Good morning, wanted to thank everyone for all of their information and posts. This forum is a great resource and pushed me to pull the trigger on a GEM. I was able to find one already converted to Leaf Lithium Ion batteries so that was a huge leg up to not to that install work. However, I had a question or two that I didn’t really find in my searching.
the battery is just mounted under the back seat, it does not have any kind of protection or cover anywhere. This makes me a little nervous living in a beach community and wet bathing suits etc is there any kind of shielding I should utilize to protect passengers
I have. Juntek Battery monitor on the dash, and a nice charger for the batteries, but to the best of my knowledge it does not look like any kind of BMS is being utilized. This seems like a no no. The previous owner said not to let the battery level drop below 60, which I guess is fine but I would rather have a computer to do it for me. It also concerned me just leaving it plugged in if the charger would understand to only go to 82 or 84 whatever the top is and then shutoff or if it could potentially overcharge the batteries and cause an issue. Anyway if someone has the same type of setup and could let me know what they did that would be wonderful. Thanks again to all.
Got any pics of your Leaf battery setup? If they are like my Gen 4 battery modules they are lithium bags in a basic vented shell( thin metal shell over the bags with some plastic for the top connectors and at the bottom). All kinds of road debris can get up into the rear seat battery compartment unless the floor has been blocked off.
The pictures attached are my charger, battery setup, motor, and what I am assuming is a converter for 12V which is good because I wanted to add a stereo. I ordered the BMS from @INWO so I am guessing I am in for a fun learning experience on how to wire that thing up. I do have a Wireless Battery Voltage meter in the dash also its a Juntek. Seems to read and work properly. I would love to mount the charger in the car under the hood so that I could just plug it in and not worry about connecting it on the floor but I am assuming its not weather proof and that might be a hazard. I’ll probably have some time to throw it on the lift next week so if there is anything else ya’ll suggest to be safer with the batteries I’m happy to take any advice.
It is a 2008 E4. Shows 450 miles, carfax agrees but I am sure that could have been reset. The most recent owner has a lot of side by sides but they are all gas this was supposedly used at his beach house for 1 season. The business card in the car is Dynamic Drives and Design from Jacksonville Beach FL. I reached out to them with no response yet. Kind of surprised if they did the build that they would neglect to use a BMS since everyone seems to agree it is not prudent to operate without.
Correct, and very fragile. Drop it and it’s done for. It is a bench supply not a good match for vehicle charging.
I use chargery for testing and could use another one. Wish i had an onboard charger to trade.
