Optima Battery Mounting

Today I set out to mount the Optima Blue Top battery in XS. My current wiring is designed to use 2 batteries, one for the electronics and the other for the foot motors. The primary reason was that the AX3500 Speed Controller cuts the foot motors if the battery drops below 10V causing the droid to jitter across the floor. By having its own battery it never knows when the primary battery is low so things stay smooth.

Of course all of that changes when you go to one large battery. The Optima should give me 8hrs or so of drive time without getting the jitters. Either way there is no room to put another battery.

So my goal was to make my system able to handle both my 18ah batteries and the Optima with the least amount of work if switching on the fly.

First thing I did was remove the plugs I had installed on my other batteries and wired screwed them together with the post from the big battery. I also wrapped the joint in electrical tape to prevent any potential disasters.













Next I removed my battery harness and strapped the Optima in with cargo straps. I put the hooks around the spacers holding the skirt on and criss-crossed them over the battery.













Once that was done I was able to put the post connections back on and plug both systems into the battery at the same time. With that done XS was running smooth. The battery slowed him down a little but not too bad.













As for making it an easy transition to the other batteries, I think I failed. If I start a day with the Optima in place, I can transition to the other batteries, but it would take about 10 minutes of screwing in the battery harness and putting the terminal plugs back.