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Another battery pack


I decided to pickup another battery pack to extend the range on the BugPlug (contact me if you have one for sale, looking for more packs for projects). I dismantled this pack, and it has evidence of water ingress, as you can see, some of the modules have oxidation. My first pack didn't have this.


My original intention was to mount them where the fuel tank was, and initially this looked good with the car up in the air. I could only fit 3 across when oriented in the flattest way, on their side all 4 fitted and looked to give good ground clearance.



I made up a quick frame for them and mounted it to the car, the Beetle has quite low ground clearance as it is, it became apparent this wasn't going to work. If I go with a 3rd pack I'll have to rethink how I can fit them where the tank was, but for now, the spare wheel well will be squared out and the modules will go there.

Continuing with the battery box, I bought pre-cut steel, only added a couple of quid and saved loads of time and probably delivery costs.




Having removed and re-inserted the modules a fair few times, I've added handles in the form of cable ties :D


Progressing nicely, but taking me ages, it's all just tack welded at the moment, so need to do the final welds, weld on the side and bottom panels, seam seal and then fit in to the car. Once there I'll line with a non-conductive material, add a lid and then car start working on the low voltage and high voltage wiring. 

My BMS will need changes to support a second pack, currently the ID's will clash with the first pack, so I either need to add a third canbus interface to the BMS board and update the code to support this, or add a man in the middle can bus bridge to add an offset to the ID's before broadcasting them on to the BMS. 


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