In Truck Charging Station

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I am in the process of building an in truck charging station that will charge 3 batts at once. I have proof of concept, as I have been doing this for a while. But now I am taking the challenges that I have had, and addressing them with some simple mods, along with increasing safety. My other goal was to build this very cheaply with common things you can find at any hardware store.

I am almost complete (paint is drying now) so I am posting a little of the along the way stuff
 
At first I was mobile charging with an inverter plugged into a cig lighter/power port. You can do this charging one batt. But this is a VERY bad idea for 3 batts. So first step to my power solution was another inverter.

I have been through several cheep and crappy inverters. The inverter I am currently using is a Schumacher that I bought from Lowes. I am a Jeep guy. Schumacher makes quality automotive batt chargers. I have been impressed with this inverter. It is small, plenty powerful enough, and never gets the least bit warm, indicating it is not being overworked

Shop Schumacher Electric 410-Watt Power Inverter at Lowes.com
 
Next step was to hard wire the inverter. I got some 8awg wire, also from Lowes. They have a big rack where they sell wire by the foot. I bought 15ft of red for the positive lead. That was way too much. I probably used 8ft, but that will vary by vehicle. I bought about 5ft of black for ground, as I had a good grounding point in the cab. I got a couple packs of crimp on eyelets and some black wire loom to protect the wiring, also from Lowes

Wire in the loom with the eyelet
20170123_132339.jpg

Next you need to get the wire into the cab. On my Chevy Silvarado I found I could route my wire along the fender into a gap at the passenger side door
20170123_140707.jpg 20170123_140718.jpg 20170123_140753.jpg
IMPORTANT: the wire does not bind on any of the hood parts and is NOT crimped by the door when it closes. I put the wire through the spot on the door where the power door locks and windows go through
 
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The wire goes through that spot for the door power wires and come into the cab. I removed the kick panel to get access to pull it through. If you look close you can see the red power wire going in. There is excess wire loom still hanging on the outside of the cab that I cut later

20170123_140818.jpg 20170123_140835.jpg
 
Next is was just a mater of routing that hot cable behind the dash to get it to come out at the transmission hump, where I will be setting up the charging station.

The ground wire was much easier. There was a bolt right behind the kick panel that was a great grounding point, that I verified with a volt/ohm meter.

20170123_161221.jpg
 
The inverter has its own fuses. But a 8awg cable running into the cab, without a power source fuse, can carry enough current to do a lot of damage before the inverter fuse trips. I also wanted to be able to switch the power completely off from under the hood, both for safety, and to avoid any parasitic drain when I wasn't using the charger

I ended up buying a circuit breaker that is made for car stereo amps. I found this at a local car stereo install shop. I am sure every town has 1 or 3 of those

The circuit breaker gives me the protection of a fuse, but it has the capabilities to manually trip. That killed 2 birds with one stone letting me shut off the power when not in use. It also reduced the complexity of a fuse and separate switch. Just a wire from the positive truck batt terminal, to the circuit breaker, and then connect the wire that I ran into the cab to the other side

20170208_115400.jpg

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What's your plan to charge the batteries? Three OEM AC chargers? May be more efficient to step up the 12v to regulated 17.4 with sufficient current/watts to power the 3 batteries simultaneously. At least for the P3, you need 56-100W per battery.

Sent from my HTC 10 using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
What's your plan to charge the batteries? Three OEM AC chargers? May be more efficient to step up the 12v to regulated 17.4 with sufficient current/watts to power the 3 batteries simultaneously. At least for the P3, you need 56-100W per battery.

Sent from my HTC 10 using PhantomPilots mobile app

I have one of the Thor triple chargers that I have been using for 12 months or so. It will be in some of the upcoming pics. I have used it at home, and used it mobile. Lots of folks do. This build is to correct some of the power shortcomings and safety issues that I have experienced in the past, while trying to use it mobile.

The genius, if I do say so myself, resides in some pieces that you would not associate in mobile lipo charging. :D
20170131_102239.jpg
 
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Next was to build a frame to keep everything from moving around while driving.

I used some 1/2 inch PVC plumbing fittings. I found a piece that was called a trap, that fit the contour of my transmission hump perfectly.
20170131_102239.jpg 20170208_115313.jpg
 
I played around with the design a bit, until I found what worked well to hold everything secure. Then I painted it to match my truck interior, and added a black diamond plate shelf to hold everything. The black diamond plate looks good and adds another layer of fire protection
20170208_115329.jpg 20170211_135619.jpg 20170212_144628.jpg 20170212_151325.jpg
 
All that was left was to secure the inverter and ammo can with some more 3M Dual Lock and I have a great mobile charging set up
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Here is a short vid of charging in progress

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Great project and exactly what I hope to build soon.
 
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Boost signal from mobil station
 
Hey doods!

By using boost converters, I bypassed the inverter circuit altogether, thereby eliminating a lot of waste via thermal energy.

Worth noting:

1) Voltage and amperage parameters are user-programmable. Therefore, these units can be set up as quick chargers or slow chargers in any combination. I can use one to quick charge a P4P battery, and set the other converter to slow charge a Mavic Pro battery. The third could be set as an Inspire 1 charger.

2) Banana plugs insure compatibility with ALL batteries, regardless of make, brand or voltage.


DSC03230.JPG



3) Because this connects directly to a car battery, I bypass the DC -> AC -> DC conversions. The net result is almost no heat generated. The boost converters stay very cool.

DSC03231.JPG


4) First charge; initially set to 5 Amps and then boosted to 6 Amps @ 16 minutes, I was able to charge 3 batteries in < hour. If I set the charger for 6 Amps from the get go, I bet I could get that down to < 50 minutes.

Charging.JPG


5) 6 Amps @ 17.5 Volts = 105 watts. According to the DJI spec sheet, these batteries can sink 160 watts. So a 105 watt "quick charge" (about 50 minutes from 30%) is well within spec.

6) The boost converters are rated @ 900 watts/each. So running them @ 105 watts is WELL within spec.

7) This build is version 1.0. Assuming all of this continues to work as well as the initial testing, I will probably repackage it into something a little easier to carry...perhaps a case of some kind.

8) The whole mess costs less than 1 P4P battery.

D
 
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Very nice and scaleable. I have a 12V charger which I plug in to the outlet in my trunk. It has pigtails for two batteries and one remote. About $40.

Usually my battery charging is driven by warm battery temperature cooldown times. In the summer I have actually held the batteries near the AC duct in the car to get them cool enough to charge. A downside of having the charger in the trunk is that it stays warm in there, particularly on sunny days.
 

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