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MCI 102-C3 coach to RV - Electrical System

The Mitsubishi seat slider idea was awesome until recently. Got to thinking about how much I was modifying them to make them usable and strong. Ditching that idea and going with some stout lengths of tubing to both reinforce the bus frame and make battery tray slider, much like the wheel tub sliders. Looks like I can use more of the 1.5" square. I was getting discouraged with the seat tracks when I couldn't do anything to keep them straight after welding the sections together. They're made with some pretty springy steel, too.

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Seems pretty official to me that the drive axle subframe is getting channeled by 1/2". Might be more like 3/4" drop. Kinda done fiddling around with figuring out how to fit everything with the batteries on their sides. There is the perfect amount of room on the underside to drop the top face of the subframe tubes so that batteries can be stood upright and the cables will have room.

As I was trimming out the end of one tube, I began to see an opening that might be just right to recess the Blue Sea breaker box into. Rough test fit says that's a go. Just have to watch my frame drop because that might cut into plugging the breaker box into the tube.

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Figured I'd better explain the reason for channeling the frame to stand the batteries up. Clear view of where the lower battery cable would shoot. Lacking sufficient cable loop room.

The saving grace that would stop me from mutilating the frame is that we are going with 455 super singles. Doing so provides an extra 5" between the tire sidewall and edge of the frame, making way for the battery cables. Bit of a toss-up because if duals ever need to go back on, there lies the battery cable problem again. But , like has been mentioned, batteries are constantly changing right now and this problem of mine could be entirely nonexistent within a couple years.

I'm still pondering the battery tracks, too. Might be able to draw the batteries up an inch to help with cabling. There's a bit to work out when I'm reinforcing the frame and integrating tracks of sorts.

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Feeling more content with this slider setup. 1" square slipped inside of 1.5" square. 1/16" strips of nylon to take up slack and maybe a smear of grease. I'll have to slot the 1.5" to make room for a "fin" on top of the 1". Debating on bolting the battery cradles to the 1" tubing to save from any weld warpage.

I'm going to try to trace the end profile of the Battle Born battery so that I can punch the shape into Fusion 360. Thinking of trying out one of those online cnc laser outfits I keep seeing. I could have them cut some rings that slip over the batteries to make the cradles with. Wanted to do this a while back but put it off to ponder other ideas.

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Fingered out a spot to trace the end profile. Blazor rade each plane onto gypsum board then measure distances to enter into Fusion. My caliper was too short so I had to use my tape measure that has a foot of 1/32" increments. Entered all dimensions and offset the perimeter for 3/32" clearance and template width of 7/16". Gonna send in a quote for four of these.

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Transferred battery rack girdle dimensions over to SketchUp. Looks decent. I'll be welding some rod between the girdle plates so they're rigid and all will be wrapped in a padding of some kind so the batteries are snug but able to slide out when the tray is opened. So far, no complaints of my own. Just need to get a proof cut made so I can test fit prior to paying for the real deal. Throw your $0.02 at it if you like.

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FirstRam said,

3/32" clearance, why so loose? 5/57" would be .006 tighter, just like MCI designed everything else, why give yourself room to work now?

Blown away with every post, do you ever sleep?
 
FirstRam said:
3/32" clearance, why so loose? 5/57" would be .006 tighter, just like MCI designed everything else, why give yourself room to work now?

Blown away with every post, do you ever sleep?​
I keep the boys and I close to my wife's overnight work schedule. No stranger to being awake for three days straight, though.

I keep thinking I should bump the clearance down to 1/16". Might wait until I get a proof to test. MCI engineers would be shaking theirs heads at me right now, no?
 
FirstRam said:
No, I think they'd be ashamed!​
LOL. I take it you guys have opened up yours enough to see how huge the tolerances are. All my CAD drawing measurements are certainly relative. Most of the bus is off by as much as 3/4" from side to side and top to bottom. Me thinks these were built with the base assembly in a jig and the rest of the pieces were eyeballed as the welders burned them in.
 
May the notching commence. Making way for the slider tubes. They'll be hugging the sides of the subframe. I hate to be trimming out all that stainless, but it was all attached in the same manner. A few stitch welds and some polyester sealer that has hardened and made way for moisture. Might as well mitigate any further oxidation of the main structure.

I also started cutting out this rusty rear channel. No idea what they're for other than collecting crud and water. They were loaded. Had to blow it out so that I could plasma cut without a bunch of arc blowback.

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87manche said,
JNHEscher said:
LOL. I take it you guys have opened up yours enough to see how huge the tolerances are. All my CAD drawing measurements are certainly relative. Most of the bus is off by as much as 3/4" from side to side and top to bottom. Me thinks these were built with the base assembly in a jig and the rest of the pieces were eyeballed as the welders burned them in.​
I know people that worked at flxible/ MCI for decades.

you're not wrong.
 
Had my father-in-law cut a rough sample of the single battery girdle on his CNC router from a 1/4" thick sheet of acrylic he had. Fits well. I'll send in my full file to a laser shop and hope the quote isn't outlandish. I saw them share a customer cut they did the other day and the cost was super reasonable. My file has a lot of waste material so I'm hoping they nest projects together.

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Got my Battle Born battery rack DXF all set to submit and the sendcutsend.com file uploader isn't working at all. I tried a few other online laser cutters and their quote said my piece was too large. It's 8x48. I'll try Send Cut Send some more tomorrow afternoon. Until then, anyone know of another? I was hoping to try out one of these online quotes rather than emailing local shops.

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02rexwi said,
JNHEscher said:
Got my Battle Born battery rack DXF all set to submit and the sendcutsend.com file uploader isn't working at all. I tried a few other online laser cutters and their quote said my piece was too large. It's 8x48. I'll try Send Cut Send some more tomorrow afternoon. Until then, anyone know of another? I was hoping to try out one of these online quotes rather than emailing local shops.​
I know it's probably not as close as you want, but try Absolute Supply in Little Chute, Wisconsin. You'll have to email them a DWG or DXF file with your reference dimensions for scale. They typically quote in a matter of hours with very fair prices. I've never had to have them ship though.
 
02rexwi said:
I know it's probably not as close as you want, but try Absolute Supply in Little Chute, Wisconsin. You'll have to email them a DWG or DXF file with your reference dimensions for scale. They typically quote in a matter of hours with very fair prices. I've never had to have them ship though.​
I sent them a message earlier today. Brian got back to me within an hour. Emailed him my file with specs for a quote. Hopefully its reasonable. I really wanted to support one of the online outfits that support prototyping, one-offs, and single run parts. My experience with email correspondence with other semi-local shops hasn't been the best, but I was ready to do so if SCS didn't come through.
 
02rexwi said,
JNHEscher said:
I sent them a message earlier today. Brian got back to me within an hour. Emailed him my file with specs for a quote. Hopefully its reasonable. I really wanted to support one of the online outfits that support prototyping, one-offs, and single run parts. My experience with email correspondence with other semi-local shops hasn't been the best, but I was ready to do so if SCS didn't come through.
​
I use Absolute Supply a lot at work and every now and then for custom parts for myself. They are good about stocking materials and turning around parts in a few days if you're in a rush.
I find their prices have been going up, but they're still very reasonable (for their quality) in my opinion.
I've got other local shops that are cheaper, but their quality and communication are nowhere near as good.
 
02rexwi said:
I use Absolute Supply a lot at work and every now and then for custom parts for myself. They are good about stocking materials and turning around parts in a few days if you're in a rush.
I find their prices have been going up, but they're still very reasonable (for their quality) in my opinion.
I've got other local shops that are cheaper, but their quality and communication are nowhere near as good.​
I'll jot them down. Because we'll be highly mobile in the bus, I'd like a good list of go-to places for services such as these so that I'm not throwing money at testing out unknowns.

$225.68 shipped for all four battery cradle plates laser cut from 3/16" hot rolled. I'd spend that much trying to hack them together myself with the plasma and a file. It's on.
 
Took the pics upright, so the uploader turns them sideways, no matter what I do. Tilt your head. Battery rack plates cut by Send Cut Send came in this morning. They fit as designed. Got a few days to try to get some stuff accomplished on the rig. No promises to anyone.

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Fought with the bottle jacks to get the rear of the bus off the tires other night. A surprise winter storm made that fun. Got the drive wheels off so I could get to the chassis beams for paint stripping last night. Most of what needed to be prepped for welded got the grinder treatment tonight.

I've been taking off heaps of this gray, putty-like material that smells like polyester. Came to the conclusion that a few gallons of Evercoat polyester featherfill were used on this bus. Why, I do not know. Probably for the same reason that I've stripped body filler over an inch thick on various "restorations". The person that put it on used it to form their own lines (or waves).

Because of the volume of filler and paint needing to be removed, I've been prepping most of the metal with diamond cutoff wheels. They don't clog up or reduce in diameter and leave a pretty level surface without too much tooth. There are several tights spots, but the diamond discs fit in one way or another. Fugly, but all weldable. I'll be setting up to slot a set distance in the battery track tubes to make way for the battery girdles that were laser-cut. Once the tubes are slotted, they can be welded in.

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Pretty much ready for melting. Took a lot on contorting to reach everything that needed to be prepped. Once the tubes, alignment tubes and clamps were in place, I tapped the tubes until they were longitudinally flush with the back of the rear bulkhead and measured the overall width along the entire length. One 1/16" off horizontally from end to end. Wedged a 1/16" piece of copper in at the rear and measured again. Dead on. Sitting on it for a bit before I set up to weld just in case I think of some reason that the tubes need to be moved.

Dafuq you lookin' at? Had to try it. While doing a quick repair on some broken seat rails on a friend's Jeep, he said I needed a camera on my welding torch because I couldn't see where I was welding underneath his seat. Charged up my scope tonight and taped it on. I'll try this to see if it saves me from having to drop the aluminum pan over top of the drive axle so that I can weld the underside of the inner battery track tubes.

Saddled up and ready to go - I remembered that I switched to straight argon. Have to wait until Monday to grab some 75/25.

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Got a good start. The camera thing worked out alright until a cherry landed dead center on the glass lens and cracked it. Ah well. I tried welding blindly on the underside. Kept checking my welds with my phone camera and found they were either not welding the two pieces together or really inconsistent in spacing. Gotta drop the pan and weld from underneath.

I know I'm not welding the cleanest metal. I've run into this brown dust a lot on the bus. If I have my torch completely perpendicular to theeld joint, the weld looks great (aside from keeping it straight). If I tilt my torch the slightest bit, it looks like my gas coverage isn't anywhere as good as it should be. Minor stuff.

Everything is crunchy frozen and uncooperative tonight, so I'll continue tomorrow when the temp is back in the 60's.

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Had to knock the pan out anyway. Having it out is nicer than I thought it would be. All of the driver's side tubes are welded and I managed to cut out all the notches needed on the passenger's side. Prep and welding tomorrow, I think.

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Just about ready to clamp the last two in place. I'm sorely tempted to video my second round of welding from underneath the engine cradle. I think the curb side will be much easier though because I'm able to climb down in between the trans tail housing and cradle frame to face the other direction. The road side had me crawling underneath the engine cradle and inching upright in between the frame and transmission, then bending backwards and to my right while holding my mig gun at arm's length and my face wedging my welding helmet in between some chassis steel and copper tubes. I didn't get flattened by the bus, but I sure a fawk felt like I got flattened by a bus when I woke up this morning.

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The day got cut short. Ran out wire on a ten pound spool already. Still a fair amount done. Ground off a bracket on the rear bulkhead that was in the way and ended up having to notch a little bit out the bulkhead so that one tube could clear it. About one third, the most difficult portion, is done with. My copper plate I used for aligning the tubes fell into the curb side tag air bag bracket, so I'll go ahead and get some plate to replace the rusted bracket tops so that I can retrieve the copper.
 
Wind died down for the night, thankfully. It's been enough to roll horse sheds and such out here. Wife and I just finished loading the solar panels into the shed. There's 10Kw of Q-Cell 345's stacked there. I'm deciding whether to use the typical, extruded alu rails, or go ahead with stainless unistruts. I do want adjustable rails so that we can easily clamp in any size of panels. Solar is continually changing, as is battery tech, so adaptability is key.

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Pulling the high-amp DC connections out again. Spotted the Amphenol SP-4-FNL connectors on clearance at Parts Express. $7.69 each now. Can't remember what I paid for the first one. Wife is buying a handful of them.

For a refresher, the cabling is SJEOOW 10/3. Connections and cabling are rated for 30 amps. A single cable will carry both 12 and 24 volts with a common ground.

Black will be ground, as is typical of a DC system. Should I use white for 12v and green for 24v, or green for 12v and white for 24v? Just wondering for best practices. I'll probably go with white 12v if no reason to go green comes up.

Edit: After some discussion with friends, I decided to keep all grounds green that connect to the chassis. Green: -1, White +1, Black +2.

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Sifting through gauge cluster options again and might have narrowed it down. I was almost set on Stack Pro Control and NVU Commercial Aviators. However, the OneGauge has been something of interest for the past year. We will most likely use the hub and later find a screen. The OneGauge kits come standard with one of two Nextion sizes. PiDash is an option. OneGauge hub has all the capabilities of the Stack and NCU gauges, plus much more, for roughly the same cost as a single analog gauge from either manufacturer that I mentioned. The screen will probably be the most costly portion.

I have quite a bit to research to do on screens, yet. High resolution and data rate is desired. Screen options below.

Nextion 7" is 29.15 PPI
PiDash 7" is 29.15 PPI
PiDash 8.9" is 70.75 PPI <highest res, so far
PiDash 12.3" is 42.7 PPI
RSNav S3 12.3" is 64.08 PPI

Because I use Fusion 360 often, I'm probably going to design most, if not all of the screen graphics. The creator of OneGauge will set it all in motion.

The OneGauge can utilize just about any sensor out there. Below are sensors I'm looking at trying.

https://lowdoller-motorsports.com/collections/combo-pressure-and-temp-sensors
 
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