Long time reader and searcher, this is the first time Ive got any serious content to share. Ive undertaken a 4WD as my first complete build (except for battery) and it’s fair to say that Ive learned a great deal on the journey, also noted is a serious up-skill required in soldering skills for this sort of thing, I was challenged, I persisted.
The biggest item on the needs list was for the enclosure to be watertight with each entry point having at least 2 types of protection, if possible, 3 types (for example, washer seal, hot glue and then silicone) This in itself presented some challenges… I set about playing with various connections and assessing the viability of them. The Second need was to make jumpers for every connection so that I could access the enclosure without having to remove it from the deck. These two items probably presented the greatest challenge by far.
The Goal
Ultimately, I chose MT60 connection as they fit the enclosure easiest without further mods required so into the soldering rabbit hole I went…
This still left a faint possibility of water issues so I went another level here adding liquid electrical tape to all the internal sections of the connection, there will be no shorts and no water ingress there…
I also needed to create an external connection for the Sensor wires so I set about making a jumper cable passing through a waterproof cable gland (also back filled with liquid tape)
Prior to this assembly, I also had to cut in and seal the heat sink plates into position, more silicone and liquid electrical tape…
This got me to a pretty solid place as far as cables go.
Last to go in was the charging port, Power button and the USB jumper through the enclosure, here, I leaned that all the holes in an enclosure for proposed penetrations should be marked out and cut in advance of assembly 
Specs:
Boundmotor Octopus Deck and Enclosure
12s6p 21700 moli’s + Smart 12s BMS
Hoyt Puck Controller
4 x Radium 178kv 6485 + 4 x 78t pulleys + Radium Mounts
Boardnamics 270 Precision Hangers on Adjustable plates (*edit to add)
Radium Heatsink x 2 (For maker x)
2 x Maker x DV6
2 x 120a fuses
2 x Radium Antispark
I really underestimated the amount of work that goes into making these bespoke machines by a long shot, buying parts that dont/cant work, ordering more parts that dont/cant work, breaking or melting parts that do/did work 
Changing direction and buying more parts that dont/cant fit… so on and so forth… endlessly putting it together and deciding I hated it and stripping it all out again. It’s taken months of effort and to look at it on the bench, it looks like it could have been thrown together in an hour. Im incredibly happy with how it’s gone and I cant wait to rip the trails around here a new one on it. Im reasonably happy with it so far, next up is to get the battery done and installed, fit the motors and spin it all up.
Big love to @glyphiks, Nick, Tye, Liam and everyone else whose put up with my uneducated nonsense, it’s a hell of a journey and if this has proved anything to me it’s that that journey has really only just begun and I’m still a baby at this game
