electric car has a
contactor
between the battery and the controllers. It has a pair of always-powered
contacts that are attracting casual touch. Some sort of a cover is desired.
The prototype version of the Luka EV electric car has a
contactor between the battery and the controllers. It has a pair of always-powered
contacts that are attracting casual touch. Some sort of a cover is desired.
The cover was designed in OpenSCAD, around the contactor body. The body is
composed of two cylinders of slightly different diameter, and the space with contacts.
Original design contained pads to squeeze the contactor body using a bolt between the pads.
They were omitted from the final design.
 Rendered cover |  Rendered cover |
The cover is fairly large. Due to lack of familiarity with printing and configuration,
the printout tended to lift from the bed in a rather bad way. It was decided to attempt
to salvage the printout, trade perfection for filament. A stick of hot glue was
heated with a torch and the glue dripped on the edges where the printout was lifting.
While not perfect, the result was good enough to finish the print. The first couple layers
were ugly but the printout worked.
The bed was found to be rotating as the head was colliding with the lifting printout edges. It was secured with a drop of hot glue.
Stringing was encountered, apparently due to overly high nozzle temperature.
 Printing, salvaging with hot glue |  Printing, salvaging with hot glue |  Printing, salvaging with hot glue |  Hot-glue securing of bed |
 Printing |  Printing |  Fresh printout |  Fresh printout |
 Fresh printout |  Fresh printout |  Fresh printout |  Fresh printout, bottom side before glue removal |
Some unintended postprocessing was performed. During the elasticity test, one of the mounting pads broke off along the printing plane, which in retrospect is unsurprising. The part was then dropped, which cleanly broke off the other pad, at exactly the same point.
 After breaking off the pads |
The "edited" workpiece was then further processed with dremel; warts and strings and shifted edges were ground off and the inner side of the clamp part was narrowed a little to facilitate snapping on to the contactor body.
The modified cover fitted just perfectly. It was secured in place with a zip tie.
 Contactor, exposed |  Contactor, exposed |  Cover fitted |  Cover fitted |
 Cover fitted |  Contactor, cables attached |  Contactor, cables attached |  Cover attached |
 Cover attached |  Cover attached |  Cover attached |  Cover secured with a ziptie |