Homemade Inverter Battery Trolley
Introduction: Homemade Inverter Battery Trolley
So this Instructables is about an inverter trolley. The place where I lived there is a lot of power cuts during the rainy season because of heavy storms and to counter that problem people usually have an inverter for the power backup. Being a maker I need electricity to full fill my needs. It's not able to run all of my machines but if I have to run my CNC or a 3d printing work at that moment it's a huge timesaver and kept my equipment running during the power cuts. Power cuts mostly remain for 1-2 hrs and the inverter backup is plenty enough to keep everything alive. So for this build, I decided to reuse some of the old rusty stuff to get rid of them. I don't want to throw that because of rust so for the framework the material is all repurposed from old things which are no longer usable. Being a heavy item and usually needed to be replaced after a certain interval I made this to be movable because the place where it needs to be placed in a congested space so having mobility is surely gonna help in maintenance. Overall said this build is easy, there are surely no problematic areas where you get any problem. If you have any ideas or tips then surely let me know in the comments section down below.
Supplies
The material used: For this build, most of the material has been recovered from my old builds which are no longer usable and that's the reason why I am using materials randomly which fits into the desired area. Although I also need to use some fresh material too. The list of materials has been provided down below.
1. 11/2" square Pipe
2. 11/2" angle
3. 1" angle
4. 3/4" angle
5. 1 mm MS sheet
6. 1 mm stainless steel sheet
7. 20 gauge mesh
8. 4mm thick glass
9. 4 mm rivets
10. Casters
11. Paint
Step 1: My Design Considerations Before Building
Before building this trolley I have made a rough sketch. 98
I have thought about the requirements and specifications. I made a simple box shape design. The whole trolly can be easily moveable for cleaning and easily placing. So I fitted 4 no of PU castor wheels. The battery frame I have also provided wheels because batteries used for inverter are not dry batteries they are lead-acid batteries are used and over a period of time the acid gets dry and required top up with demineralized water. That will increase battery life as well. It is also required that the battery will remain cool inside the trolley so I cover the back and side with a perforated sheet. The top section where the inverter is placed in made back with the perforated sheet so that all the hot fumes from the inverter will easily escape. And inside components of the inverter will remain cool. I cover the front of the top section with 4 mm glass so that all the status will be easily shown. And it gives a good aesthetic look as well. Door front I made from rusted scrap sheet. and handles I made with ⅜" square rod that was bent with my forge.
Step 2: ​Battery Rack
For most of my builds I usually cut down all the materials at once but this build is different because I have to reuse the old material. So whatever I found useful I included that material to my build and then focus on one section and complete that and move forward. The battery rack is made out of 1 1⁄2" angle piece. The joint is a but weld joint in which in any of the opposite two sides the ends are cut equals to the dimensions of the angle. Since the battery is a bit higher in the design in that case I have to weld additional arms so that I can provide some support so that during the dragging time the battery will not tip over. Usually, with the 1⁄4" thick material the current settings, I used generally lie between 85-90 amps. To keep the frame in the square I used a magnetic holder to keep the at 90° and tack weld all the sides one by one. If the material is a bit thicker than I always made 2-3mm chamfer so that a good weld joint can be formed.
Step 3: ​Constructing the Top Inverter Frame.
To construct the top inverter frame the construction is a bit more same as the battery rack but with a slight difference on the top frame there are going to be two frames joined together with some spacer pieces. The height is kept according to the thickness of the inverter. If you have a different inverter than that thickness might vary. So then onto the top inverter frame, two different angle frames have been connected. 220