rca's off-grid battery and power control room

[DanG]

In a way it is a curse because I absolutely cannot just throw something together

I can relate.

It drives the missus nutso when projects meander through planning to accumulate then back to planning again and again.

I worked Inspection on a 40-ton 750VDC Subway railcar fleet & all my projects are safe to 80mph and 1,000,000 miles whether or not it needs to.

And, on the dropped spanner, on higher voltage DC the magnetic field generated will clear the arc area of the offending tool at about 1/10th light speed - don't be downrange!

[rcavictim]

On the first day of attaching battery interconnection straps made from #6 AWG with crimps I accidentally touched the regular 3/8" drive ratchet wrench between the terminal I was on and one 24 volts away in one group of four.  Psstttt.     Took a bit off the socket which is still useable, welded and vaporized the ratchet mechanizm in the wrench now unuseable and woke me up.  The very next thing I did was to wrap a bunch of top quality 2" wide electrical tape around another 3/8 drive ratchet.  Job got finished with no more surprises.

If a wrench was to land across the main busses on this bank the current would be limited by the individual 30 Amp breakers and  interconnection cables likely preventing a catastrophie but it would still be an impressive discharge and not something I would deliberately do.  By design, placing the pos and neg busses on opposite sides of the rack I have made such an accident virtually impossible.  The bussbars themselves can be contacted by my forearms while working on the two lower tiers of batteries.  To avoid shocks or shorts I have the busses covered with heatshrink insulation where they pose a potential risk.