Well, finally gave up on keeping the pack in tact. One reason being I want the garage space back... hehe. But mainly because nothing off-the-shelf and even remotely reasonably priced (I found a solution that would work for roughly $150k...) works with this high voltage DC in a useful fashion. So, breaking it down into modules is the only plan that makes sense since it will essentially allow me to configure the pack for whatever voltage I need.
Anyway, started the full tear down tonight. Just going to reiterate: This thing is super heavy duty. Dismantling it is not simple.
I had to first drain the coolant loop. I couldn't find anything that would mate with the quick disconnect easily, so, I rigged up some PC liquid cooling tubing to each outlet, which fit somewhat snug inside them. I then fed air into one side and drained from the other until I didn't get any more coolant. About a gallon of coolant was liberated.
In order to remove the modules I had to first remove the entire spine where everything ties together... which consisted of a heavy gauge HV cable, dozens of bus bars, the BMS cabling, and all of it inside injected rubber insulation...
The modules would not lift out with the bus connections in place because you have to lift that side out first, slide it up and over, then disconnect the coolant loop connections, then lift the module out. It appears the modules sit on rails and are elevated about 1/4" above the the pack's inside floor... I have no way to easily do this outside of the pack, currently, so, I'm just carefully setting them down and out of the way sitting on their thin plastic covers. The plastic covers have ridged sections over top of the rows of cell fuses, so, they're reasonably well protected from damage even sitting like this. I plan to build a frame for them later, though, or at least some legs to keep them off the ground.
I stopped after removing all of the spine connections and six modules. Ten to go... another day.
I did learn that all of the modules are in fact identical. The driver and passenger side modules are just rotated 180 degrees. The top module in the front (the oddball) is just upside down. But they are in fact all the same, just their orientation is changed to suite its position.
I was kind of surprised to find a heavy gauge wire inside the rubber in the middle spine. The only things visible prior were heavy bus bars. So, I had assumed there was one which ran the entire length of the pack returning to the main contactors, but I was fooled! The exposed bus bar portion is welded to the heavy copper wire (2/0 gauge I believe) at both sides inside the rubber of the spine. The wire is 150 degree rated (C) and is *also* sheathed in a thick fire resistance material (the same material used all over the inside of this pack).
I'll sort through some pictures and post some later on.
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