# materials and a simple fan shroud.



## lou-ace (Jul 21, 2009)

Materials are everything! As my parts have arrived in good condition, I have progressed from selecting, purchasing to installing the electronics for my conversion (phase 3). My next step was to create a shelf within the motor compartment. Thinking of light material I chose 1X2 pine boards as shelving material. After installing them to the plastic fenders it soon became obvious that this was unacceptable, as the platform was bouncy, weak and unstable. After some review, I chose the galvanized steel used in garage doors as my next shelving material. Fortunately there are many wholesale distributors here in Portland, and after some phone work (I continue to find this method more functional than internet shopping for local goods), I was able to purchase 80&#8217; for $0.40 a foot. This light steel is perforated every 1&#8221; with 5/16 holes, it is a little lighter than I would have preferred ( about 12g), but it doubled together in a tubular configuration with bolts holding it together in the longer stretches, this has the advantages of being both light, strong and very universal. I was able to make a very serviceable shelf with this material. Next I mounted the switching box on the far left of the motor compartment, with the controller next to it. The fellow that I bought my parts from also included a fan for cooling the controller, but there was no housing for the fan. For this I used some left over 12&#8221; flashing to create a shroud to mount the fan above the controller. He shipped the controller to me with some really long bolts, sticking up, holding on the heat sink and he told me that if I reversed the bolts, so that they would stick down that I could mount the fan below the heat sink. I may be wrong but since heat rises, I chose to mount the fan above the controller. The flashing worked very nicely as that it is malleable, easy to cut, and light weight. This fabrication turned out better than I had hoped. When I activated the fan I could feel excellent ventilation throughout the top and sides of the controller. This coupled with the heat sink make me feel confident that the controller should be well cooled. After I finish installing the electronic gadgets I plan on using the garage angle steel to fabricate the battery boxes in the bed of the truck. My plan there is to mount the batteries as low as possible with this light gauge material to accomplish two goals. 1. To keep my center of gravity as low as possible and 2, to design my boxes in a break away/ breakdown manner for collision safety. Till we meet again&#8230;.. Lou-ace.


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