Sealed battery box?

**Esteban** · 14-11-2007, 08:27 AM

So how'd it finish up Mark?

**MWP** · 14-11-2007, 10:09 AM

All good

The box is ready to go in the car (have made the mounts, etc), but it wont be installed for quite a while, hence no new photos.

**takai** · 14-11-2007, 10:23 AM

Bah, go take some on the 40D.

**deviant** · 14-11-2007, 10:39 AM

Just a quick Q about battery boxes.

I have just put a sealed gel battery in the frunk of my MR2.

Just for safety's sake I want to put it in a box (I dont want the terminals to be contacted in the event of an accident or to do something like drop a spanner across them) and for cheapness I'm thinking the tuppaware idea is perfect.

Does the box itself need to be fixed to the floor of the car?
Or can I just drill holes in the box and run the battery clamp through them....so basically the battery and the clamp is holding the box in place?
I'm thinking I can get away with the latter as the box wont weigh anything and its no different really to the un-fixed plastic tray most batteries have.

**The Witzl** · 14-11-2007, 11:43 AM

A quick note on those circuit breakers...
... they are designed to trip only on "severe" overload, or when they are overloaded for a decent amount of time. They wont trip with a short current burst of 200A or so, so will be fine for your average small engine, unless you start cranking for over 20-30 seconds.

Thats what the manufacturers tell me, and i've proven that too..... and so have several people who are using such circuit breakers successfully.

MWP - farken nice job on the box dude! You have inspired me to make something similar for myself - and use some cable glands for the main power cabling into the battery box.

A word of warning about that voltmeter circuit breaker - they draw around 150-300mA ALL THE TIME... and so can flatten your battery over the course of a week if undriven. I would suggest rigging up a switch to it somehow, so you can turn off the display when you arent using it. From memory, i think that one is powered by the fat positive wire coming in, and earthed through one of the screw holes. Do a remote earth switch thing for it and you will be set.

Dammit i need to get my act together and make nice things like that.

**MWP** · 15-11-2007, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by The Witzl

A word of warning about that voltmeter circuit breaker - they draw around 150-300mA ALL THE TIME... and so can flatten your battery over the course of a week if undriven. I would suggest rigging up a switch to it somehow, so you can turn off the display when you arent using it. From memory, i think that one is powered by the fat positive wire coming in, and earthed through one of the screw holes. Do a remote earth switch thing for it and you will be set.

Yeah, i was going to measure its current draw, but then remembered the <1A ammeter on my multimeter is dead

The circuit breaker switch on the top of the box is in series before both of the other breakers, so ill turn that off when i dont expect to drive the car for a while.

... ill get photos of it installed in the car up soon.