The latest on the battery box project is a plastic electrical enclosure made of polypropylene.
Why plastic? It is a new material we haven't used much. It is an electrical insulator so random flying powered cables won't start sparks. It is soft, when compared to metals, and thus easy to work with.
Why not plastic? Although it's technically recyclable, it is not even close to an ideal renewable material. While the price is not high, it is dependent on the price of the primary source, gas and oil byproducts. It cannot be made in-house by our own methods.
Even with CAD work, problems still come up, though much less serious.
We got some 3/8 in thick sheet of raw material stock from McMaster, which was cut to size and fastened together with special plastic, thread cutting screws. The holes were drilled with the assistance using this 90 deg clamp.
And screws were fastened.
The terminal blocks were mounted on scrap plastic that was left over.
A piano hinge, knob and spring-loaded grab-catch complete the enclosure.
The wires come in through the side and go directly into the terminals. Unused holes are closed with silicone plugs.
A positive, a negative and a ground exit at the other end to connect to the rest of the system.
We are not planning on using much (if at all) of this material again, just to make a large box to hold three small pieces of copper and some wires. What knowledge and skills we gain by making and using this will aid in our future endeavors.
In the future, we figured to just enclose the copper terminal blocks individually.
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