Hmm yeah I couldn’t either and didn’t think to look for it in the title, so unfortunately not. I’m gonna have to glue it on
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just get the adhesive lined one and use the other in places where adhesion doesn’t matter
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08266TLDQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_GAYeFb67GGJ8F
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You’re in the home stretch it’s a tidy build I am excited to see it come together. The hummie deck looks awesome on drop throughs. What’s your clearance like with the 110s?
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Thx I’ll pick it up later
Thanks! I’m excited too! I really want the drop through to work for the stability and the super thin build look. I’m not sure what the clearance will be quite yet, hopefully not too bad. I don’t want to have to do top mount if I can help it, although it would give the motors more clearance too
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Well apparently the nickel strips came already, woohoo! Higher Wire energy apparently ships very fast within the US. Probably just gonna do a spark test on this because I don’t wanna wait and the last batch was pure. I got 20’ this time because last time, 10’ was used in the first 6 parallel packs.
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Well. Tonight I finished spot welding the pack, and wow that took longer than I expected. My fingers are a bit tired from getting scorched for two hours, but all of the welds are done. I’ll post more pics of the P groups after I wrap them in paper and finish charging them up.
Next session will be an intense soldering one, all of the series connections are going to take quite some time. Have to charge up all the parallel packs first though. Not sure if this charger is supposed to be able to do this or not, but it seems to be working fine. It’s a little sketch but since the charger only does 0.5a x 4, it’s not a big deal to use alligator leads.
Most of my cells are already at 4.1 ish volts, but there were a few sets down at 3.7, so I figured I’d just charge them all up to full since I hope to ride it within a week or so after I finish soldering together the series connections.
In the meantime, I ordered some carbon fiber vinyl wrap for the enclosure, and I think this stuff is gonna look pretty amazing.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L9J4JRG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Started working on soldering together some series connections today. No, they don’t look like the most perfect thing in the world, but they will perform just fine and I don’t expect to have any issues with current capabilities or transmission.
Main pack positive 10AWG silicon wire
Had to break out my good 'ol Weller wall solder station to do all these, these cables really soak up the heat quickly. Kind of a pain to be honest, but once I started the 12AWG for the in-pack series connections, it got a little easier. After soldering together, the individual series groups do seem to have the little bit of flex that I was going for.
I do kind of regret not reading the listing all the way when I bought my fishpaper, because I’ve had to hotglue it all on. It’s really not that bad, but adhesive stuff would be easier for sure.
!
20200722_205152|375x500
Sidenote: the yellow stuff on the solder joints is just some flux that I cba to clean up, it shouldn’t affect anything really
The rest of my cells are still working their way up to 4.20v on the charger, so I was only able to do 4 series tonight, the 5th one is almost charged, and 6th is ready to be connected. The rest, well they’ve still got some time to go.
This is super exciting though! I have basically everything to make this board work and the time for assembly is getting close. Based on where the series wires are on my pack, I may have to end up putting it in the board the opposite vertical orientation as I had originally planned, but that’s not a big deal, I have plenty of neoprene to pack in there.
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Yeah I was thinking about doing that originally, but I decided I didn’t need the space and would rather have less space to fill with packing material.
The Hummie also flexes a little bit and I thought the flat way instead of staggered would work better for the bit of flex
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Fair call.
I battled with fitting everything into my Hummie, but single stack so took more space.
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Yeah the components in the esc section will be basically swimming in space in this DS haha honestly it’s a great problem to have. This much extra space AND a 12s7p battery. Honestly I probably could have fit a 12s8p but eh, it’s gonna be heavy enough and I’m 90% sure the board’s range will outlast my body’s
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Another night, another package, another sit down of soldering. Finished up one side of the pack tonight and got two series sets of the other side together. The last four series packs are all charging, hopefully they finish up by tomorrow afternoon and I can finish soldering the pack together! Very exciting.
Honestly I don’t know what I was expecting, but it’s funny seeing the 9999 on the charger - if you do the math, 3000 mAh x 7 is 21000 mAh. Considering that set was probably at 3.7v, it makes sense. Anyway, I’m happy this charging method is working out well.
6 Series groups
While I’ve had a few little things I can improve for the next pack, I’m still pretty proud of it - I’ll be building more in the future, and jeez, next time I do a 4p+ pack, I am not using thin (10mm) nickel strips. Must use 25 or 30mm lol this took way too long to do 6 strips per parallel set
I don’t 100% know if I will use these Bergs right off the bat on this board, bc I really want the range, but I had to pick up this deal. They’re so pretty - and the blue fits the theme. If I find a way to make it a super easy swap between the 110’s and the bergs, I’ll do it, but for the initial months or rides it will have the 110’s
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Before you look any further, I know that it isn’t perfect but bear with me lol
I know I could have spent more time making the fishpaper not look helter-skelter, but I didn’t. Deal with it. 
Anyway, I basically finished my battery today - took another 5 hours of soldering and tedious annoying work. Next battery I build will consider different methods to make it less tedious. Pics time!
Took forever for the last few parallel packs to charge up, but I got them wrapped up and started soldering em together.
Laid them out next to each other to get a feel for what it would look like in the end
By now I realized that there wasn’t any way that the series wires would fit all together pressed into the Hummie cutout, so gotta flip it over so the smaller side is in the cutout. No big deal really, just not what the original plan was. Another realization that I had was that I’d definitely need fishpaper all the way around the sides of each group of cells to protect them from shorting on other things.
I shoved all the balance leads into the cells just to check all the voltages and make sure that I was gonna set up the balance leads in the correct order. Everything ended up checking out, so from here on, I started soldering them all up.
I ended up soldering all of the balance leads on the positive sides of the cells, and added some little fishpaper bits and hot glue to secure each of them.
About halfway through soldering on all the balance wires. I realized I’d have to extend four of them as I was going through but wanted to keep going anyway. Lots of time between the last photo and this one.
At some point between the last photo and the next one, I soldered the series connection between 6 and 7.
Lots more time organizing and extending the necessary wires between last photo and this. Honestly I think it looks pretty good and the balance wires in the middle have a perfect channel to run through.
Next, I had to do something with the main pack leads, and in my circumstance, I’ll be doing a charge only Smart BMS. Thus, battery negative into B- and B+ to load and charge+ and then charge- into C- on the BMS. I haven’t soldered up the charge port or loop key yet so there’s some unpopulated ports. I used this diagram for the notes because I couldn’t remember off the top of my head, however, this diagram is a discharge configuration, so obviously I had to change that.
The B- on the bms uses a solder trace to go between the two connections and I didn’t really trust it to hold 100A so I added an additional 12AWG wire between the two B- connection spots. I put some hot glue on it and fishpaper on top between it and the heatsink before closing it back up. A miscellaneous note - I stuck one of the thermistor probes about mid way in the pack, and I plan to stick the other one on the BMS heatsink or the heatsink for the MakerX (on its way)
After soldering that and closing it up, I proceeded to drop the battery on the ground. Just kidding… No really, I was attempting to place the extremely unwieldy pack into the hummie deck to fit check, and somehow it ended up on the ground. I was fuming 
Fortunately, everything held up just fine and I was happy I had taped all of the balance leads well so there were no issues. It took a few minutes to untangle it, after which I added the tape across each alternating P group. This made it a lot easier to pick up and flip over into the hummie deck.
The fishpaper looks a little bit uncomfortable, I won’t lie to you, but it will do its job perfectly, and realistically, you guys are the only ones that will see the inside, so whatever. If I was making it for someone else I would have pre-cut all the fishpaper so it looked better in the end.
Anyway, the whole reason of putting it in was to fit check and move on with the build.
The phase wire routing might be a little tricky, and of course like normal the sensor wires are barely long enough, but I think this configuration will end up working out.
Wowow things are getting exciting! Can’t wait to get this finished up.
Surprisingly there is still quite a bit left. Loop key, charge port, all the threaded inserts, padding, skinning the enclosure, etc.
For the loop key, I think I’m gonna use @mmaner 's low profile XT-90S mount, but I will have to see how much the loop key will stick out because it might have pretty low ground clearance. It’s printing right now. I saw one the other day in another thread that mounts right in front of the rear truck, which after checking my wiring, I think it would fit. However, I have no idea where the file is, anyone know?
Exciting times - hopefully I can finish this build this week so the batteries don’t have to sit at 4.2v for too long. I really just need to figure out the loop key location so I can solder the wires at the right length and get a test done on the electronics with 12s. I’m curious what my motor kV actually is and how close it will be to 60k eRPM
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I see you put fishpaper rings on the cells to prevent both sides from shorting with one another, but that still looks pretty sketch to me. Sometimes the fishpaper rings fall off. I would highly suggest you try to heatshrink both sides separately, or try to put some non-conductive barrier in the middle.
Love the detailed progress report! 
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This may be in the thread somewhere so sorry if I’m asking twice but why did you go with the MakerX Retro rather than one of their offerings with hardware v6?
This is a great point. I also have a full layer of fishpaper on the inside of each set, so currently two layers of fishpaper separate the two sides. However, I do have some yellow hardboard stuff that I intend to put between the two, the full length.
Originally I wanted to use heatshrink but I got the wrong size and I don’t wanna wait 3 weeks to finish this now.
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1: Price, 2: Size, 3: I’ve heard the SV6 has had some weird issues. Mostly those reasons
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It feels like I say this every day but I’m seriously getting so close to finishing.
First things first, I took @rusins suggestion and put non-conductive material between all of the series group joints in the middle. I don’t think anything would happen, but it’s preventative and I’d rather not have to open this pack any time soon.
I finished up all of the miscellaneous soldering and wiring today as well, plugged in my BMS, got my app configured, etc.
Made this nice little split for the charge port positive. I know 12AWG is way excessive for the 10a the charge port will ever see, but it’s what I had. I’ll put a fuse into this line before I close it up.
Stuck an XT-90 on the pack main negative and ran the positive lead to the output of the loop key
I like having heatshrink, but sometimes the wires are too short and it will shrink before you can finish soldering, and in those cases, the XT-90 wire covers just kinda feel right. Had to switch the XT-60 on the MakerX to XT-90
Got the other wire soldered up to the receiving end of the loop key port. I soldered both of these at 90 degrees since I decided to go with the drop-through-hole-mounted XT-90S.
Did a quick test power on with all of the wires finished up and it worked! No real surprise but it’s always reassuring to see.
Went on a little CAD journey to make the drop through mount. I originally printed @mmaners’s design but it was gonna be too big, so V1 I printed to fit-check, almost nailed dimensions first try but not quite.
V2 and V3 are basically the same except V3 has the final dimensions (increased hole size like 0.5mm) to fit the connector and hole better.
V3 with a test fit into the hole on the board
I have to say, this does look pretty clean. Next, since it fit alright, it was time to glue it up. I noticed that the connector did get a little bit deformed from the kingpin bolt, but it only got deformed at the bottom so not really a big deal. I used CA glue to affix the connector into the 3D printed part, and then a combination of CA glue and “The Last Glue” to affix the combination into the hole on the board.
After that, I covered the connections with silicon to prevent water and gunk from getting in.
I do kind of wish I had made the wires black instead of red, but it’s not that awful because most of it will be covered. If it ends up bothering me that much I’ll sharpie them or something.
This should be pretty close to the final wire layout, and I’m happy everything fits pretty well.
The enclosure is lifted quite a bit here because of the MR-60s and phase wire placement. I think this will sort out once I get the padding on and start making the mounting holes. Not really too worried about it
Did a re-setup on the MakerX GoFoc Retro with the 12S battery and switched the motors over to BLDC. Not sure if I want to run FOC or BLDC yet… Anyway, I took @YUTW123 advice from before and updated the bootloaders, and I was able to update to FW5.1 on both sides. Had to do it individually but motor detection worked across CAN.
I have a bit of blue and black nylon tubing that I’ll probably put the phase wires into to keep them tidy. Other than that, I have to drill and set all of the inserts and then skin the enclosure, and I’ll be pretty much done! Can’t wait to hop on this
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Ran into a bit of a temporary roadblock tonight, but I’ll report progress anyway.
First thing I did tonight was the enclosure skin with the vinyl that I bought - it went pretty well but maybe not as well as I would have hoped. The result is a subtle touch of carbon fiber that you’ve gotta really look at to understand.
I searched for a little while to find an SR-71 graphic, and found a top down silhouette, then threw it into Photoshop on a canvas about the size of my enclosure, then printed it out on two sheets of paper and cut it out.
This photo is the printout taped onto the back of the vinyl, which is taped to a board so I could cut it out with my exacto.
After about 10 minutes of meticulous cutting, I got the design cut out.
In order to adhere properly, I cleaned all my work hands fingerprints off with some alcohol
After installing, I had my first real look at my work. The install was actually quite easy, but it took a little while to get it straight.
I still have a ton of vinyl left, and I felt like it could use a little more, so I added a straight strip at the top and I quite like it. This was much more difficult to put on because I had to go around the corners at the top. This was my first time skinning anything so I was obviously a bit inexperienced and didn’t have an application squigee.
There’s still some ripples in the front one but I did my best to get them out. I think it looks pretty awesome
I wonder if maybe a clearcoat of some protective polyurethane or something would help protect the vinyl from being damaged - might consider adding that in the future.
Next thing was installing the threaded inserts, again something I haven’t bothered doing up until this point. Screws through the deck aren’t really an eyesore to me so I’ve just always done that - they can’t fall out or anything either.
I read through most of the threaded inserts thread, and because I didn’t want to mess up my deck, I did a test one. It seems like they’re gonna be decently hard to install but not too bad. I understand now why people were saying the brass ones strip occasionally, I tried installing this one with a big flathead and it kinda skipped off and broke.
In order to prepare for the inserts anyway, I drilled all of the holes through the enclosure and tapped them into the deck so I could then open them up to the 17/64 size required for the inserts. I used a 5/32 bit to do this since I’m using M4 bolts and it’s about the right size for their through-hole installation.
As I was sitting on the ground reading the threaded inserts thread, I found @longhairedboy’s video on installing a threaded insert on instagram with a washer and a regular screw, which is a much better way than using a big flathead. I’ll be using that method to install them tomorrow, however, I also read in that thread that it’s a good idea to use epoxy on the threads to make sure they don’t come loose.
@b264 recommended JBWeld 8265-s original formula so I’m gonna pick up some of that from Home Depot tomorrow along with some M4 setscrews for my motor pulleys if I can find them. If anyone has any other recommendations on threaded insert installation, throw them my way, I’m all ears.
One final shot of the board as it is right now, all of the threaded insert holes are drilled out to 17/64 and ready for installation.
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the LHB method in that video is the way.
The slot in the insert should be downwards into the deck, because it helps cut threads into the timber. With a flathead in the slot like your test would be difficult.
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