Mount Master and power Cells

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Major System Category: ISIS Wiring
Task: Mount basic 3 cell kit
Parts: 1 Master Cell, 2 Power Cells
Prerequisite Tasks:
Additional Costs: $1000 (Ebay Purchase)
                              $1032 (Isis purchase 2 x Power Cells)
Time Requirement: 3 hours
Date Started: December 03, 2012
Date Completed:  December 05, 2012

I am installing the ISIS power system. Basically, this replaces the Painless wiring block and harness. I have designed the car to handle up to 50 circuits. I currently think this will consist of four power cells and one motion cell. Prices on the ISIS system went up dramatically since I put my budget together. The seller was Zcars Limited in the United Kingdom. They were reasonable folks to deal with, and we quickly came to an agreed price.

Two power cells, one master cell with RF controller installed and two fobs for the RF controller. (Yes, that's a magazine for a Glock 17 next to the master cell. It's a multifunctional work bench.)

After a couple of days, the three cell basic kit plus the inLink RF control module arrived. Shipping was free, but Uncle Sugar imposed a customs duty on the purchase.

This is the bus cable that connects the two power cells to the master cell. the bus cable  sends data signals from the inputs (received by the master cell) to the correct power cell (where components are attached). The longest run I had was from cell #1 to cell #2. It had to traverse the length of the car through the tunnel. The power cells are are identified by a 4 bit binary address (i.e. 1 - 16) that is hard strapped to the power cell.

Now that I had the basic ISIS components, it was time to make some decisions: where and how do I plan to mount the cells. The three cell kit has some basic criteria:

1. Cell #1 for forward components.
2. Cell #2 for rear components.
3. Master cell somewhere in between.

I really didn't come up with these mounting solutions. They represent the best of what I have found on other builder sites. Before I ordered the car, I purchased ISIS mounting plates from Vraptor Speedworks. I used two of these mounting plates for the master cell and power cell #2.

There is nothing fancy about these hinges. They are a $2 part from Home Depot. I simply riveted them in place, and made sure I didn't interfere with the master cell. This is the Vraptor master cell mounting plate. I have it clamped in my dad's old vice (a chunk of iron much older than me).

I attached a hinge to the master cell plate and mounted it under the passenger side dash. This way, I can release a latch (still needs to be built) and drop the master cell down to a visible spot.

Master cell mounted on the passenger side. It will fold up under the dash. Not pictured here is a conduit (2.5 inch PVC pipe) that runs across the top of the Vintage Air HVAC unit. I plan to run the necessary inputs through that conduit as required. Those cables plug into the top and bottom of the master cell. The AC blower motor is wrapped in yellow plastic behind the master cell. Orientation: Looking towards the passenger side foot well.

Power Cell #1 is mounted on the middle aluminum panel under the hood and above the radiator cooling fans. I plan to mount Power cell #3 and the inMotion cell there as well.

Power cell #2 is mounted on a Vraptor plate and the plate is mounted to the  tubular chassis. Orientation: Engine bay pointing towards passenger side. You can see the rear tire right hand side of photo. 

Power Cell #2 is mounted on the passenger side close to the hatch hinge. I made sure I left enough room for the ECU mount. This is on the side opposite the fuel filter/fuel pump installation.

Megafuse panel fabricate from angle aluminum and a aluminum sheet. This can be readily purchased at Lowes or Home Depot. I used the megafuse holder as my template to drill holes.

The other mounting issue relates to the megafuses. Each power cell is protected by a pair of megafuses. The megafuses connect to the battery and/or the inReserve module. To facilitate this I created a fuse panel that I can attach to the back side of the middle panel where I mount the majority of the power cells. This places the megafuses in close proximity to the battery.

Megafuse panel with fuses mounted for power cells #1 and #2. I had to trim the lower left  hand corner to get it to fit properly into place with the chassis.

I designed the megafuse panel to be removable so it is easier to work with. I attached an angle aluminum piece the length of the fuse panel to the back side (battery side) of the middle panel. Then I drilled holes in both the fuse panel angle aluminum and the middle panel angle aluminum large enough for plastic push rivets. This ends up being a very secure piece.

The fuse panel is attached to the back side of the middle panel. The three black buttons are the push rivets to secure the top of the panel in place. The megafuses are next tot he AC condenser (yes, it is very crowded in here). The data bus cables are snaking over the top of the panel. This where I had to cut the channel (not pictured here). The yellow connector is where the data bus cable connects to power cell #1. Orientation: Looking forward under the hood.

The issue I did not foresee until I lowered the hood was the interference between the inside of the hood and hood louvers with the middle panel. I ended up cutting a channel for the data cable and power connectors. I still have to create a latch to hold these down when the hood is closed.

The last thing to do is connect the red power cables into the megafuses. I gave the cables slack . Hopefully, nothing gets upset long term.

The power cables for for power cell #1 were relatively short, because I just had to snake them over the fuse panel. I decided to run the power leads for power cell #2 inside the channel formed by the body shell and the bottom of the chassis where the passenger door resides. This keeps the power leads away from the engine headers. However, I had to extend the power leads by 18 inches so they would reach the megafuses.

UPDATE:
I purchased the rest of the set up from ISIS in the last quarter of 2013. The nice thing about this product is that you can add to it as you go. The addition components were 2 power cells and 1 InMotion cell. The InMotion cell is a somewhat different creature, so I am going to handle that in separate post.

These are power cells 4, 3 and 1 (left to right) mounted under the hood.

I mounted power cells #3 and #4 next to power cell #1. This required that I run the data cable from power cell #2 to power cell #3. I ended up about 30 inches short. However, I had a very short run from power cell #3 to power cell #4. So I cut out the middle of one data cable for the short run and spliced in what I needed for the longer run. I didn't have to purchase any additional components to get to this point.

This is the megafuse panel on the other side of the power cells. The panel is currently mounted, because I am waiting on the bus bar to connect everything. However, everything fit - even though I fabricated this panel last December!

The panel I fabricated for the megafuses worked as designed. The one thing I was missing was a copper bus bar to connect all megafuses from a single power lead. The great thing about Isis Power is you can email them a question and get an answer the same day. Jay sent me a link to the vendor they used for the copper bus bars. I ordered a a strip. The beauty of this is, I completed the entire transaction without wandering off somewhere.