CJB 18V Interface Board

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:54 pm

Would more people be comfortable doing the 18V upgrade if I made an interface board like this?
I get not everyone is confident with wiring.

You'd simply connect your batteries to the board, connect your stock wiring harness to the board, pop in some relays and two fuses and you're up and running. Includes connections for charging ports, and Turbo button/TurboTimer function. Wouldn't necessarily have to use it with the TurboTimer though. Would work for just about any vehicle.

Cost is estimated at $15. Is that worth not messing with wires and relay connections and crap?
3.5 x 2.5"

Just a thought.

Roadmonkeytj · Post by **Roadmonkeytj** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:18 pm

For those that are less electronically inclined I think that would be a great option ... Also could clean up some wiring really

onefynryd · Post by **onefynryd** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:53 pm

Agreed, would make install much simpler and professional looking :)

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:07 pm

Personally, I'm pretty proficient at wiring but if I had these around, I'd opt to use it 100% of the time.

That being said, I know everyone is on a budget and $15 is $15. Would it be worth it to you all is my main question I guess. Definitely would keep it cleaner and would dramatically reduce the time it takes for the 18v conversion.

It would be worth it to me, but how about everyone else? I could make 50 of them, I could make 100 of them, or I can just make 3 for myself...

Rob222 · Post by **Rob222** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:21 pm

Cool idea.

taz11 · Post by **taz11** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:23 pm

If I was still modifying, I would use them for $15.

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 3:10 pm

For what, $~200, to have 5 of these and the battery saver turbo timer..... that's still a killer deal. Almost makes ordering a timer alone silly!
Says the Ahole with no order in..... hey, my money is invested elsewhere. Darn thing needed a board too! $50 argh

onefynryd · Post by **onefynryd** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 5:01 pm

If it helps your decision, I'm in for 4 of them. $15 is worth a quick clean install for me.

wired · Post by **wired** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 10:48 pm

I say totally worth it. These would sell on EBAY like hotcakes. You better patent the board. ;) By time you factor in time and material to do the conversion anyway $15 is nothing. There are plenty of people who are looking for an easy way to modify and wiring is very intimidating to those who don't work with it. I'm sure everybody who would use would be very satisfied. You do very professional work and I think it's a great idea.

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 12:38 am

Not being cheap just being Frugal and broad spectrum in the event that a customer was to attach the stock battery connector to this considering it's probably worth using smaller batteries so you could try this with the turbotimer board together is there anyway of attaching this board to the turbotimer as in pegs or screw holes that may align for portability?
Example.... I normally use 12/12 & 6/12 batteries. But I'd be willing to go down to 9 or possibly even 7.5 AH, velcro them together as one, and have the boards constantly connected with the battery pack, simply plugging the pack in with the stock battery endr and a Schumacher style end for the turbo button, on a non lit vehicle. I don't know how to word it..... but have 2-3 of these packs, swap them around vehicles or one vehicle because the smaller batteries with boards would generically fit and still allow for the hood to close properly. 2 quick plugs, and done.
On a fancy decked out ride, with lights, horn, stereo and all that, it would obviously be best to keep everything as a permanent install.

Just curious if there is a chance to allow your two boards to stack or piggy back, or if heat dissipation may be an issue? I'm not saying to make a frame... and obviously I don't know the sizes either. Just thinking if there's a chance to allow space for an extra hole, now would be the time to consider it?
Can either or both boards be mounted directly to the plastic body of the rides?

toycrusher · Post by **toycrusher** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 6:51 am

I'm assuming it would work for 12 + 12 too, not just 18v? How would the turbo timer integrate?

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 8:35 am

Me:
Does that stop at 18V/30 amp, or would it accept more and tolerate it well?

CJB:
Yeah, this thing is good for at least 20A continuous, which is more than they run at normally while moving. With the old rule of thumb of 'select your fuse at twice your nominal load', this should do 30A peak just fine.

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 9:02 pm

Only stock ride I have is a near mint gator so that will not see 24v for a test. Everything else is already rewired. I could use a gunnea pig tester guy if I run this board.

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 9:24 pm

Are you saying you want a stock ride?
How far are you from LEINENKUGEL lodge? I'll donate a ride to the cause. Wanna meet up next weekend? I still won't have any funds to make a purchase, but I'll give you a stock power wheels and OK battery. I'll also provide an extra battery end.

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:09 pm

lol, no.

I would prefer to ship a board to someone who wants to test it.

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:28 pm

Oh. Well you'd probably want a customer who has sent you money then. =(
Not that I would have a problem playing guinea pig! Heck, I've got a fire extinguisher I can mount to a ride ;-)

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 12:10 pm

Okay, so I think I'm going to pull the trigger on this

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 12:16 pm

Sounds good to me! I'll be down for a few!

mamasboy · Post by **mamasboy** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 2:42 pm

awesome idea makes things so much easier

MR_Pat · Post by **MR_Pat** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 3:24 pm

Which ever way works :P

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 3:30 pm

I just placed an order for 50 boards. We'll see how that goes. I'll calculate a final cost in a bit.

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 3:45 pm

Will come to $15 shipped in the 48, does NOT include fuses or relays. Supply your own.

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 4:08 pm

How it works:

By itself in an 18V system.

(turbo button optional. can be configured for full time 18v)

In combination with a Turbo Timer:

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 8:31 pm

Hey boss...
So with the 1,2,3,4 molex style connector on the turbo timer, it says motor connection?
Um, how does that work? There's no shifter involvement??? If the new board feeds the stock harness, what does that wire do exactly?

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:06 pm

The turbo timer needs to be connected to one of the motor wires that is positive while in fwd gear. That's how it knows if the vehicle is moving or not. That is the motor connection called out.

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:14 pm

Oh, a safety to disallow turbo reversing! Genius. My bad. Thanks for the clarification.
So sometimes that wire has ground applied, but only allows turbo activation when hot, or one motors positive is completely disconnected from the shifter? I apologize if this answer should be apparent =/

toycrusher · Post by **toycrusher** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 6:16 am

Suburbancharlie77 wrote:Oh, a safety to disallow turbo reversing! Genius. My bad. Thanks for the clarification.
So sometimes that wire has ground applied, but only allows turbo activation when hot, or one motors positive is completely disconnected from the shifter? I apologize if this answer should be apparent =/

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=17270

toycrusher · Post by **toycrusher** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 6:30 am

So......

Could you add an additional dpdt relay socket to the board and switch input to give it reverse function too?

It would basically replace a 3 position shifter, reverse low, forward low, forward high / turbo timed. The outputs would go to the motors or you could split the outputs in parallel to make it easy to connect two motors to the board. The gas pedal can be put in place of the key switch.

This would be very appealing to those with low current rides that have circuit boards and want more power. The pedal and shift switches could be easily moved over to this high capacity board.

Plus, those who buy "upgraded" motors and have problems blamed on vehicle wiring would have a "go-to" solution that bypasses all that and makes 10 ga wiring upgrade a breeze.

It would even work for ESC rides, I think... not the high/low function but the forward/reverse, if it were capable of handling 24v in the 12v circuit input... and as the wheels keep spinning dangerously, could the 6v side be used as turbo above the 24v from the esc for 30v in turbo mode? Hmmmm...

toycrusher · Post by **toycrusher** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 6:36 am

You might want to rename this thread "Input requested (Toycrusher excluded)" :D

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 7:24 am

sure... you say all this after I've ordered the boards LoL

ESC would be tough as the IGN relay coil draws the power from the 12V battery input. Anything over 12v on that would be problematic. The turbo relay on the left side has external coil connections, but will ship with jumpers installed for full time 18v. Cut the jumpers to 85 and 86 as needed for your particular set-up.

I made this with the 'MPW for dummies' in mind... the people who don't wire things or work on cars and don't really know how to upgrade it properly. I tried to keep it as basic as possible, as plug and play as practical.

Charlie - you nailed it - the Motor Connection wire allows the timer to see when the vehicle is moving and in which direction so there is no turbo allowed in reverse. This also allows the battery saver feature to know when the vehicle is idle.

toycrusher · Post by **toycrusher** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:26 am

I made this with the 'MPW for dummies' in mind...

Hey! I wear the "dunce" hat around here! :lol:

you say all this after I've ordered the boards LoL

There's always version 2, 3, 4... ;)

So ESC may be taking it too far, but version two integrating forward/reverse would be super popular with all the chinese rides that are flooding the market currently.

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 11:14 am

Trying to make installation instructions as simple as possible. Is this easy enough to follow?

I would like to think appropriate wire gauge is implied with the color coded terminals...

J1 and J2 are jumpers for the turbo relay. It will ship ready for full-time 18V with both jumpers installed to power the relay coil. If you want to use a turbo button or turbo timer, some jumper cutting is involved.

MR_Pat · Post by **MR_Pat** » Mon Aug 15, 2016 4:38 pm

I need to get 2 of these as well.. Keep forgetting to put the order in

Tythejeepman · Post by **Tythejeepman** » Thu Aug 18, 2016 8:08 pm

Looks like a great board I would possibly consider purchasing one of these for my next build even though I'm good at wiring I haven't gotten to doing the turbo button set up granted I'm only on my 2nd wrangler in building lol!

MR_Pat · Post by **MR_Pat** » Thu Aug 18, 2016 9:30 pm

Adding the turbo timer from CJB is worth every penny... I bought 4 of them . I had 2 cars i knew were getting it right away and i have 2 on the shelf at the moment with plans to put them in the 2 4 wheelers we have

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 7:49 am

After the slowest boat ride from China that ever was, the 18v interface PCBs have arrived!

I'm going to install one tonight and run it through it's paces to make sure it holds up as designed.
Those who have already ordered can hopefully expect theirs to ship before the weekend if all goes well!

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:06 am

That's purdy sexy circuitry thar

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:29 am

Suburbancharlie77 wrote:That's purdy sexy circuitry thar

It's a lot of dang hand soldering is what it is :( :lol:

Suburbancharlie77 · Post by **Suburbancharlie77** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:36 am

Left for you to do, or done over seas?
C'mon, there's more than just a ton of spades on there, must have a few resistors, and the relay holders!

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:57 am

I only have the boards themselves made overseas. All the assembly is performed here with parts sourced from US companies whenever possible. The fuse holders and all the connection terminals are made in NY, relay sockets are made in OH. Fuses, LED and resistor are sourced from a MN distributor. USA! USA! USA!

60 solder joints per board. I have a wave solder machine here at work that can do them all at once but it's not really working properly and I think it would do more harm than good. :shock:

toycrusher · Post by **toycrusher** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 9:20 am

So how many of those 18v boards do I need to help you move so you can get to version 2 with integrated fwd/reverse relay??? ;) ;) ;) :roll: :lol:

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 9:27 am

toycrusher wrote:So how many of those 18v boards do I need to help you move so you can get to version 2 with integrated fwd/reverse relay??? ;) ;) ;) :roll: :lol:

LoL

43 ;)

MR_Pat · Post by **MR_Pat** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 11:15 am

Hopefully get some new modders in soon looking t o do these conversions. Now that I have ESC figured out pretty sure most of our vehicles will go that route. Going to use the 2 I ordered in the 4 wheelers just to make my life simple. Thinkin i need o buy about 4 more TurboTimers though for making future esc rides especially interesting.

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 9:03 pm

Stress test went PERFECT. Full time 18v in hilly grass... Board still cool to the touch.

Motors were not, but I'm not testing the motors and that is to be expected, so I still call that a major win.

I spent about 5 minutes on the install. Its a bit crude but not the worst I've done. LoL. By far the easiest keyed ignition mod I've ever done. Plug in 2 connections, mount a button and clip off a little jumper on the board and its ready for turbo mode. If I wasn't the creator of it, I'd give it 5 stars. I'll post a few pics tomorrow.

MR_Pat · Post by **MR_Pat** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 10:52 pm

Currently i give 5 stars on the Turbo Timer. and given how easy this is going to be to make cars 18v full time and or Turbo Timed worth every penny. looking forward to these. And can't wait to put the TT on the ESC vette :D :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 8:52 am

Thanks!

The test subject was a nasty old Barbie jeep of some variety. Install, as I said, was crude but effective nonetheless.
He drove it around the yard up and down all the hills for about 20 minutes straight on full-time 18v.

Again, the board was still cool to the touch. It took me longer to crimp on all the connectors than it did to hook it up. I'm going to do one more run tonight just to be sure. I don't like shipping things that haven't been thoroughly tested. But, I have enough proof to start production. Hopefully I can ship most, if not all of the pre-orders in the next day or two.

onefynryd · Post by **onefynryd** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 3:46 pm

Awesome!

MR_Pat · Post by **MR_Pat** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 7:59 pm

Sweeeeeeett

CJB · Post by **CJB** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 11:51 pm

These things are a huge pain to build. This WILL be the only production run. Screw this.

There are areas on the board with so much thick copper I have to heat it MINUTES before the solder will wet to the terminal. I call BS.

MR_Pat · Post by **MR_Pat** » Fri Sep 09, 2016 12:40 am

Thankyou again for your creativity CJB.