Yup, now that I see it in practice, “serious” is much better.
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Hi there.
I tried printing some enclosure as well.
But I kind of struggle to finish it for months.
First it was supposed to be enclosure for a 12s7p pack out of 18650 cells:
Cells were supposed to have welded tabs then glued and soldered to a PCB, thick silicone wires soldered to PCB along with thin balance wires, which would sneak between the PCB and the deck to connect between 4 of those and 5th enclosure for electronics.
I couldn’t figure out a good way to guide those cables in a good way without printing some thicc lid or cutting a channel in the deck.
Anyway I would barely fit all those cells under the deck, no space for electronics enclosure at all, so I gave up on this amount of cells, decided to go for 12s5p instead and dumped the previous design.
So new design.
I still want to use welded tabs to cells then soldered to some PCB, but now PCB is going between enclosure and cells so I have good access to the channel inside:
PS this is a unfinished enclosure so it’s missing mounting holes etc.
Now that I have some spare space between the cells I can put there my wires.
But I’m stuck again.
How do I get wires through holes in enclosure so that these can move a bit when deck is flexing but also it’s water tight?
Or should I just have them fixed with tight grommets and not worry about them breaking?
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If the wire is close to the surface of the board then even when it flexes the wire doesn’t stretch.
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Was thinking about that and that could work but only with not so thick wires as there’s not much space.
What gauge wire should I use assuming I have 5p of NCR18650GA with constant 10A and peak 20A?
I can do math on that or look up some table but in reality we’re not running that much current anyways.
Also what kind of grommets should I use?
I think I’d need some triple ones because I won’t fit three cables(two main current wires and one multicore cable for balance wires).
Can you guys post pictures of various techniques you use to securely get wires through your cases?
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Does this help? I have used this for over 600km already and haven’t had a single issue.
Can you explain the 1.2mm thick thing?
I’ve been playing with the amazing power of vase mode for non-vase objects. Stuff like multiple adjacent walls for a bit of stiffness, printing in flex, trying parametric design so things a repeatable without so much hand manipulation. So fast!
Inspired by this for those that are curious. The g-code preview is so interesting!
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I just had the line thickness set to 0.6 mm and the model itself was 1.2mm thick, so while it was in the vase mode, the walls were touching and fusing with each other with no hole inside. The model was split in 5 parts to make it slightly easier to print, although I could have probably done 2 parts just fine.
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I quess I can post here my shitty creationg despite it’s most likely worst enclosure here.
It’s used just for the lipo battery with padding around it. Non-removable. Printed from PETG. Walls are only 2mm thick (wanted to print it fast). Also I forgot to raise the temperature on the printer for stronger (and uglier) print. It held surprisingly well. However once I started testing my board on rough roads and throwing it on the ground, it failed.
Wall thickness of 2mm was probably enough, because I think that once small cracks start to from, it would fail even if thicker. What would improve the strength of the enclosure would be to cover it with some glue.
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What is that battery system?
Nice enclosure. I have that same deck.
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I’ll post some soon!
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As per @mishrasubhransu 's request here’s my experience with 3dprinted enclosures-
The 1st board I ever had a 3d printed enclosure on was this guy-
It was a heavily modified version of an enclosure I found on thingiverse. It was printed at around 20-35% infill (can’t remember exactly what what infill used) and was printed from inland pla. It eventually started cracking around the screw holes and if I would do it again I would print it in 100% infill and increase the thickness of the enclosure itself.
This was my second board with a 3d printed enclosure-
This enclosure was designed by @Toughook and i modified it to be just a bit smaller in the width. It was printed in 100% infill from esun pla+/pro and was then sanded,sprayed with filler-primer and painted with rustolium textured spray paint. The board that it’s on is still used daily and the enclosure is holding up great!
here is the 3rd board have built with a 3d printed enclosure-
This was enclosure was a custom design! It has 6mm thick walls all around so it should be super tough! It was printed in 100% infill from esun pla+/pro (my favorite all around filiment). It was then sanded, sprayed with filler-primer and painted with rustolium truck bed liner spray. The board that it’s on was just recently completed so I don’t have a verdict on how durable it is just yet but I suspect it will hold up just fine!
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Enclosure printed in TPU. Check out the build.
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Printing a dimension modded version of this anyone else print this? Should it be printed on its side?
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Yes, it clearly has been designed to be printed on the side.
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This is the third enclosure I have designed and printed. It fits the contour of a sector nine shoots 33” deck. This was printed, merged together, skinned inside and out with fiberglass.
Here’s what I learned over the last few 3D printed enclosures.
PLA+, PETG and ABS all cracked around the mounting bolts on prior split enclosures that supported the weight of the battery. If your components are mounted to the deck, you’ll take a ton of stress off the enclosure vs having things in the enclosures.
Take off youR 0.4 nozzle and put on a 0.6-1.0 nozzle. Layer height 0.3-0.4.
Most enclosures are poorly designed for 3D printing. All vanguard style split enclosures should have the cavity of the enclosure printed separate from the mounting ring. This substantially reduces print time and removes the need for supports. Then the mounting ring can be glued to the cavity. Bonus if you taper the sides of the enclosure so the ring essentially press fits on. I ran like this for a while on the previous enclosure without issues.
Fiberglass- laying up FG cloth by hand at home is pretty simple. A single layer inside or out of your enclosure is a substantial improvement in strength. Even just coating with epoxy makes a big difference. 3D printing alone most of the time falls short of the durability I need, a little FG fixes that with minimal work or cost.
Also, I used to print enclosures with around 5mm thickness. Now I’m printing them with 2.5-3mm thickness which saves time and then fiberglass handles the strength once all together.
Here’s the enclosure I just finished. I’ll measure and post the files if anyone wants. Sector nine 33 in deck to fit 10S3P. The divots in the design were only 1.5 mm deep, they’re visible and came out great. Will make them 2.5 next time
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That’s a nice one.