is about $5 (mostly in the big honking connector) and then you can get the boards made for $20/20.
the evwest boards cost 44 for one. so 20 bucks to make one would kinda fit in that.
it's not thousands he could save on them though, more like half a grand.
Right? They're overcharging big time, its ridiculous actually
@@lasskinn474 To be clear, I think that material cost would be about $6/board ($5 for the connector, $1 for the PCB).
Maybe I got the setup wrong, but to me those boards look like a fire hazard.
The packs have multiple cells and are in parallel.
The PCBs now connect the individual cells in parallel with thin wires.
There are fuses, which protects the wires, but those fuses are the issue.
With only one BMS and those paralleled cells the BMS won’t notice when a fuse is blown, but a given cell is now unmonitored and can overcharge.
Furthermore it absolutely will over- or undercharge, since a bad cell is likely the reason why the fuse was blown in the first place.
If the individual cells are not paralleled with big bus bars they have to be monitored separately.
You are 1000% capable of designing your own PCBs and shipping the design off to JLCPCB for double digit cost instead of quadruple!
I love the use of the polycarb, looks so much better than just an opaque box.
Man I've been watching you for the last 7 years... gotta say, you've improved immensely from rebuilding a carburetor to a full blown EV car!! that's cool as hell and you should be proud of the work you've done up to this point!!!
He no longer gets any sex.
I really appreciate the effort put into this EV conversion. Why do easy all tesla parts, when you can pick one part and painful build everything around one of it feature.
It impressive, i like it
I think some of the greatest vehicles followed this exact principle.
The other thing to think about is if he used Tesla stuff, there's a good chance he would void the warranties of the equipment just trying to fix stuff. This way, he knows what's in there because he put it in there.
Just like Jared Pink: He _Is_ the Warranty.
And not end up in bankruptcy court.
This is just incredible. I’m so glad that I found your channel and I’m looking forward to going through your back catalog on this ridiculous project.
The breakdown of the different types of automotive batteries sold me on your channel. You just happen to go to the perfect level of depth for me.
I hope you make the deadline.
Don't rush it, though, wouldn't want a battery fire on your hands.
Holley High Voltage hasn't even been announced this year, so I don't really know when the deadline is! But, like you said, I ain't rushing nothin'
@@agingwheels why didnt you weld the coolant plates?
@@Blue__244 That will probably be necessary. Not in house.
I love how this channel just keeps getting more insane in a good way.
I really appreciate that you keep it real and f up at least as much as the common person does. If you edit out some of it you should consider a bloopers supercut video. 😂
Dude, your engineering genius is Apollo 13, 1970 "improvise and and make it work when no one has ever conceived of this before" level amazing. And you made it pretty.
Dude I respect the enthusiasm and positivity so much. I have the same attitude of "do it now and figure the rest out later" and 80% of the time it does mean undoing half and starting all over...good to see a big-time youtuber doing the same.
11:35 even if it was structural you could've used the battery to replace this role by connecting it to the structural part and using it as a stressed member like everyone seems to be doing nowadays.
This would also improve chassis rigidity and handling of the car.
@Robert, I seriously doubt epoxy will work on aluminum for a hermetic seal. Even if you get one to seal temporarily, (pun?) the temco (temperature expansion coefficient) of aluminum and it's propensity to have have a tough oxide coating on all surfaces exposed to air means the epoxy joint will eventually fail. You'd need to weld the perimeter to solve this.
"Is this overcomplicated? No, its just complicated" is such a great quote. but within your build everything has a purpose and there is a purpose for everything.
and here i was thinking your presentation style couldn’t get any better… you’re doing a fantastic job. i love the delivery, commentary and editing. it’s brilliant. ❤
I have to say that this is the only YT channel where I don't skip over the ads. You make them as entertaining as the rest of the video.
Amazingly informative and massively funny as always, sometimes wish id found your channel 5yrs from now, then I could just binge it all!!
I used to think that electric vehicles were embarrassingly simple. Watching you overcoming these struggles, made me see even more clearly, the brilliance of internal combustion engines, and their actual relative simplicity.
Absolutely loving this series. One of the rare occasions where I’ll drop everything I’m doing to watch the most recent episode
As an electrical engineer, I salute you.
I wouldn't have the patience and dedication to design such a car like this.
Would probably throw something decent-ish together with off-the-shelf parts... but this... man
11:50 is there going to be a problem with airflow through the radiator if there's a big solid sheet of polycarbonate blocking it on the other end?
Exactly what I was thinking.
Came here to say the same thing
While I understand almost nothing of this, the amount of time and intellect that you put into this is incredible. Add to that your brilliant humour, these are must-watch.
This represents SO MUCH WORK! Truly impressive. The day of the four-wheel skids approacheth.
Also, additional thumbs ups's's's: Resume/presume and Mahogany.
I comment something like this almost every video but his humour gets me every time. Never stop being you, Robert
...it might be better in the future to use a glue like 3M window weld to hold the cooling plates together, and rely on the clamping pressure of the threaded rods to keep them pulled tight.
Yes. And a vacuum bag would be an ideal clamp to hold the plates together until cured.
How about that PL stuff they build pickup trucks with?
@@rogersmith7396 I'm not sure the specific product, but I would say 'no good' on aluminum, under pressure, carrying liquid and with vibration.
That big aluminum sheet has to grow a lot when it gets hot.
@@jimurrata6785 I have tried to do similar things with hot liquid under pressure. Its no go.
@@rogersmith7396 What product are you talking about, specifically?
Henkel/Loctite makes PL. It's just their line of construction adhesives. (but I've never seen it on a pickup truck)
They have plenty of bonding epoxies for aluminum in Aerospace and Automotive lines that would hold up just fine.
Id be a little iffy about G10 (and I use it a lot!) but I don't know how hot the plate gets. Gougeon Brothers has a very good technical department that is able to answer questions about their products suitability for oddball projects. Robert might have contacted them, but I didn't see him sanding the epoxy into the surface like they would recommend....
Wow $1000 for those 4 paralleling boards? Are those grey connectors made of platinum or something? Also you definitely need to secure those together. The inter-board connectors are not going to do well in vibration.
Cant wait for next months update! Seriously, this is such a great project. Don't rush as we all see the hard work going in.
fifteen... hundred dollars!? For $20 of PCBs? That is insane. I will literally design those for you for fun.
This battery box looks stunning! And I actually enjoyed every second of this video, even though I suck at electronics.
You doing this I bet has changed multiple people's minds about EVs. Before I bet they thought it was techy, but this is very much more into the mechanical stuff and you show the modularity and custom stuff you can do
the clear battery box looks epic with the mahogany. you should add LED strips inside the engine bay around the box to light it up.
That core support front crossmember is structural lol... pretty important for crashes... but you have inserted a giant block that will negate all crumple zone up front so.... send it I guess.
Sometimes I feel like it’s hard to capture the magnitude of work, struggle, and frustration of a project like this that feels likes it’s constantly fighting you. But you did a beautiful job expressing it in this video, and the battery box looks great too. Keep up the good work, you’ll get it done!
Needs handles or lift points (how else do you plan to get it into and out of that car?). Needs lights (you plan to see into it in the dark?). Integrate and get it figured out now and when you make the others you're doing that as part of routine assembly. You go to school on the first one. The rest are just jobs.
Best EV conversions on YT. Well done.
Impressed by the amount of work you've put into this. Also your editing style is incredible.!
I love how you are just winging it professionaly
You are the man!! You put an amazing amount of work into your projects and videos. Well done Robert!
As someone who's been trained in fabrication, and especially non-ferrous fabrication such as aluminium, getting better at alu TIG welding will 100% pay off you plan to do it a lot more. Keep it at Robert, we all started somewhere.
Please, pay attention to this detail about coolant (it goes for ethylene glycol mixture, but can be true for some others). Water has a bigger "drop" then coolant, which means your radiator can be watertight, but may not be coolant-tight. I know you tested it under pressure to be sure, but test it with coolant as well. Maybe to go with waterless?
He tested with air tho... airtight is for sure watertight
@@JimnyVR5 True, I guess I am tired from work :P
This channel has the only sponsor reads I dont skip
I take my hat off to you, this is an epic project. I’m loving it.
For some perspective. Powertrain intigration into a vehicle chassis that was not designed for it is hard. This takes OEM's years, 100's of millions of dollars, and thousands of people to design a vehicle. Your are doing this as a one-man-band. Your doing awesome, keep up the hard work!
Sneaky Under Dunn segment lol
Jesus Murphy! You are a true mad genius. Your attention to detail in building the batteries & filming puts other RUclips channels to shame.
Is that Battery box getting its own contactors & MSD?
With 4 battery boxes to join up & two motors, that's a lot of scary orange ropes going in a lot of different directions and they take up a fair bit of room. Good to plan where they go and where the breaks are positioned in advance.
I hadn't considered separate contactors for each box, but it's not a bad idea.
@@agingwheels Unfortunately, US federal code requires no voltage above 60 volts be present 5 seconds after a collision. This applies to home built as well as production EVs. For the safety of you and first responders. This means two contactors, a service plug, and a fuse for each box. I will look up the source and post a link as soon as I find it.
Just be careful with how you wire the cell taps to the BMS. You shouldn't have a disconnect, fuse or contactor within a single grouping to the BMS, as you would get high voltages across the taps as they open/close and that lets the smoke out of the BMS. Replacement Smoke is available, but very hard to install.
I think I like the idea of those parallel BMS PCBs, but do you need to balance all the cells between the parallel modules before you connect them? You're getting modules from multiple vehicles which will each have different SoC and SoH, could be a nightmare...
@@GrayRaceCat Interesting, that would then need some sort of impact sensor included in the interlock?
The modules are 57.6v each, so would that require a break between the two banks in the 8 module boxes (4p32s 115v) or is it enough to have the outputs of the box isolated?
Contactors rated for those current levels will not be cheap.
@@drumbrakes On later cars folks are taking advantage of the Airbag System or using the inertial fuel pump cut off to cut 12vdc power to the contactors. On early cars you would have to get creative.
If I understand the standard correctly, isolating the HV to the inside of the battery boxes with contactors is sufficient, the fuse is extra insurance in case a contactor is 'welded' closed or the box has been punctured.
I love this project and your dedication to it. Keep the doors unlocked on the Escape when your driving it and don't park it indoors, that battery box could be explosive.
Your work and dedication on this project is nothing short of incredible! It's absolutely wonderful to watch you overcome issue after issue.
It's weird to see products you help manufacture end up in a video! My company makes the gray sockets mounted on the circuit board, and the plugs that go into it from the wiring harness. You're doing awesome work, Robert!
This would all be so much simpler in the timeline where all you gotta do is throw a General Atomics Mk XVII mini-reactor in there and plumb up the liquid sodium.
Na will explode on contact with air. And its what, a few thousand degrees. Florida Man would approve. What could go wrong?
I can't say how much I appreciate you showing the random hiccups that inevitably happen during a project and give us a sense for how much time a project actually took. It's immensely comforting compared to seeing a project seem to go smoothly on RUclips only for it to turn into a bear when I attempt it myself.
Man I'm wanting to make my old F350 a hybrid, and it looks like that is going to be more work than I was hoping for.
For those battery breakout boards, what is included with that? If it's just the board and 4 connectors it would probably be cheaper (and faster) for you to just have some PCB's made and you populate them yourself for the other battery boxes. Plus you wouldn't have to string 4 of them together. I could probably do it for you real quick if you aren't familiar with that.
It's the boards and the wiring harnesses. I probably could've done it myself, but I didn't want to design yet another thing. Plus, there are worse places to spend money than EVWest
@@agingwheels Makes sense, doing those harnesses yourself would suuuuuuuuuck lol
And it's probably where a lot of that cost comes from
@@wcvp i think the price is for them for all of the packs not just this one
I can totally relate with your feelings on thinking its overcomplicated, i built an off grid solar setup for my in laws and built a system with 25kw in solar panels, 150kwh in lifepo4 storage, and i built all the racking for the solar (which power tilts to track the sun btw) built all the battery myself from 280ah cells, 10 16s packs each with their own bms, each pack took a full 10 hour day to assemble properly. Batteries take SO much longer than you can even imagine to build
💻🚗🙌 As someone who shares your passion for both IT and cars, I have to commend you on your delivery style. It's evident that you put a tremendous amount of time and effort into your projects and editing. I appreciate that you prioritize quality over quantity and resist the pressure to churn out videos on a weekly basis. Keep up the fantastic work, as it's clearly paying off. Your dedication shines through, and your content is top-notch. Great job! 👏👍🔥
Instead of having a simple bend in the bus bar you could do a double "offset" bend so that the + and - bus bars are at the same angle (parallel to the side of the battery modules). In theory its as easy as putting another bend the other way the correct distance apart from the first. Although i guess in practice the place where the bend needs to happen might be in the "main" part of the bar which means the bend would span the entire length.
Just a thought to make it look neater.
I'm no longer waiting for the GRANT LOAN because I acquire $29,600 every 10 days recently.
After watching so many RUclips tutorial videos about trading I was still making looses until Mrs Jenna started managing my investment's now I make $50,567 weekly. God bless Mrs Jenna she been a blessing to my family.
She helped me recover what I lost trying to trade my self
Wow I'm just shock someone mentioned expert Mrs Jenna, I thought I'm the only one trading with her,,
She's really amazing with her skills. She changed my 0.5btc to 2.1btc
I think I'm blessed because if not I wouldn't have met someone who is as spectacular as expert Mrs Jenna. I think that she is the best broker I ever seen
This box is a minor work of art. Nicely done
Dude your delivery style is definetly one of my favorites. The best part about your channel is the off kilter humor and delivery
DUDE. $1500 for a copper bus bar??? Did it NEED to be laser-cut? Granted, you most likely know way more than me on such matters, but why couldn't you just, i dunno, JIG-SAW out the shape you needed from some strapping and then file it to shape to finish??? I mean, you don't seem to be strapped for cash in the slightest (congrats on your success my dude) but still. Can you please address this in a future video for us ludites? Wouldn't CABLES with freaking crimped lugs would have worked just as well??? Love your content btw, and I eagerly await to be enlightened.
When Doug Demuro meets the fabricator...LOL!
Great videos and it's refreshing seeing someone who experiences as many issues as I do when designing and building projects.
Nothing ever works out ideally.
Keep on, keeping on!
I would recommend as an (EV service technician) that you wear leather over gloves on your HV safety gloves. Just to help prevent pin holes and cuts on very expensive gloves. It also helps keep the very high voltage from making a road trip through your body.
18:45 …that’s why I love your channel…I respect you for your honesty and transparency so much. When I watched Zacks Hummer Videos, I knew it was expensive, but he never gave us the numbers for the CNC cuts. It feels like I’m watching a good friend rather than a RUclips guy.
Fantastic project and video. Great content too.
I still cannot believe that you really built this! watching since the first episode. Keep it up
I am not a car person at all, but man you've got me hooked! Your style is hilarious and informative, and is actually making me interested in these older wheels. Thanks for the awesome content.
lowkey, best series on youtube RN. im always exited to see a new vid.
I don’t like EVs, but I like Robert. I will continue to watch. Watching his evolving engineering prowess during this project makes me wonder that if Tesla had engineers like him, they would’ve been able to produce a much more viable and interesting vehicle.
This channel is a great source of education..... For all the RUclips experts that want to just convert all ICE vehicles to EVs,
Since of course that's, so simple to do cost effectively.....
I can tell by your delivery that you're in a better head space these days. Keep it up, you're actually hilarious mate.
I'm sure it's been said here already, but in case it hasn't @6:54 : Aluminium is super gummy, and needs at least a little cutting fluid/lubricant to make sure it doesn't stir-weld to the bit.
WD-40 is a fantastic option, as is isopropyl alcohol (sans fire risk...). You also usually want single flute cutters as it gives much more room for the chip to dislodge.
I'm sure folks with flood coolant capable machines are rolling their eyes, but for us schmos with hobby grade cnc's the above works a treat!