Modifying prebuilt junk, in stages, to be less junk like.

[SternWake]

Saul goodman.
I just don’t wanna offend, being new here.

Since cleaning up my fiberglass battery enclosure’s edges a bit, I set it off to the side and have not touched it since.

I did get the chance to go paddle they Kayak for close to 5 miles on Saturday, and need to save up for a new larger longer paddle.

On Sunday, without having charged the Esk8, I took it out for a spin, and in about a half mile, when remote said battery had fallen to 2 of 4 bars, The esc cut power. It’s weird in that I have to get off throttle completely for a second or 3, or it just seems to say:" nope, you are pushing home" but then it does kick back in at much reduced speed after I let off, and then the slow torque free annoying limp home mode ensues.

When I got back, I dialed my voltage bucker down to 25v plugged it into the board and raised voltage until I saw amps begin to flow, @ 25.37v, so basically the ESC is reducing power somewhere around 3.65volts per cell, if they are balanced, which seems unlikely. Not sure how much voltage sag is occurring though when the Esc cuts power under load.

I have a 150 watt dc to dc voltage booster, but with no current control ability, but wanted a faster charge than the 42 watts the provided Ac/dc charger can supply, so I placed a fan blowing over enclosure, hooked up dc to dc booster (~33v max)to 12v.8v of Deka GC-2 AGM’s in series, and was allowing upto 3 amps charge rate,and stepping up the voltage in stages, and then taking a head clearing ride, over and over, every 15 minutes, wishing for more speed, and capacity.

I have the 2$ each 20 Dmegc 2600mah 15 amp cells i intend to single stack as my first Esk8 battery, but fear breaking welds if the board flexes too much. The enclosure is pretty deep and once attached will stiffen the deck, to some unknown degree. Ive kind of committed to a layout on this battery, there are some welds in place with infinite slot copper nickel sandwich method.

I intend float the 10s2p battery in foam in middle of enclosure, , but ordered some 0.5mm thick g10 to sandwich the cells in a single stack flat pack to add ridgidity.

Looking ahead toward a future singlestack 10s3p p42 battery, I guess I will have to design flex into the pack, and wish I made the enclosure 10mm or so wider.

I wonder what cells are actually inside the 4000 mah 7s2p pack, but Dont want to remove blue heatshrink to inspect further, until the 10s battery and enclosure are ready.

I did cut off some heatshrink around the BMS. the balance wired were all crushed togethrr right next to sharp 0.12 or thinner looking nickel strip coming of main +, a few mm away. I fishpapered those sharp edges and immobilized everything with kapton tape but feel great urgency to get this battery out of service until i can inspect it closer.

I know a 10s2p at 5400 mah Dmegc battery is still a small battery, but should be a significnt improvement in speed and range over 7s2p of unknown bottom dollar cells.

I laid out the 10 p42s and Lingyi esc on my smaller7s1p single hubmotor skate, just to see if it was a viable plan. I can twist this thin deck in my hands so each series connection will be 12awg silicone jacketed wire

[SternWake]

Ideal, being the enemy if good enough, strikes again.

I’m not expecting any P pack in my soon to exist 10s2p battery to exceed 30 amps, but I hate wasting battery power heating wires, and voltage drop, and tend to oversize just about everything.

I spent some time today preparing more 0.10 nickel plated and 0.15 copper using infinite slot method, then welding them with my ‘purple’ inexpensive spot welder. Things seemed pretty solid, and i laid the packs.in my enclosure and started laying things out in order to visualize future steps.

Got a little annoyed at cleanly routing of balance wires, and bms location, and had to walk away.

Saw some critiques here, of another battery, one being that the sharp square corners of nickel plated steel strip overhung the positive terminals. I had rounded mine, but they overhung the + terminal over the fishpaper rings by a good amount.

So I took my precision side cuts and went to remove the excess, and in the process, heard and felt a weld break.
Shitballs.
Cursing, and angry, I ripped off all the sandwiched strips, some held very well, a real bitch to remove, and some others did not, and popped off without nearly enough effort.

The whole infinite slot method was very time consuming and difficult with 4 layers to position across 4 cells.
I was using low ms pulses just to first adhere nickel to copper off the baTteries, then positioning two sandwiched strips, with an even gap across batteries held by magnets, and this was still annoyingly time consuming and error prone.

So, I went back to my test cell, and practiced some more with different pressure, tip shapes, width, MS pulse duration, thinner copper, 0.15 pure nickel, slot vs No slot all sorts of comboes.

I had not considered that my test cell’s ends, were basically no longer nickel plated steel, just steel, and the Settings i had figured out previously on it, were underpowered for new and different cells with the nickel plating still on.

I should have known, by sight and by feel that many of the welds on the new cells were not adequate, but…

I had been using the infinite slot method to keep the pulse duration down, but said F it, and found 0.1 copper under 0.1 nickel plated steel, no slot, with a 70ms pulse, and think it might be a bit excessive. Solid welds, but the wiring and Lipo battery Certainty heat noticeably faster the longer the duration.

I walked away again, for now.

I wish i could just convince myself that 0.15 pure nickel is good enough.

But am glad I did not find out the hard way what was mostly ‘complete’, was far from passing muster.

[BillGordon]

One quick thing:

On the negative battery end, you want to avoid welding directly in the middle of the contact pad. You did pretty well, but you can avoid it even more.

There’s another way to do it even cleaner than I did above. @glyphiks Can you show your half moon method?

[SternWake]

Thank you.
I was aware of avoiding a 3mm spot dead center on the P42s from a PavelGarnas build video, where it seems somebody scolded him for not doing so.

I was not sure as to why the center needed to be avoided, and if that applied to all cells.

Later, I saw Mooch tear down a battery. I guess the jelly roll is spotwelded on the interior there.

These Dmegc cells have a little shinier spot dead center, and when I was doing infinite slot, I was trying to using that as my center when positioning the strips.

The purple spot welder is automatic with no adjustable time delay or easy way to add a footpedal, and I made the welding tips a bit fatter than before, as the good welds made it seem like they were too small. Still developing the te h ique using it, pressing hard then letting off within the 1 second allowed before it fires after making contact.

The red spot welder can have the delay adjusted, and has a nicer interface nicer, but seemed to require ~ 15ms higher pulse to perform equally on doubled 0.15 nickel amd 0.25 CN sandwich with same 10awg silicone jacketed leads attached.

My practice cell, I’ve been rolling off the test sandwiches, and then side cutting remnants as flush as possible, then doubled (for stiffness) worn 220 grit sanding disks on dremel to make flat and clean for next practice test welds.

I fear this has made it far easier to achieve a good weld, with no nickel plating remaining, and micro scratches on steel increasing resistance.

I saw one YT guy test welding strips to side of a dewrapped can on a test cell. I wonder how representative that is of the end of the can, for testing purposes.

I dont have enough test cells to experiment on. The one i am using is a ‘roofer’ 2200 mah cell I had soldered into a cheap headlamp. It was still performing well, but because i soldered it i decided that was the cell to sacrifice, and found It had apparently gotten wet at some.point.
The cell can was rusting under shrink wrap. I put new fishpaper ring on it and rewrapped it and drained it below 2.5v before testing on it.

I had a failed BFN cell from the 7s ‘parts only’ skate, but when the ‘black’ spot welder proved underpowered, and I tried powering it from a pair of 190AH Deka AGM golf cart batteries, it shorted the Mosfets and tried to drill a hole through the can. ratatatata machine gun style.

The 6 other BFN and 3 other LG cells are now tecbnicaLly my first spot multicell batteries, though the LG cells are in a leaf spring holder. the BFNs spot welded.

11.1v nominal packs, their BMS have no balancing ability.

I am annoyed that my 20amp dumb Daly seaLed and potted BMS has no external temp sensor.
I guess it is intended to be in contact with the battery pack, and i was intending on having BMS external to the flatpack. The enclosure is thick enough, without padding to accommodate it as a wart on the side.

[SternWake]

I peeled off all former spot welds.

Then decided I had to check last nights seemingly solid 70 ms pulse welds, and what a huge pain to remove, screwed up my precision flush cuts trying to roll off the sandwich, and had to retune them.

Those white ring insulators I got from liion wholesale are complete junk. They are like thick paper with a plasticy layer on top. suoer hard to get off backing paper to apply.

Half of the thickness of paper peels off with the blue masking tape, which was only lightly placed across them. A little rubbing alcohol and the rest came off the cell tops easily and cleanly.

Some real barley paper ones arrived more recently to replace them.

I like how the barley paper is almost comoressable and moldable.

Was thinking 21700 rings on 18650 cells coukd really beef out the shoulders

[SternWake]

She gets so excited to cruise to the launch.
We bark the whole way there.

This little sandy section is her favorite spot to chase the ball.

I was mindsurfing some boat wake, reading the bars, guessing the bathymetry, checking the swell angles, hoping a bigger boat would cruise by.

She used to be fearless of the Pacific shorebreak.

On the skate home, I was doing some light carving. Last turn before our driveway, thunk, scrapeeeeeee.

The sound imitating teeth on a frozen popsicle stick. I turn around and watch a kayak wheel roll past me comically as the grinding axle pulls us to a stop.

[Pecos]

Ha! Need a washer or something

[SternWake]

Yep, a washer would have prevented wheel ejection. the wheel kit came with 2.
Need 4.

Ace hardware didnt have anything big enough and I forgot to shop online.

Time to get the bigger wheels and hubs installed.

My 10s 2p battery of Dmegc 2600mah 15 amp cells, is in this stage.

Using 10awg, adhesive lined marinenheatshrink pushed all the way up to elbow add a couple layers of Fishpaper bulking out the shoulder.

and XT90s

[SternWake]

When I was reassembling the kayak wheel trolley/cart at waterside yesterday, I noticed this axle was a bit askew, and wondering how I had missed it before. The square tubing, fits the uprights in any orientation, so depending on how i had the uprights positioned on square, it was Positive or negative camber, towed in or out.

This side did not eject the wheel yesterday it was the other side, which appeared to be better aligned. Nothing had bent in use, it was welded in askew at the factory.

Drilling out the stainless welds, was irritatingly difficult, I got most.of them removed with a carbide burr on the dremel, and was able to extract axles from square tubing.

The new aluminum axleshafts which came with bigger wheels are a bit loose inside the stainless square tubing, but the hub portion is nearly identical in Outer diameter to SS square tubingOD, which made alignment much easier than anticipated.

I degreased and added as much mechanical tooth inside the square tubing as I could and removed black paint/powdercoat from aluminum hubs destined to slide inside them. Not sure which type of Stainless steel alloy this is, but it is super hard to scratch/drill/carbide burr.

I cut some hard neoprene rubber squares to fit tightly inside the square tubing, as a JBWeld backstop, and squeezed both tubes of JBweld original on a 99 cent cutting board, mixed thoroughly, and applied generously into the the corners, upto the backstop, inserted the axles to full depth, clamped them to the alignment jig, and used a dowel to push all the remaining JB weld as deep as I could, then used a fine grain dry sponge as a plunger, and slowly pushed with a dowel, until JB weld was pushed out from between round axleshaft exterior and square tubing interior corners. So there should be no voids, and excellent adhesion and far better alignment than before.

I’m gonna let it cure for 48 hours before putting any stress on it, and will likely load it with 65lbs of bricks where Fiona sits, for a carving speed bump plowing stress test.

When the wheel ejected, and axleshaft was scraping and scrathing g that brand new suoer smokth asphalt in front of the driveway, it was also rolling on the inner stainless washer, which likely prevented a more serious event.

The aftermarket wheel kit is designed to allow wheel stacking, the axleshafts ‘should’ be strong enough, but I have serious doubts.

The wider green hubs will be bolstered by stainless washers on both sides, and the alignment will at least be close to accurate.

Hopefully it rolls better with less resistance, and is strong enough to develop confidence in, as 11.1 more nominal volts and 1200 more mah, should be ready to power the junky hub motors, and i will not have to worry as much about preserving hard won momentum, over the speedbumps.

Recharging to full after a Kayak round trip, my wattmeter has been recording 1.85 to 2.05 AH every recharge, except today it measured 2.35ah to fill the 7s2p battery, though I did slow the charge rate to 280ma, and measurement error could account for the increase, or it could have been the extra drag of melting kayak wheel hubs, or some combo of both.

Also, such a slow charge rate might allow more time for balancing, and the extra ah was just bled off in the bms’s resistors as heat, if it even balances.

[SternWake]

The good news, is the new aluminum hubs and JB weld showed no signs of stress when picked up Fiona, and balanced my pushskate on the axle. ~ 100 lbs more weight on it than it should ever see in kayak trolley duty.

I put trolley on kayak, and Fiona on Kayak, and took it for a spin around the block, and the rubber tread causes tons of noise and vibration, but it rolls far batter than older softer smaller wheels.

I razored off the edges of the tread that showed signs of contact with asphalt, with only a little improvement in noise and vibration.

[City-Blade-101]

@BillGordon

nuclear cockroaches

Lmao great!

[SternWake]

GD MFing new wheels won’t stop vibrating.

I’ve removed all the tread upto the center ring, and the freaking kayak just starts vibrating and developing these insane harmonics at all speeds above walking speed, and nothing I have done makes any difference.

I can’t go back to the old wheels as the axle diameter is now different, and these new ones, of which I have another pair, are freaking useless for anything above walking speed, and most annoyingly, I wasted hours getting it functional, and then trying things to improve it, like razoring off all the sideways tread and then sanding it flush.

And, gawddang each and every aspect of everything from the beginning of time to the very end, all I needed to do for old wheels was add a second hub bolstering washer and clean and relube them after every round trip.

What is even more annoying, is that it actually rolls so much better despite the insane vibrations. I can get to max esc limited top speed easier and faster, and coast way farther when letting off throttle., all while it is resonating and sounding like a mufflerless 2 stroke engine.

I want to get my machete and hack the damn wheels into little pieces.

[SternWake]

Sorry for the whiny rant above.

The Machete remains where it was prior to it, and no tools were thrown.

No kayak trolley or its wheels were ever designed to handle the 7S speeds ( 11 to 14mph, 17.7 to 22Kmh) that I have been subjecting it to, nor the unknown 10S speeds that I intend to subject it to and sooner is better.

If I had washer bolstered both sides of the smaller 8" wheels from day one, cleaned and lubed them between roundtrips, I am sure I could have gotten a fair amount more trouble free use from it.

The 8" soft wheels didn’t roll all that great, but it was a lightweight trolley, easy and quick to break down, stuff in the hatch next to my Esk8, and paddle a few miles, reassemble it, and tow the Fionayak home using about 2 amp hours total from a 7s2p 4ah rated pack going there and back, barking the whole way…

Using the axle with harmonics inducing 10" wheels, as an abdominal roller, I can feel the wheels flex and rebound as they roll back and forth, like driving over rumble strips, so the tread had little, if any effect on the vibrations, it’s all the structure of the wheel itself. as the supports and areas between the supports flex.

Looking ahead, after I make a higher capacity battery, I intend to be able to tow the Fionayak the mile to a launch, paddle a few miles in one direction with tide and wind at my back, then tow it home a few miles on the backroads…

I’d really like to get some ball bearings under there. Cut a mountainboard front truck in half and shape the ends to fit inside the square tubing.
Or something along those lines.
Am Open to ideas.

Do all generic mountainboard or escooter wheels fit on 12mm diameter axles?
Will they fit on some M12 Allthread?

If I am putting 120 lbs of weight on a pair of mountainboard pneumatic wheels, how resistant are they to punctures in urban environments?

McMastercarr has this M12 connecting rod which is long enough to slide all the way through the square tubing, though I am unsure how I would secure it within the square tubing or a bearing stop prevent the wheels riding up the shaft into the square tubing.

McMaster-Carr

part# 6516K249, incase direct link does not work

I don’t have access to a welder, and getting the JbWelded aluminum axleshafts out from inside the Stainless square tubing could become a tool throwing cursefest. I’d likely just cut them off.

Wish I had enough money to just throw at the problem, and visit a machine shop.

I had to order a 40$ trolley of a slightly different design with 10" solid wheels, to hold me over until I can get something low rolling resistance reliable, and comfortable for Fiona under there.

I also want to be able to easily adapt turn this kayak trolley into a base for a Kayakless Dog sled, ,so we can quickly visit parks farther away from home base, and not overheat just getting there.

Fiona loves just cruising the neighborhood riding in the back of the kayak.
She didn’t seem to mind the horrendous vibrations and harmonics.

Wish I had a third hand to take a photo of her when we are cruising.
Her joy is obvious.

[Pecos]

Cheap wheels are cheap wheels. Maybe go pneumatic for the vibration dampening. They also have bicycle tow behind trailers that can do 20mph easy enough and they have wheels too

https://www.amazon.com/Arnold-8-Inch-Wire-Spoke-Wheel/dp/B000BPF2IO/ref=asc_df_B000BPF2IO/

[SternWake]

Thanks.
Good idea on the bike trailer. They Have ones dedicated for pets. I’ll peruse the different designs.

I’d love some 8 " pneumatics and on the kayak dolly./cart/trolley.

The cheap harmonics inducing wheels smoothed out a little bit above 11mph or so, and did allow 7s ESC 16mph limited speed to be hit for the first time when towing the FiknaYak, and that seemed irresponsibly fast, but a grassy shoulder was nearby.

Just trying to establish what would be ideal, and then what I can reasonable afford, and DIY, and if I can dual purpose the desired pneumatic wheeled kayak trolley into dog sled, all the better.

[SternWake]

Here’s my first esk8 battery, nearing completion.

10s2p of Dmegc 2600mah 15amp cdr cells, which while tiny, represents 50% more watt hours than my board came with.

0.1mm copper 0.1mm nickel plated steel sandwich.

10awg series connection between P group 5 and to XT90s, as Voltage drop irritates me.

Daly 20 amp dumb Bms with 14awg anderson powerpole pigtail.
I sandwiched the 10s2p flatpack with 0.5mm G10, using Karfuter K705, a moisture cure relectronics Rtv sealant/adhesive that has no smell, and dries super clear.

Extra layers of fishtape near shoulders and balance tabs.

Yep, Id move balance tabs apart in center further, if doing it again.

Will be runnng balance leads outside of G10., and BMS will be attached to Bottom G10 plate.

This small battery will be able to swim laps in the fiberglass enclosure i am making, which is still far from ready to accept it.

I reluctantly decided against additional JST plugs for easier P group monitoring and manual cell top balancing.

I will add a fuse to charge port

[SternWake]

Lateral junk swap.

My cheaper 99$ junk, almost penny board, with single " 350" watt hub motor and single drive lingyi ESC, was feeling like it was way down on its already very limited power and advertised 12.4 mph top speed. This thing is slow, but so nimble, That I can still have some head clearing fun on it, but not when it is even slower, and I feel the urge to push to help it out.

I have a 38$ parts only free shipping junk board too, with same hub motor.

One of its 7 cells was 0.24v, The other 6 were 4.0v. I bench fed its tiny ESC with a 150watt power supply set at 29.4v, and it fired right up.Its 6 good BFN 2000mah 10 amp cells became two sets 3s 1p batteries, my first spot welded packs, and see regular use powering 12v leds and fans, but the rest of the parts only board has been unemployed.

I swapped its hub motor into the pennyskate and it felt the same underfoot., down 1/3 on power.
I checked battery voltage under load, and mid 26v didn’t seem low enough to cause the power loss, so postulated that its Lingyi ESC blew a phase.

The parts only skate has a tiny ESC, with ‘ALADDIN’ on the pcb, below the clear epoxy potting. I clipped off the enclosure’s mounting pegs for the lingyi esc, drilled the 7s1p enlosure for different power switch, fishpapered the side of the aladdin esc as it would be in near contact with battery leads, hotglued it in place, reassembled it, tested it, and all its pitiful original power was back, and fun was had on the ultra smooth new asphalt.

As crazy as it sounds, I love this little , slow, torque limited board. Its so light and nimble. I was relieved it was fully functional again and can act as a backup, and is far nicer to carry into the grocery store.

Soon I will have to disassemble my other board to retest fit the enclosure and it will again see regular use. Once I get the other board running on 10s, I am going to build a flexible 10s1p P42a battery, and enclosure, and use both hub motors in a diagonal drive setup.

I’ll guess its 350 watt rated motors.might actually be able to draw that much at 36+v, and it might actually be too fast for such a short wheelbase and narrow track.
Time will tell.

[SternWake]

I have not been working on my battery or enclosure, as much as I should, and could have been doing.
No good excuses, plenty of bad ones though.

I took the extra 0.5mm G10 sheet cut into inch wide (or so) strips, and laid them around the perimeter of enclosure, to make a wider gasket footing then used roving/tow/finrope to build up the walls to that wider foot.

This made the whole enclosure super rigid, and ive got more glass to lay yet.
I really like using the unidirectional roving when building out thickness, as opposed to many many layers of cut cloth.

I got a lot more sanding and will need to bulk out a few more areas, and am still contemplating how I want to mount the copper heatsink to enclosure, and mount my ‘puiada’ Esc and future unknown V ESC tightly to that heatsink.

Some Low profile Mini 58v rated 15 amp fuses, which I intended to just solder into charge port circuit, arrived today, and are physically smaller than I imagined. I did find an inline LP Mini fuse holder with 16awg leads, (most seem to be add a fuse type products) and hope that too is smaller than I imagine, when it arrives.

Some Pico 5 amp fuses are also enroute.

I have some threaded inserts, for a 10-32 screw. They are just zinc plated steel but were economical in comparison to brass or stainless.

The seller of the" 84 " watt 42v power supply, which maxxed out at 36 watts and received bad feedback from me, asked me to send photos and basically redescribe how 34 watts does not equal 84 watts.

I told them I wouldn’t bother, that I was so insulted by their response, that the negative feedback stays.
They then offered a full refund, if I retracted the poor feedback, and I get to keep their shitty product.
I’ve not responded. I could certainly use the refund, but fuck them.

Another ebay seller, did the right thing. Usps picked up the product(14,18,20 awg silicone wire), late last year and no updates since. The seller responded within an hour of me contacting them, with a new tracking number.
SpeedyFPV will get more of my business.

I likely threw more good money after bad, ordering a different brand of Kayak ‘Scupper cart’ with 10" solid wheels for 38$. The wheels have almost zero give, are way sloppy loose on the axle, and the uprights are wobbly on the axleshaft, and the part on which the kayak hulk would rest will not properly fit my kayak hulk without tons of modification.
Its wheels fit much more snugly on my old cart’s JB welded aluminum axles.
I have SS bolstering washers which need a kittle hogging out to fit old axles, and some crinkle washers to take up the side to side slop. I’ll make it work, but I really want pneumatics and ball bearings under the kayak sooner rather than later, but this shoukd hold us over until I can afford to upgrade, and figure out how to.

We’ve been walking the 2.5 mile round trio to Kayak launch, kayakless, and Fiona has been gaining tons of confidence swimming after the ball into deeper water. At one point a large porpoise surfaced a few feet behind her on her return, in about 2.5’ of water, and scared the shit out of me.
Hopefully it was just curious, and not hunting.

[SternWake]

So,
I spent too long getting new 10" kayak wheels sandwiched between SS washers on each side of wheel, on the old cart with JBWelded axles, with a crinkle washer between those, to keep wheel 'tighter between the now softer stops.

I lubed the mating surfaces of wheel and hub with syl-glyde, installed the cart in Kayak, loaded Fiona in the back, and took her around the ~1km/0.58 mile block, of new ultrasmooth asphalt barking whole way, at or very near the board’s top speed. It rolled nicely, no vibrations.

After One lap, I stopped and felt the hubs, and they were by far the coolest of any similar outing with the other 2 wheel designs.

So we went around the block 2 more times full throttle, just incase anyone needed more barking at, and were were slowing significantly. it felt like the kayak was getting draggier. I stopped, checked hub temp again, still only warm, nowhere near hot, but puncture proof wheel tread were warmer, and softer.

I returned home, parked kayak, lifted Fiona out, put board on charger, felt hub and enclosure temp over battery, not very warm considering, dialed boostconverter charger upto 3 amps, aimed fan at enclosure and found, once again, Fiona had expertly rolled her ball between my feet, and was staring at it, wagging her tail.

After three dozen throws, I look at kayak wheel closest to me, and it looks a bit flat.

Saw 3.01 amps, 28.80v on wattmeter, unhooked board, loaded Fiona in back of Kayak, hit throttle, Thump thump thump…

Flat spots on wheels Crap.

Went about 1/16th a mile and turned around. It was too loud and annoying to keep going. Out comes hair drier, and at has no effect on size of the flat spots.
Hot water in a bucket with flatspot submerged, no effect.

24 hours later without further effort, and maybe, they have rebounded 15%.

But even if ithey return to round, seems like towing at 14+mph they will ways warm up, get soft, and be prone to flatspotting. Yesterday was barely 60f outside, and route is partially shaded so asphalt was not very warm either.

Come Florida summer weather and these wheels if they even return to round and become usable again, might just start smoking after a mile, if they even make it that far.

I need to come up with a far better solution.

[SternWake]

Played with the 9 unrouted Balance leads for far too long, then said F it, no matter how route them it, I’ll later wish I routed them differently.
I left some slack, soldered them to the tabs, and all a bit loose for now, as I want to get a clampmeter over them to see how the Daly BMS balances.

I am charging it from my 12vdc Deka AGMs via a 400 watt Voltage booster/step up converter.
The dekas are being floated at 13.6v with a hundred amp PFC adjustable voltage power supply, and the booster is seeing 13.32v under a 6.05 amp load, outputting 2.01 amps on its way upto 41.99v, which I dialed in unloaded.

The booster is turning nearly 6 watts into waste heat.

The Daly BMS says it starts balancing at 4.18v with 30mA max current.

Edit, somehow, with my dunce cap on, I expected 30ma would start flowing through balance leads into the lower P group(s) once 4.18 was reached on most groups

My expectations were not realized, of course, and I could not measure anything, with 8 groups at 4.20, and 2 @ 4.17, and after an hour, nothing changed, and i could detect no current with my clampmeter, nor detect any temperature change on the surface of the BMS, and those 4.17 groups stayed there.

I suppose the 30ma balancing current would only happen with a huge VDelta. and 30mv is not huge.

I am not going to leave it at 42v overnight unattended. Screw that.

I rigged up a 4.200v supply with insulated alligator clamps, hooked it to cell group 8 which reads 4.17v , and saw 200mA flow and start tapering.
My clampmeter can read down to about 40mA, it that i trust it, but its better than nothing.
I want to get all P groups within 10mV or less, then goto bed, see rested voltage in the morning. Then ill discharge the pack down to 36 or 37 volts, and work on the enclosure.

Kind of thinking more about dual 6 wire JST plugs for the occasional manual balance.

I intend to be charge mostly to 4.1v per cell, and if the Daly BMS will only passively balance with sub 30mA and only at 4.18vpc or above, I think it might be next to worthless keeping the pack balanced.

Here an LM2596 bucker is feeding Pgroup9 250mA. P group 8 and 9 were ~30mv lower. Now 8 is equal with the others and 9 is being fed.