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I have a small issue that is causing a lot of problems. I'm on a Formula SAE team and our battery is consistently shorting between our positive terminal and our chassis. Our chassis is the grounding point.

Our battery is underneath our seat, our seat is made of carbon and therefore when the driver moves shorts occur. I've tried using tape, rubber covers and plastic boxes. The box cracks under the weight of the driver and the tape and covers fall off during a long race.

How can I prevent shorts with a solution that wont break, nor fall off?

In case a short does occur, we use breakers.

Below is a sketch of the position of the battery under the seat. At point one, when we are static, the seat does not touch the battery, but under high acceleration, the driver will rub on to the battery terminals. This knocks off tape and covers that are on it. In the course of a long race, eventually shorts start to occur after the tape/covers have been rubbed off. We noticed that the issues happened on tight turns and moments of high acceleration.

Air
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Adam
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3 Answers3

2

Tilt the battery at a slight angle away from the seat so that the seat doesn't touch the terminals. You should be able to get away with small tilt angles without having the battery leak (assuming lead-acid), at least during use. You may want to remove the battery in between uses though.

Carlton
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2

1st suggestion would be to find a sturdier cover for the battery. However, it sounds like it might just be badly positioned.

Can you move it, rotate it, flip it (if it's an AGM type that will work at any angle) to put the terminals away from harm?

Failing that, can you put some solid plastic or other insulator over the top of it, snugly, so it can't be touched. Nylon chopping boards are inexpensive at Ikea, drill a couple of holes for the terminals etc., layer a couple of boards to create a light, strong, solid block of insulator on top of the battery.

3-D printing something might work but it'd have to be very solid around the terminals.

John U
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0

A piece of thick plastic or timber will make a lid that will solve this or use a gel battery and lay it on its side

John Markworth
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