Sunday, October 4, 2009

Noise Filter for PakTrakr

While waiting for my PakTrakr display replacement, I decided to a build a noise filter in case the new display still behaves strangely. This noise filter has solved the issue for at least one other EV converter that I know of who has a very similar setup to mine.

To avoid mounting the capacitors directly onto the PakTrakr display or the twisted pair cable, I purchased a small simple circuit board and connectors from a local electronics shop to facilitate installation and removal if necessary.

Note: Only three pin connectors are needed but since they were not in stock I used four pin connectors instead.



The two capacitors used are 4700 uF and 0.1 uF. The board was cut to be smaller and more compact.



The male connectors were mounted on each end of the board followed by the capacitors. This could also have been done using only one male connector at one end and three wires connected at the other end with a three pin female connector to plug into the PakTrakr display unit. Nevertheless, this approach will work well and give the unit some rigidity.



The connectors were soldered and the capacitor leads were bent and soldered accordingly on the underside.



The underside will be covered with an insulator and then I plan to wrap the whole unit in shrink tubing leaving the connectors accessible. The total cost of the parts was $8 cdn.

2 comments:

Brian said...

I hope this solves your problem.
So how do you connect your wires to the female side of those connectors? Is there a tool or? I've never used them.

Jim said...

Brian,

There are some small crimpable end on which your wires are attached. Those ends are then slipped into the female sleeve snapping into place. They can also be removed by inserting a small pointy object in the provided spaces to snap out the ends. These connectors are very common in computer use. If you look inside a desktop computer you are sure to spot one.