battery terminals

I completely agree but offer a word of warning. I was fortunate enough to pick up a selection of AMP crimping tools surplus for $10ea instead of the $200 retail price. These do a superb job compared to lesser crimping tools. An example: I spliced a #10 wire lead that I had cut in two places back together with high quality butt splices. One splice was crimpped with an AMP crimper and one was done with the common Yellow handled cutter/stripper/crimper. I then put about a ten amp current through this lead and measured the voltage drop accros each splice. The loss across the AMP crimped splice was less than half that across the other.

If you don't have and can't borrow the use of really good crimping tools, you would be better off soldering the 3/8" eyelets provided you did a good job of the soldering.

Ted

Agreed. The regular non-compound action crimpers are kind of a joke. I was lucky enough to get a large adjustable mechanical dent crimper which exerts quite a bit of pressure. My preference, however is a Burndy Y35 or equivalent, which uses cylindrical dies. I got one for $35, but I need to buy or make some dies for it. The local utility will only accept round die crimps on primary splices and elbows.

Check out the auctions at

They are sealed bid and in Pa.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Appreciate the link Ken.

Soldered joints don't perform very well in high current applications. Most welding shops which sell cable and connectors will have a good hydraulic crimper, and will usually install the terminals for you for no extra charge. At least the welding shop where I do business will, and they've got a *monster* hydraulic crimper.

Gary

In what way? What failure modes? Before I had my AMP crimpers, I had to resort to soldered joints. First I saturated the stripped end with solder then made sure the solder flowed all through the space between wire and connector sleeve. The highest current ones I did this way were eyelet connectors to attach 00 Superflex welding cable to a 60amphour,

12volt bank of NiCds. This was tested at currents up to 500Amps and routinely used at 300Amps over a period of about ten years and at temperatures ranging from room temperature to -50C without any sign of problems or heating at the soldered joints.

While I agree that _properly_ crimped connections are better and are first choice, I think that _properly_ soldered ones are grossly under rated.

Ted

Agreed!

Note that these yellow-handeled cutter/stripper/crimper/screw-cutter devices can be found with "AMP"s name on them -- but these are considered field expedients, not serious crimping tools.

This does not surprise me at all.

Note, also, that the AMP tools don't stop at the #10 gauge sizes (yellow insulation), but extend well past that, with two sizes of hydraulically powered tools which accept interchangeable dies:

1) Hand-held, with hydraulic pump built in:

insul wire size red #8 blue #6 yellow #4 red #2

2) Larger, with just the hydraulic slave cylinder and the die-mounting frame: insul wire size blue 0 (or 1/0) yellow 2/0 red 3/0 blue 4/0 (wire about the size of your index finger)

1a) There is also a stand-alone die and frame for the first range of dies which are similar to those in (2) above. Both the (2) and (1a) heads connect to your choice of power source:

a) Hand-held pump, 10,000 PSI like Enerpac makes

b) Foot-operated pump, similar to (a) above. This was the first which I encountered on a set of dies for 4/0 terminals.

c) An electrically-powered pump which, on the press of a button, runs up to a pre-set pressure (about 7000 PSI IIRC), and then shuts off and automatically allows the dies to open.

I've gotten all three kinds of heads, a full set of the dies for the (1) series above, and three of the four dies for the (2) series -- everything but a 4/0 set. For power, I have the Enerpac hand-pump, and the electric cycling pump (which was the first part of this I got -- thanks to a surplus sale in which I was bidding on something else, and this happened to be in the lot. I only realized what it was when I was packing it up to take home with the rest of the lot. That started my collection of the AMP hydraulic crimpers. :-)

It takes a while of watching eBay to get this far -- plus a little luck at other source, such as hamfests and surplus sales, but it is possible, and should be done before you need it, because you can't get these for anything affordable when buying new. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Aside, it's getting hard to find crimp *terminals* that aren't absolute junk, nevermind having the correct crimper. At least, the last batches of #10-12 spade and ring terminals I got from home depot and lowes were of such thin gauge that they simply were not stiff enough to stay on the wire. Whatever they were intended for, I have no idea.

Bob

This is a good reason to use silver solder (the expensive stuff) on high current terminations. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Doesn't surprise me. If you want good ones, find someone who deals in genuine AMP ones. Anybody who supplies them for aircraft would presumably have the good ones.

Ted

In the larger sizes, at least in NY, HD is selling a major, reputable brand, IIRC, it was Burndy, I just bought some last week and they were very nice.

WRT to the smaller stuff, I wish I could find more bare spade and ring terminals that could be lightly crimped and then soldered.

I left out, I chucked the stuff from h.d. and bought from mcmaster.com, they have every style, including insulated and non, that I would ever need.

Bob

Have you considered clothes drier connectors? Those plugs are cheap and plenty heavy duty

Have already ordered and received some heavy duty "forklift" type connectors (plus & minus, side-by-side, in a flat type connector), that are sized for 1/0 cable, 175 amp. They should work nicely as I also ordered the "caps" that cover up the open end of the plug when not in use. Ken.

If you are talking about the standard 240V drier connectors, they are only rated for 30 amps.

Ted

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They were intended to fool people into spending money. :-)

Most common sizes of good crimp terminals by AMP are showing up on eBay fairly frequently -- in sizes up through #2 at least. The recent terminals are made with translucent nylon insulation with colored stripes rather than the older solid-colored plastic insulation. If you find a batch of these in a useful size, bid on them and get them. You'll eventually use enough so you won't feel bad about having to buy a batch of 100, instead of a few at a time. Anyway -- that leaves you prepared for emergencies. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

On 12 Jan 2004 00:58:32 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols) brought forth from the murky depths:

Those are the terminals you crimp together with excess bare wire sticking through so it can be soldered. Real timesavers, those.

Yes, the nylon insulators are much nicer. AMP connectors on *b*y? Thanks for the heads-up.

-- Vidi, Vici, Veni ---

Comprehensive Website Development

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You're welcome. The fellow in question comes and goes, so you may have to wait a bit. Let me see whether he has any up at the moment.

Nope -- none there at present. And the last auction in which I bid on (and won) such terminals closed March 8 2003, and is now expired form eBay's pages, so I can't find the vendor's name. The larger terminals (e.g. #8 wire) come in bags of 50, smaller ones in bags of

100.

Enjoy, DoN.