My Nissan Leaf Forum

This thread will describe people building the SOC-Meter Kit,
as described by their fearless and enthuiastic leader, and
probably by some of those who attended.

Pictures are being taken to illustrate the journey.

The first "big" SOC-Meter Kit-Building event/party happened
yesterday in Sammamish, WA (suburb of Seattle, in King County).

Nine of 10 builders were expected, with the Hostess-Builder
having built their SOC-Meter over a week earlier
to better understand the kit-building process.

She has even produced a nice Kit-Building document (pdf), which
includes a number of good, professional kit-building suggestions.

This "package" of 10 Kits included (roughly):
Six Blue and 4 Red Displays,
7 Logging Ports,
6 boxes with all holes cut,
10 with Filters and the new 5w Zener Diodes.

Hopefully, they will get some pictures posted soon.

Thanks for coordinating and hosting this great event!!!

It would be nice to link her document here as another source for others considering or about to build the kit.

Ironically, having designed and/or built hundreds (maybe even thousands) of electronic projects over the years, electronic assembly doesn't faze me in the least... However, cutting the plastic box for the display gives me pause as that is definitely not my forte and I have seen how unforgiving plastic can be...

My "assembly" documents are at:
www.wwwsite.com/puzzles/socmeter/

As soon as I get the "final" copy of her document, I will post it there also.

Box Options (some new):
The project box in the Kit can be supplied with:

1. Slot (rounded corners) almost ready for Display: $10

2. All round holes drilled: $10

3. Fully formed opening for mounting the Log-Port's D9 connector: $10

4. Assembly-Ready Box, including Log Port: $30

Perhaps the last would suit you?

Cathy, my wife, organized a build party for GaryGid's SOC-Meter kit for Seattle-area Leaf owners. We got enough interest to order 10 kits. The kits arrived in time for Cathy to build our meter in advance. Along the way, she made some tweaks and added photos to Gary's assembly manual.

We arranged to meet at a local Maker space, StudentRND (http://studentrnd.org/), in Bellevue. It's a great shop, with lots of room to work and cool tools like a laser cutter. If you're in the area, we recommend checking them out.

Despite the inclement weather (we had to shovel two inches of mostly ice from our steep 500-foot drive to get our Leaf on the road), we had a good turnout. Here's a photo Cathy took early in the process:



A little later, there was more going on as people made progress on their kits. I'm in the back of the photo, working on my iPhone program for logging EV data.



The only barrier to getting the assembly done in a couple of hours is letting the silicone adhesive cure for an hour in the middle of the process. Still, we had a couple of folks finish and test their meters during the meeting. We also learned that if you have multiple people sharing the work to assemble a kit, each should have a copy of the instructions.

Cathy is putting the finishing touches on an update to the assembly manual with some insights she learned from the party.

We now have our meter fully installed in the car. It's awesome. We have two other EVs that have SOC meters, which we really missed in the Leaf. Thanks to Gary for creating the kit and to everyone in the community who contributed to decoding the CAN messages and making the whole thing possible.

Cathy and Tom,

StudentRND looks like a wonderful resource to have available.

Here, we had been speculating about how you were
going to host 8 building "stations" in your home!

We look forward to more of your well-written descriptions, and pictures!

Thanks for your splendid suggestions, your dedication
to helping our LEAF CANbus community, your hard Work, ...
and your Kindness and Caring!

Thanks for the kind words, Gary, and especially thanks for developing the kit!

Here's a photo of our SOC-Meter with the labels Cathy created for our group.



The labels are white text on clear label tape.

Looks like a wonderful group project. Congratulations on organizing it. As a Gary-meter owner, I know that your group members must have been very appreciative of the group build opportunity.

I also like your labels. I'll be looking to do something like that for my meter.

Cheers!