Tuesday, December 10, 2013

What is the plural for "Hydra?"

There are now two Hydras in the world.

We got my wife a Volt, so we are now a two EV family. And instead of installing a second charging station, I built us a Hydra. We spent a week moving the plug back and forth, but I was always nervous that I'd forget to charge one of the cars. And if it was the Blueberry, that would be a particular problem (that's our name for the Fit EV).

There were no particular surprises, but a couple lessons learned:

1. The new Leviton cables don't have a proximity wire in them. That's not good for Hydras, though they do still work. The new cables are also thicker, so they probably require a CG-17 instead of the 16 from Polycase. I don't know if it was that it is cold tonight or the cables are new, but they're quite stiff.

2. I simply must remember to watch out for protrusions near the edge of the internal panel. Two standoffs wound up colliding and I had to use a Dremell to cut them off.

3. I cut myself stripping the outer jacket. It wouldn't be a Hydra if I didn't bleed making it I guess.

4. I had originally used a right-angle plug for the i2c LCD connector, but that hit a standoff for the LCD, so I had to bend it up.

5. The new box I chose from Polycase has much more room inside, but at the cost of, well, being bigger.

I had intended to take a bunch of pictures to make a tutorial on building a Hydra... but then I got into actually building it and forgot.

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