Battery Cable Questions

[spharis]

To properly crimp larger than 2AWG, you need a die; I guess I don't do it the "proper" way, and I crimp against both planes, to get a crinkle, in a vice. Crimping 2gauge or smaller you can use you regular old hand tool, and a little oompf to get it to crimp, depending on the terminal material. Battery connections are usually a copper type, so they are relatively easy to crimp by hand. If it is a tinned copper, or "heavy duty" it will be harder and you may have to use the vice to close the tool.

To tin, I have a solder iron that gets real hot. Your little plug in auto type will not get hot enough. I heat the connetion up for a while, and then wick the solder into the lug. I coat everything down to the sheathing. This also helps solidify the homebrew crimping with the vice. A butane type torch works well for this too.......you can drip the solder in and it will wick if the metal is hot enough.

For 2AWG and smaller, look at this picture

see the larger round halfmoons behind the hinge, above the "h" in the watermark.......you can crimp your 2AWG in there. It is sized for 4AWG, but it will indent and crimp the softer 2AWG connectors just fine as well; you will need to crimp about three times to cover the length of the connector.

[lee]

Ok. I plan on buying tinned cable. How do you tin the terminals (if they aren't already)? Let me clarify one thing. When you say "crimp", do you literally mean the same crimping you would do for any other electrical connection, or is there a certain technique / hand crimper that is used for battery connections. Just making sure...

For 2/0 you will need a big crimper.

[spharis]

LOL....that's an understatement........

The hand crimpers for 0+ sizes look like lock cutters.....handles about 2-3 ft in length. The vice/die style resemble a brake line flaring tool, only heavier.

You can buy one of these if you have a vice.
http://www.americanautowire.com/supp...Crimp_Tool.cfm

If you have alot of 0+ sizes......take your cables to someone with a die and have them crimped after you cut your lengths. They will come out clean without having to practice with a vice on the expensive cable.

[Jeff T]

As Always...Thanks.

[chpthril]

I have a crimper for Battery cables similar to the one Spharis posted except you can either smack w/hammer or use in vice (vice is the easiest).

Like they said, it's real easy, just cut to lenght, solder (to fill air gap in terminal), crimp and 2" of heatshrink (slide down cable before doing terminal)......done. oh yah, wait till it cools after soldering berfore sliding heatshrink up, it will start to shrink on ya

[dogbert]

If you get an electrical fire from tying in a battery with 2AWG, you have way more issues than just cable size! The ONLY component in a boat that requires 2/0 is a starter, and even that would probably do fine on 2AWG if the run is short enough. Your auto is probably using a 3ft section of 4AWG for a similar starter.

Agreed. I should have qualified this with the fact that I opted for the battery switch instead of the isolator.

One more thing, you do want to make sure you have *ALL* your stereo components on the same power/ground circuit or you'll have issues with noise or popping.