Custom battery mount for Archer...

[Colin Donahue]

'Peter Hoare' date='May 7 2009, 03:13 PM' post='45135']

Hi Rick, not spoken in a while, hows it going?

 

We will measure Eds rig with a CMM machine, capable of accuracy up to three microns. Even a layer of grease on the rods will affect the reading, so we dont have an accuracy issue unless Ed has bent his rods up badly. We can always take the rods out and measure the channels the rods run through. Should be fine unless every archer is different, which I find hard to believe. It could be that one of your rods was slightly bent outwards so the reading came out wrong? Tiffen have told me 50mm between centres, so im going to go with this figure, and design this as an open clamp to compensate. Possibly two open hook shapes on either side with a claw clamp to lock it in or something creative and nice to look at.

 

If anyone needs anything else just let me know, We can literally make anything, you should see some of the parts this company make for F1 cars, real works of art some of them.

 

 

Pete.

Pete, very nice design.

I had a battery mount made for my archer as well. It was a much cruder design, just a block of alluminum that slid on the rods and nylon screws to keep it snug. With the rods pushed all the way in, the machinest noticed that the distance between the rods was

narrower at the base than it was at the ends of the rods. He had to make a it a little looser to compensate. Even with that, I have to make sure the rods are loose before I slde it on, otherwise it won't go on.

 

Good Luck,

Colin Donahue

[chris fawcett]

Nice work guys.

 

One point: I wouldn't use the D taps; they are not designed for heavy loads. You'd be better wiring the plates together with a 12/24 switch somewhere.

 

All the best,

 

Chris

[Peter Hoare]

Ok, my trackpad finer now has no fingerprint left.

 

Came up with a solution to fix for wonky rods and also make it a bit more original.

 

[Peter Hoare]

By the way, yellow replacment bars are also available. As are pink, blue and candy cane colour schemes.

[Matteo Quagliano]

Hi Pete

 

I rather go with your previous design. If only one rod get snugged and locked then the other will likely has some looseness. As mention before by others archer owners. The best is that mechanism fixing both rods in a way to lock them both.

Let me know your thoughts.

Matteo

[Jess Haas SOC]

One point: I wouldn't use the D taps; they are not designed for heavy loads.

I believe AB P Taps are usually rated for 10amps although I don't know about the ones on the IDX plates. In a pinch I have powered the RED through the one on its battery plate with no adverse affects.

 

~Jess

[Peter Hoare]

Hi Matteo,

 

The new clamp design would be solid. The unlocked bar has some moving space to compensate for bent bars. The height of the channel is the same as the rod so it would not rotate. The other channel is very tightly fitted to the rod and the clamp will hold it still. Im confident the single rod clamping design would be more than enough and would allow for bent rods.....

[Charles Papert]

I will agree with that, I powered a RED with hard drive, IDX tx, Preston with 2 motors, downconverter and LCD with a single RED battery on the sled, connected via P-tap.

[Ed Moore]

Crikey Pete, I really better come visit you now, seems like everyone wants one! I think the design definitely needs to account for the rods being bent slightly differently on every Archer. Mine are certainly a tiny bit wonky (they can be tough to slide through the slidey-through bit on occasion) - I think this happened because a grip took the sled off me at the end of a long take then rested the whole weight of it on the lower spar: curses.

 

Power integration is something I think definitely needs working in, but the simplest version would be to wire in a flying P-tap lead from the existing Archer battery plate (irritatingly it doesn't have a P-tap connector already, Tiffen probably saved a whole £2 per sled with that decision) and just connect it to the P-tap on the new plate we're adding. So we're effectively paralleling in the new battery into the sled supply.

 

I think 12/24 is probably a level of complication too far at this point, especially considering it would require running a new power line up the post so there would still be 12V available for accessories.

[Colin Donahue]

Power integration is something I think definitely needs working in, but the simplest version would be to wire in a flying P-tap lead from the existing Archer battery plate (irritatingly it doesn't have a P-tap connector already, Tiffen probably saved a whole £2 per sled with that decision) and just connect it to the P-tap on the new plate we're adding. So we're effectively paralleling in the new battery into the sled supply.

 

Ed,

I had this set up for a while. I replaced the AB mount on the sled with one with a power tap and my new AB mount that slid onto the rods had a P tap as well. What I ended up doing was splitting the power off the AB mount at the base, sending one line up the post and another line with a lemo that could reach the second battery mount to connect to the second battery ( with a lemo connected to the AB mount) if I wanted to run them in paralell.

 

Because of the nature of the balance of the Archer. It always works best with the heavier battery on the rods mount and a lighter battery on the back mount.

The setup I most often used was a Hytron 140 on the rods mount and a Hytron 50 or Dionic 90 at the base. When you run this setup in paralell the battery at the base (dionic or hytron 50) tries to charge itself off the hytron 140 and the readout on the battery goes wacky and sometimes dissapears. I talked with Paul Dudeck about this and he said it would not hurt the batteries, but I may not get full benefit of 2 batteries. I often ran them seperately just using the Hytron 140 on the rods to power the monitor, recorder, downconverter, etc. using the P tap on the rods mount. This is unfortunate, because I was using the most powerful battery to power the stuff that drew the least power. Maybe you have a better idea?

 

Colin Donahue

[Peter Hoare]

Hi Ed,

 

How about you use the new battery to power the monitor and any other accessories you have down the bottom. This will take some load off the main battery.

 

Failing that, it wont be too hard to parallel them together.

 

Let me know when you want to come down. Tomorrow is a good day for me, or Wedneaday.

 

 

Pete.

[Ed Moore]

Hi Ed,

 

How about you use the new battery to power the monitor and any other accessories you have down the bottom. This will take some load off the main battery.

 

Failing that, it wont be too hard to parallel them together.

 

Let me know when you want to come down. Tomorrow is a good day for me, or Wedneaday.

 

 

Pete.

 

Will probably be Wednesday, got meetings tomorrow.

[Peter Hoare]

Ok, Got a tradeshow to get to sometime this week aswell. Let me know once you can confirm....

[Matteo Quagliano]

In my archer there's a D tap (or P tap... I don't still get the difference...) out of the IDX V lock battery plate. If I plug the new batt on the bottom plate through the D tap is safe? On the sled plate D tap the power goes out, does it work also as an in?

I know it sounds very stupid but my knowledge on the subject is very limitated.

[Ed Moore]

Hi Matteo - I'm assuming the P-tap (I think P-tap is the actual trademark, but people call it D tap because it looks like a D and sounds similar enough to get confused) connector is just wired straight to the battery contacts and therefore the entire sled 'ring main', so theoretically wiring a second battery plate into the first via that P-tap connector should have the effect of adding another battery in parallel to the first.