Best way to combine two 14 gauge wires into one 75 amp anderson connector?

Hello,

I recently bought a Mean Well HLG-600H-15A for use as a lifepo4 battery charger. I was dismayed when it arrived because it has two 14 gauge, 18 amp DC outputs, rather than one 36 amp output. According to Mean Well tech support, these wires both come from the same source internally, but I probably need to combine them for the full rated 36 amp output.

What's the best way to do this? I usually use Anderson Connectors for everything. I don't want to use a pure solder connection as they're prone to mechanical failure and I want to minimize the risk of fire.

Should I just crimp both wires into a single 8 gauge 75 amp anderson connector?
Should I use a combiner block of some kind?

What would you recommend? Thanks.

For stranded wire, just strip and loosely twist them together before crimping them into the connector.

You'll probably need to combine them and fold the end double to get a tight crimp.

Solder is not as bad as you think it is. I have never had a soldered connection fail on me in over 20 years.. but i solder with lead..

neptronix said:

Solder is not as bad as you think it is. I have never had a soldered connection fail on me in over 20 years.. but i solder with lead..

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That's true, and it's consistent with my own experience. However, soldering big fat wires usually results in some amount of wire under the insulation becoming wetted with solder and stiff like solid core wire, which can be inconvenient.

Yeah, it can make a wire inflexible, but that's not a big deal when the other 98% of your wire can flex.
Same problem on smaller wires of course.

Yes, this increases flexing on one point of the wire, but there is kind of a gradient of inflexibility vs flexibility near the edges that gradually forces the other wire around it to move instead of the soldered area.

i think all types of connections have their own weaknesses and strengths. I just like lead solder and have never had any reason to use anything else.

Chalo said:

You'll probably need to combine them and fold the end double to get a tight crimp.

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Yeah, I don’t understand why that is. I’m using a 75 amp connector designed to work with 10 gauge wire. 14 gauge diameter * 2 should be the equivalent of 8 gauge. Yet they were loose in the 10 gauge fitting the first time I tried it. The math doesn’t seem to work out.

I never worry about math--it hardly ever works out for me. I can't even add two and two and get five, 3/4 of the time. The other half of the time I don't get a numerical answer.

I've soldered andersons in addition to the crimp (since I dont' have a crimper capable of the pressure needed to cold-weld), but when solder wicks up the wire, it increases the problems of contact alignment that smaller andersons (PP45, etc) have when the wire twists or bends close to the housing.

If your crimper is capable of a cold-weld you don't have to solder (and in fact the solder would not do anything as it wouldn't be able to get into the contact--it'll just coat teh outside and wick up the wires outside the contact).


Regarding the original OP question, I would just run both wires directly into the contact, and crimp them there--but as Chalo notes, you probably will have to fold the end of the wire over to fill the contact sufficiently.

createthis said:

Chalo said:

You'll probably need to combine them and fold the end double to get a tight crimp.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I don’t understand why that is. I’m using a 75 amp connector designed to work with 10 gauge wire. 14 gauge diameter * 2 should be the equivalent of 8 gauge. Yet they were loose in the 10 gauge fitting the first time I tried it.

Click to expand...

Twice the diameter means four times as much wire to fill the connector. I looked up the mm^2 equivalents of wire gauges, and 14ga is 2.5mm^2 while 10ga (marginal, almost too small for PP75 contacts) is 6mm^2. So if one wire is folded double but the other one isn't, together they should make a good fit.