DRUMLINMOTORS Back to the battery box

The battery box, docking

One Drumlin cell box — sixteen cells, 14.3 kilowatt-hours, about 130 kilograms — lifting off its trolley into the bay under the truck. Step through the dock, or hide the stainless case to see the cells, the copper and the spring stacks that hold them.

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ModelCell box D-61-000
RevisionC — concept
Checked128 parts, 24 poses, no collisions
StatusNot released, not tested

The order is the safety. Two tapered guide pins enter the box first, while the connectors are still well apart. Then the power and signal connectors meet — at zero current, because the truck's contactors are open and the service disconnect is out. The contact that tells the truck a box is present closes last, and only when the box is fully home. In the last eight millimetres four strikers on the box's corner posts enter four latches, and each latch shows a flag when it is shut.

The latches are ordinary car-door latches — a part the door-latch standard (FMVSS 206) already rates at 9,000 newtons in exactly the direction the box hangs. Any three of the four hold the box with a wide margin.

What it does not show: the crash load path is still being drawn, and no box has been built or tested.