Battery Wiring

I have built most of my battery cables and interconnects. This page shows the details.

Cable Construction

I use welding cable, which has a lot of tiny strands of wire with an Exelene insulation. It is more flexible than normal battery cables and crimps better.

I use heavy duty Molex lugs, not the cheap ones found in auto parts stores.

If you live where corrosion is common, tin plated lugs and cable may be better. They are generally known as Marine lugs and cable, but are more expensive.

Most of the cables I use are made of AWG 1/0 wire, which is quite large and heavy. Lugs are attached using a hydraulic hex crimper with different sized hex dies.

This crimper uses high pressure to essentially cold weld the lug onto the wire such that there is no air remaining. Here is an example cross section. It just looks like a solid block:

First the cable is crimped. The dies are marked for AWG wire sizes, but are not really exact. I needed four crimps to get a nice result.

Crimp with a larger die marked 2/0

Rotate 120 degrees and crimp again with the 2/0 die

Crimp with the smaller die marked 1/0

Rotate 120 degrees and crimp again with the 1/0 die

The result is a very nice hex crimp:

Then shrink sleeving lined with adhesive is put on the end of the wire:

Then the shrink sleeving is heated to shrink it and melt the adhesive. You can see the adhesive at the ends of the sleeve to keep corrosion from getting to the wire and crimp:

If the wire needs to be protected from damage, an additional split loom sleeve is installed:

I also purchased a couple 4/0 cables as I do not have the crimper for it. I installed the same shrink sleeving and installed red adhesive lined sleeving on all + cables and black on all - cables. Some of the cables come in both red and black and some are all black, but I made sure the ends are color coded so no mistakes would be made. Here are a few examples. The AWG 1/0 cables I built are on the left and the AWG 4/0 cables I purchased and replaced the shrink sleeve are on the right:

For those outside the US, here are the same examples in metric:

Junctions

For junctions, I used Blue Sea 2016 Dual Powerposts with 5/16 Studs. I can attach four lugs on each stud:

Rubber insulating covers are added:

And secured with tie wraps:

The cables are put in place:

And covered with a plastic box so liquids or metal pieces can't fall on them and short things out, which would likely be exciting:

Inverter Attachment

The wires to the inverter are AWG 4/0, very large and not very flexible:

The positive side has a protective cover:

Here are some of my other sites:

My RV ham station: https://sites.google.com/site/marksmobilehamstation/

My Controleo2 based SMT Reflow Oven: https://sites.google.com/site/markscontroleo2build/

My TS-590S MODs including a buffer board install for a panadapter: https://sites.google.com/site/marksts590smods/

My TCXO Boards to replace the SO-3 in Kenwood TS-590 radios: https://sites.google.com/site/markstcxo/

An explanation of various TCXO Characteristics in Kenwood TS-590 Radios: https://sites.google.com/site/markstcxomeasurements/

Modifications to allow use of an external clock in a Perseus SDR: https://sites.google.com/site/perseusmods/

How I use Spectrum Lab Software to do frequency measurements: https://sites.google.com/site/spectrumlabtesting/

Pictures I took of the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse from Menan Butte, Idaho: https://sites.google.com/site/marks2017eclipsephotos/

Revised April 2, 2019