This build is based on the following hardware:

• • https://wardriver.uk/ (J Hewitt)
  • UPDATE: New design fits both Jhewitt and WiSpy Boards.
  • The component list is here!

My Enclosure (Inspiration from Krrawn’s version here.)

• • Print Settings:
    • 20% infil
    • No Supports
    • Print orientation: Faces flat
    • 0.20 Layer height.

Enclosure Lid STL

Middle STL

Battery Pack STL

BOM:

4 x 16mm M3
4 x 8mm M3
8 x M3 x 4 x 5 Threaded Inserts.

1 x Lid STL
1 x Middle STL
1 x Battery Pack STL

1 x STEP UP, LiPo to 5v.
1 x Lipo Charger (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006514259622.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.82.652e1802qawb6a)
1 x switch (https://www.jaycar.com.au/spdt-micro-slide-switch/p/SS0834)
1 x 5000 mAh LiPo 105570

Concept

The electric car build has stalled, thus I thought I would post an update on my latest lithium battery build. This one was dreamt out of necessity. After doing a large amount of renovations on an investment property and not having power to charge batteries and run tools I decided to build myself a battery. The 2 key factors for this build were: Portability – It needed to go in and out of my Ute with ease, and Modular – I need to be able add components that I need as I go without hassle.

I decided pretty early that I was going to use the Milwaukee Packout cases. Yes they are a bit expensive, but they fit the bill for portability and modularity. Its already setup in a way that they can be clipped in and taken out easy. They also have a wide range of different cases which would fit my build perfectly.

Battery Box

The idea is to have a battery as the main component. For the battery I used the Packout toolbox 48-22-84-8424. I chose this case because of its rugged design and the additional stabilizing/protection that it has on the sides. You should be able to drop this on a corner and it will not break. This case features a 4 x Lifepo4 Prismatic cells, a BMS, an active balance board, temp sensors, Fuses and circuit breakers. A link cable is used from a 120A Anderson connector to connect to the control box. However you can use this box independently if required.

Control Box

The control box is used to breakout additional 12v Accessories. As you can probably see from the battery case, it is limited on inputs and outputs. This control box features 4 x 50A Anderson Outputs, 1 x 120A Anderson output (Connected via a 200A contactor), A 2.1A USB and CIG plug. All of these outputs are fused and controlled via a little tactile switch panel with relays. A link cable from the battery plugs into the side. The control panel can be remoted away from the packout via a 2m cable. I plan to put some magnets on it and route to the back of the ute for easy access.

Solar Charger Box

The solar control box will house a Victron MPPT charger and hopefully a DC-DC to assist charging from the vehicle. I am yet to build this one. TBC

Inverter Box

I have a 1000W Renogy Inverter to put into a box and breakout. The reason for the 1000W Renogy and not larger is because of the 120A limit of the BMS and Anderson connectors. At full draw, we should be seeing 90-100A @ 12v.

Other Potential Boxes to build

• Water Pump
• Compressor

If anyone has any other ideas I am all ears!

What is SWR?

Straight from the wiki: In radio engineering and telecommunications, standing wave ratio (SWR) is a measure of impedance matching of loads to the characteristic impedance of a transmission line or waveguide. Impedance mismatches result in standing waves along the transmission line, and SWR is defined as the ratio of the partial standing wave’s amplitude at an antinode (maximum) to the amplitude at a node (minimum) along the line. Data found here.

In normal people speak: When a radio transmits, not all the energy exits the antenna. Depending on how well the antenna works, some energy reflects back to the transmitter. Ultimately we want no RF waves/energy being reflected.

Antenna Tests:

RAK 8dBi
Notes: @ 915Mhz SWR 1.29:1 – 30 day stats up. I seem to have a fair few more invalid-witness than compared to a hotspot of equal height/locality using the RAK 5.8dBi

NEBRA Stock 3dBi Antenna
Notes: @ 915Mhz SWR 1.18:1 – Noticeable changes when the antenna is bent at a right angle.

RAK 5.8dBi Antenna
Notes: @ 915Mhz SWR 1.13:1 – Tested a fair bit better than the 8dBi variant. Will be interesting to see how it performs compared to 8 dBi after 30 days.

Who else is testing antennas?

These guys are! – Helium ACT has tested a bunch of antennas including the McGills 6dBi. Will be interesting to see how my results compare. Of note, they mention the right angle of the smaller 3dBi type antennas. I actually ended up with better results when bent to 90deg! Go figure.

Also, if you want to capture some decent historic stats for your setup. Check this website out! https://helium.hiker.rocks/ I used it to make some correlations between invalid witnesses and the type of antenna used.

V2.0.0 Alpha GUI!

Ever needed to compress an image down to a reasonable size for use on a web server? or to send over a slow link? We have tried multiple image compression apps and this one easily takes the top prize. Matteo @ SaeraSoft has been working hard on this application in his spare time and I believe is onto something good here. I’ll try sum up the features quickly for you here:

1. Batch Compress – compress multiple files and folders easily
2. Set Quality levels – You determine the compression you want.
3. Preview Images – Self explanatory
4. Online App – If you don’t want to use the app, you can always log on and use the web version.

Matteo is currently working on a V2 (Alpha) version of the software which is again leaps and bounds improved on the original version. You can check out V2 on his github page! If you have a spare few $$ to donate to his cause, I’m sure he would be much appreciative! Donate here.

What is the Onefinity CNC?

The Onefinity (1F) is a different take on a Desktop CNC from the guys here. They market this particular machine as “reinventing the CNC experience” and for good reason. The biggest difference between this machine and others is the fact that they use hardened steel cylindrical shafts on all axis with ball screws to provide the motion. No belts, no wheels, just solid movement across all axis. This system seems very robust and can operate at higher speeds than using wheels and belts. With better accuracy as well!

Step 1: The Enclosure.

Even before getting the new 1F Woodworker into the workshop I decided to get an enclosure built. My aim here was to enclose the whole CNC so that I could put a job on and actually hear my own thoughts in the shop. Not sure if you have heard a spindle cutting at high speeds, but it can be loud! The enclosure needed to be solid. This is what we ended up with.

Step 2: Attaching the Onefinity

Most setup videos will guide you through attaching the 1F to a wooden base, however I was not sold on this idea and had a few lengths of Aluminum V-slot hanging around. It turns out the mounting holes on the 1F marry up nicely to the slots and I was able to use some T-Nuts to secure. The Vslot itself is secured to the wooden top using some large coach bolts at either end.

Step 3: Spindle

The default 1F build comes with a Makita Hand router that mounts into a 65mm spindle mount. These are very loud routers and decided early to go with a VFD controlled spindle. This kind of setup is not supported by Onefinity, however they do now sell an 80mm Spindle mount which will accommodate most 1.5kw and 2.2kw spindles. I ended up purchasing a 1.5kw water cooled spindle and HuanYang VFD. The spindle comes with an ‘aviation’ type 4 pin connector. These are ok, but decided to upgrade to a more robust connector. Whilst I was at it, I checked to make sure the spindle had Pin 4 connected to ground. Often these Chinese spindles do not have an earth connected which can be dangerous in a fault situation.

step 4: Electronics and Wiring

I’ll try and keep this brief, however the electronics and wiring can be broken up into a few areas: (CONSULT AN ELECTRICIAN!)

VFD and Spindle: The VFD requires a single phase 240v input, I ran the main input through an RCBO and up to the VFD, This provides some protection to the user, I also made sure all parts of the spindle, frame and router itself were earthed. From the VFD I wired a shielded control cable up through the cable management to the Spindle. This is a 3 phase 220v cable and needs some caution when running and connecting.

AC-DC for 12V Components: We also wired in a Mean Well AC-DC power supply to provide 12v DC to the LED Lights and the Spindle cooling pump.

X/Y Servo Motor extension cables: The cables supplied by 1F are not long enough to run through cable management, thus we had to build our own. The pinouts and types of connectors are readily available in the Onefinity forums. We made one piece cables so that no connections were being made inside the drag chains.

1F CNC Controller: This uses a singular 240v (or 110v) IEC cable depending where you are in the world. These are pretty common.

Earthing: All earthing, including the VFD comes back to a service earth bar.

Step 5: Everything else!

What is left! Spoilboard, some surfacing of said spoil board, some cladding for the frame. etc etc. I’ll update this when it’s complete. In the meantime enjoy the rest of the pics from the build.

My Failures…

Batteries

Thanks to my good mate Leon at Lithium Power we were able to source 6 x Tesla 24v modules. At this stage the plan is to only use 5 modules, leaving 1 as a spare. Leon also chucked in a few adapter boards he designed for easy integration to the BMS. I’m pretty sure I’ll be going with the ZEVA BMS, however that is yet to be purchased.

Flywheel and Clutch

I often get asked why I am using a clutch and flywheel combo. The answer for me is pretty simple. Its for safety. Attaching the electric motor direct to the flywheel will allow me to mechanically disconnect the drive in the event of fault or failure. As soon as I push the clutch in, the drive is disconnected. The alternate to this would be to attach the electric motor direct to the input shaft on the gearbox via a coupler. I am not a fan of this method. We obviously will lose some efficiencies by using the flywheel, however after weighing it all up, I decided upon continuing with the flywheel and clutch setup.

Flywheel Coupler

The coupler is a pretty important part of the build and mates the output shaft of the electric motor to the flywheel. I originally purchased an interference fit blank from CAN EV (Canada). This coupler needs to be machined to suit and as it sits now I have a few 3D printed models to test my drawings.

Adapter Plate Update

I was delaying the production of the adapter plate as I ended up ordering a new lightened flywheel and clutch combo. I wanted to make sure that all the dimension were all good. I only have 1 chance at this adapter plate and want to get it right. Fingers crossed now that football season is finished we can make some real progress in this space.

Hyper9 Specs

Just in case anyone was wandering about the specs of the Hyper 9 electric motor. Check out the pic. If I had the $$ to bolt two of these together I would!

Now what?

Bench test! Adapter plate! Batteries Boxes! Cabling, Wiring, Mounts….the list goes on.

Donor Vehicle

So many choices! But the vehicle had to meet a few criteria. The first being the ‘weight’ of the vehicle. No point choosing a super-heavy vehicle and trying to push that around using an electric motor. The donor needed to be lightweight.

The second criteria were the driveline and gearbox type. I opted for a rear-wheel drive, manual vehicle. By far the easiest conversion is the adaption of an electric motor directly onto the manual gearbox. This may not be the most efficient, however by using the gearbox, flywheel, and clutch we have a manual disconnect from the electric motor, and for me having this safety disconnect is a big selling point in using this method. Push in the clutch and the electric drive is disengaged. Some enthusiasts will say that a direct connection to the input shaft of the gearbox is just as good and will argue that it’s more efficient, however being a DIY build, I feel safety trumps the efficiencies that I may lose.

So, what vehicle could we have chosen? A popular choice is the VW Beetle, you can buy kits to bolt up to these straight away. probable convert in a day if you had the right tools. However, I wanted something different. I have always loved the Gemini scene here in Australia, some of the turbo race Geminis go pretty hard. I ended up settling on this little ‘Grandma Spec’ TD Wagon. I chose the wagon as I felt it fit the criteria, heaps of rear space for some batteries and the total weight of the car is around the 900kg mark. Nice and light! It’s also a rear-wheel drive with a manual transmission.

Tear Down

To keep this short and sweet, the teardown was actually the easiest part. Say goodbye to a few of the major offending components. The combustion engine, fuel tank, exhaust, and associated components. For now, I’m keeping the brake system and as many of the stock ancillaries as possible. The idea will be to continue running a 12v battery to run a lot of the original electrics. This will help come during approval/engineering time. Check out the gallery below for a few before and after shots.

Electric Motor Choice

I’m no expert on electric motors, but I’ll try and sum up what I have learned and why I ended up choosing the Netgain Hyper 9 motor for my build. First of all, we should chat about the types of electric motors. For Electric Vehicles, you typically will find the following types:

• DC Series Motor
• DC Brushless Motor
• Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM)
• Three Phase AC Induction Motor
• Switched Reluctance Motors (SRM)

Each type of motor has pros and cons depending on how it is used. There are WAY too many factors to discuss in this blog post why one is better than the other. However, we can chat about which vehicles currently have what. The Tesla Model S is probably the best example and runs an  AC Induction Motor. We can assume that you get some high performance out if this type of motor. We can also assume that it comes at a cost! You will find DC Brushless motors in electric bikes and skateboards. A bit cheaper, but possibly not as efficient when pushing heavier loads? I’m sure discussions on Motor types will continue as technology advances. What would you have chosen?

The motor we ended going for was the Netgain Hyper 9. Netgain has penned it as a 3 Phase AC, Synchronous Reluctance Internal Permanent Magnet Motor. The sales pitch is here:

The HyPer 9 Integrated System (IS) is the ideal power-train for any light to mid-weight daily driver. Combine multiple systems for heavy-weight and racing vehicles. Its Synchronous Reluctance Internal Permanent Magnet (SRIPM) platform delivers outstanding torque and efficiency, generating higher power per pound than any other motor in its class. The HyPer 9 IS includes the 100V brushless HyPer 9 Motor, HyPer-Drive X1 Controller/Inverter, SmartView Programming Software, Low Voltage Wire Harness Kit, and Main Contactor. This system has many unique features that set it apart from any other EV solution on the market.

More details and drawings also found here.

Adapter Plate

The next item on the agenda is the adapter plate. These plates are pretty common amongst the DIY EV crew. The concept is to use a plate that precisely aligns the new electric motor to the input shaft of the gearbox. If using a flywheel and clutch, then it will align the electric motor both horizontally and vertically to mimic the exact position of the original combustion engine. A coupler is then used to attach the output shaft of the electric motor to the flywheel or input shaft of the transmission. Depending on what method you use. In my case, it’s the coupler onto the flywheel.

As you can see from my measuring attempts, I still have a LOT of work to do on my adapter plate. Check out my progress though. Any advice is much appreciated.

What’s next…

Well, that concludes the first part of this build. It’s going to be a slow process but I promise I’ll keep the blog up to date as I progress. Feel free to comment below. Anything constructive I’ll take on board.

• More Adapter Plate work
• Battery (Save, Source, Setup, and Test)
• Wiring Looms
• Charging Systems (Main Battery, 12v System)
• A whole LOT of stuff I don’t know I need to do…

Prerequisites:

1 x VM running Ubuntu 20.04 – I tested using a Cloud Compute server on VULTR, but you could use any VM that is on the same network as the RPi.

1 x RPi – As long as the RPi is on the same network it will be good to go. I tested over a VPN and it worked also.

Software Stack:

Influxdb – As usual the time series database.

Grafana – My favorite program for displaying this kind of data.

Telegraf – A plugin server agent for collecting and passing hardware metrics such as CPU, Temps, RAM, Storage, etc…

Install InfluxDb on VM/Host

Install Grafana on VM/Host

Install Telegraf on Raspberry Pi (RPi)

Configuration – Telegraf on RPi

Telegraf.conf

Configuration – InfluxDB on VM/Host

Configuration – Grafana

Navigate to your Grafana Install: http://<server-ip-address>:3000

Login: default login is admin:admin

The first step is to add the Influxdb data source:

The second step is to import the Dashboard – We used this dashboard from the Grafana Library:

https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/10578/reviews Props to Jorge

To import the dashboard, navigate to DASHBOARD > MANAGE > IMPORT

Insert 10578 into the field and click ‘Load’

Make sure you then select the datasource to associate with the dashboard.

You should now be greeted with a Dashboard that is connected to the RPi.

The rest is now up to you! Add multiple RPi’s. You can switch between them at the top of the Dashboard.

A big thanks to Dorian Machado and his article. Also Jorge de la Cruz and his Dashboard! These guys did the real heavy lifting.

Oh and yes I could have done this whole install on Docker/Portainer and I most likely will go down that route, but for now, this is the down-and-dirty version line by line.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Server Installed on a VM or PC.
• A Batrium Watchmon on the same network as your VM/PC.
• Node-Red Flow (JSON file) Download Here.
• Grafana Dashboard (JSON File) Download Here.

Step 1 – Update/Upgrade

Step 2 – Install Grafana

Step 3 – Install InfluxDB and Chronograf

INFLUXDB Install

CHRONOGRAF Install (Not Essential, but good for fault finding.)

CREATE INFLUX DATABASE (For use with Grafana)

Step 4 – Install Node-Red

NODE-RED BOOT ON STARTUP

Step 5 – Configure Node-Red

Once Node-Red is installed we need a few additional packages installed to allow Node-Red to interpret the UDP data coming from the Batrium Watchmon. The 3 packages are:

• Binary-Parser (Install via Linux CLI)
• node-red-contrib-influxdb (Installed in Node-Red GUI)
• node-red-dashboard (Installed in Node-Red GUI)

The latter two items can be installed via the “Manage Palette” function in the Node-Red Settings. The Binary Parser function needs to be installed via the CLI.

Now you need to import the Flow into Node-Red. You can download the flow here. Of note here is that this flow is set up to listen for the Batrium UDP data on port 18542. We opened up this UDP port during the Node-Red install. This flow is also set up for a string of 14 longmons. If you have more as I do, then you will need to edit some of the nodes to reflect this.

We now need to configure a couple of nodes in Node-Red. The main configuration is pointing node-red influx flow to the database we created after we installed influxDB. In this tutorial we created a database called “batrium” and we know that the port for influx is 8086.

Now we need to Deploy the Node-Red flow and check the debug tab for any errors. If you see some “TypeErrors” then it is usually because the Binary-Parser was not installed correctly. Also, you can toggle the green msg.payload debug filters on and off to see the data being received in the debug window.

Step 6 – Configure Grafana

We now need to set up Grafana. In a nutshell, we need to do two things. First, add the influxdb data source. Secondly, import the Dashboard that Mr @Wolf has been nice enough to allow us to share. You can find a copy of the JSON file here.

Setup Data Source:

Import Dashboard:

Depending on your battery type, amount of longmons, etc. you will need to play around with the visualization. If you have come this far I’ll let you figure out your ideal settings.

Step 7 – Configure Home Assistant

We are going to add the Grafana dashboard into Home Assistant using an embed from Grafana. Log back into your Grafana instance and locate the share button on your dashboard.

Find the Grafana Dashboard share/embed tab:

Use the link created in Grafana to create a new entity in HA. I also append the following to my link to ensure it opens in ‘fullscreen’ and ‘kiosk’ mode in HA. &kiosk&fullscreen 

If your dashboard does not show up in HA, read on below to fix.

Dashboard embed fix – From what I have found online, most users report that just enabling the ‘allow_embedding = true’ function sorted the issue. I had to allow anonymous logins also. But that is probably because I have not set up a user in Grafana for Home Assistant. Use the anonymous logins at your own risk.

Well it’s been emotional, thanks for sticking with me. If you find something wrong here let me know and I’ll fix it up asap. I hope it helps and again, thanks to the contributors.

Recognition

https://github.com/Bloats/Powerwall-stuff – Bloats for the original Flow

https://secondlifestorage.com/showthread.php?tid=8645&pid=59143 – Of course, the Second Life Storage Forum!

https://discourse.nodered.org/t/flow-to-decode-binary-data-and-a-walk-through-on-how-to-install-the-npm-module/5174 – Binary-Parser info

https://github.com/daromer2 – For his initial work with the UDP listener!

Ok, so what do I use VULTR for? Well, this web page for starters. VULTR is a cloud computing service that allows you to run up virtual servers that can be tailored to your liking. You can choose from many settings:

• Server Locations
• Server Types (OS, ISO, Pre Configured, One-Click)
• Server Sizes (Cores, Ram, Bandwidth)
• and much more…

I use VULTR for all kinds of development tasks, it is much easier to use the simple interface they provide to get a server up and running, then to run it locally! I get my own unique IP address and voila, off I go. The one-click create, install, and destroy is super helpful and whenever I stuff something up I can either go back to a snapshot or re-install and start over. No messing around with SD cards in Raspberry Pi’s, no messing with hardware.

If you want to run a VPN instance, within a couple of clicks you can. If your desire is to run a Ubuntu Server on the version of your choice in minutes! Its that’s easy. If I can do it then so can you.

For a limited time, VULTR is offering $100 worth of server time for free…

(This may expire soon! Get in quick.)