The frunk!

Vipar said:
This is as far as I have got
Placed 32ltr box in position. Used a perm marker pen to mark the slot for the cable and the two support holes. Placed box on a bit of scrap wood under the support holes to stop plastic from splitting. Small drill first then one large enough to take the main bolts. Then drilled 4 holes to enable me to get a jigsaw blade. (T1b) in to cut the oblong shape so not to foul the cable. Gentley file off the rough edges. Just have to wait for the bolts and washer to come then fit it. Then find 2 pieces of wood to support the ends. keep it in place with 2 dome head wood screws and washers Or cup heads with countersink screws photos to follow. I am going to put washers everywhere to stop the plastic box from splitting.

Note the all important 10mm spanner😂😂
Click to expand...
Can I suggest something not necessary for you but for the next person the hole you cut you if you draw instead of cut than the heat with hair dryer obviously heat gun would be better then use the say a handle of a screwdriver to create a dome may look neater and no hole to lose anything down
Screenshot_20230409-174814.png
 
Gonna get some non slip matting next time I’m in the £ shop. Might explore the possibility of glueing a small dome over the hole to stop bits falling through. Although the matting should stop this.
 
Pieces of tanalised wood strapped to the inverter? Not hot enough to cause an actual fire, but it would maybe worry me 🤔
 
Thought I would share my spin on the 'underbed box frunk'. The issues I wanted to resolve were:
  • I wan't happy cutting holes in the box for clearance
  • No modifications to the car (at all)
  • The boxes are pretty floppy and the plastic cracks quite easily
  • It needed to be quickly dismountable if the car was going into the garage
Luckily I have a 3D printer so with a bit of design work...

The round parts fit on top of the existing posts and spread the load whilst lifting the box above that awkward clip. The other three pieces fasten together, clamping round the existing casting and give a surface at the same level as the round spacers.

This shows the box sat on top of the mounts

The finished article. A piece of plywood sits in the bottom of the box and takes all the load, the plywood is bolted through the box into the existing threaded holes (which the spacers sit on) and the 3D printed clamp (using M3 bolts and threaded inserts in the print. Bolting like this stops the box flapping about if you accidentally hit a speed bump too fast (not that I ever have, not ever, honest)


I've had this in place since August and it is the constant home for my charging and V2L cables. It took 4m30s to dismount before the service and just 5m to refit. For any other 3D printers out there it is printed in PETG as PLA would 'creep' when used in an application like this.

I hope someone finds this useful.
 
Great work with the designs.

It was all looking really good until you threw the plywood in there 😀

I think PETG is obviously better than PLA, but I'd say you'd be better off with ASA. Lots of car plastics are built from ABS and ASA and the glass transition temp is 100C (rather than 80 for PETG). Might be ok for a while, but give it until summer and that inverter has a work out after a long trip and some rapid charging - wouldn't surprise if it gets about 80 at the surface.

Good though.
 
Fair points, but ASA requires a fully heated enclosure which sadly is about 4 weeks away ;). I kept an eye on the temp over the hot weather and was surprised that the cabin was far hotter than around the inverter! Dimensional stability since the start of August has been good. It's not so much the transition temp, it's more the creep due to mechanical load that I was bothered about,
 
Crustyoldgit said:
Fair points, but ASA requires a fully heated enclosure which sadly is about 4 weeks away ;). I kept an eye on the temp over the hot weather and was surprised that the cabin was far hotter than around the inverter! Dimensional stability since the start of August has been good. It's not so much the transition temp, it's more the creep due to mechanical load that I was bothered about,
Click to expand...
I've printed quite a lot of ASA on my prusa mini with it just sat in a DIY box. The heat of the bed at 100C is easily enough to prevent distortion without the use of a dedicated heater.

I printed my Type 2 plug holder like this which sits outside in direct sun and it's holding up well.
 
Bodgerx said:
Great work with the designs.

It was all looking really good until you threw the plywood in there 😀

I think PETG is obviously better than PLA, but I'd say you'd be better off with ASA. Lots of car plastics are built from ABS and ASA and the glass transition temp is 100C (rather than 80 for PETG). Might be ok for a while, but give it until summer and that inverter has a work out after a long trip and some rapid charging - wouldn't surprise if it gets about 80 at the surface.

Good though.
Click to expand...
I’d just refer you back to my sweet little experiment a while back. I said that rather than a frunk box in my five estate car I simply lay the type 2 cable in a coil on the under bonnet cover. Someone said the heat would affect the cable if it lay there for any length of time.
I placed a Curly Wurly under the cable and left it there for about a week and a half. The car did a bunch of short run around journeys. Then one day we drove to Banchory and back - about a 250 mile round trip including a couple of CCS top up charge splash & dashes.
The chocolate/toffee bar was intact. I unwrapped and ate it completely unaided, unsullied and unrepentant.
 
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It wasn't really the content of the boxes I was thinking about.

It was more about the plastic brackets giving up on direct contact with hot metal things, giving way, and then the ensuing chaos as things start breaking free under there.
 
Crustyoldgit said:
Thought I would share my spin on the 'underbed box frunk'. The issues I wanted to resolve were:
  • I wan't happy cutting holes in the box for clearance
  • No modifications to the car (at all)
  • The boxes are pretty floppy and the plastic cracks quite easily
  • It needed to be quickly dismountable if the car was going into the garage
Luckily I have a 3D printer so with a bit of design work...

The round parts fit on top of the existing posts and spread the load whilst lifting the box above that awkward clip. The other three pieces fasten together, clamping round the existing casting and give a surface at the same level as the round spacers.

This shows the box sat on top of the mounts

The finished article. A piece of plywood sits in the bottom of the box and takes all the load, the plywood is bolted through the box into the existing threaded holes (which the spacers sit on) and the 3D printed clamp (using M3 bolts and threaded inserts in the print. Bolting like this stops the box flapping about if you accidentally hit a speed bump too fast (not that I ever have, not ever, honest)


I've had this in place since August and it is the constant home for my charging and V2L cables. It took 4m30s to dismount before the service and just 5m to refit. For any other 3D printers out there it is printed in PETG as PLA would 'creep' when used in an application like this.

I hope someone finds this useful.
Click to expand...

Do you have the STL files somewhere like thingiverse?
 
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