Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but I'm mostly into batteries and I'm thinking 'battery folks' might be the ones to actually know something about this... It's mostly a theoretical/physics-type of question...
The main question is, Is the sizing of conductors, like a busbar and battery terminal, or just a wire, mostly about minimizing resistance under whatever currents you expect to see -- and then, is the resistance mostly, primarily, only about heat? For instance, if you used a small wire -- say 10 AWG for a 100 amp load, clearly an undersized choice -- yet you used some elaborate cooling mechanism, would you prevent the small wire from becoming a problem -- because, as my thinking goes, the heat is what increases resistance, so if you control the heat you control the resistance??...
Practically speaking, I'm trying to better understand the choices surrounding battery terminal size and material, connection types and materials (such as welds and fasteners and type of metal), and busbar size and material... I have batteries with aluminum terminals that have been tapped, the tap creates a big hole and reduces cross sectional area (plus as-is it has stainless steel threaded inserts and SS screws, much less conductive than aluminum), so in a conductive sense the terminal is like a bottle neck, yet I'm not sure how much that matters. I'm thinking it mainly matters because under a high load the area of the bottle neck will heat up and the resistance will increase, and voltage will sag; I'm also thinking that you can mitigate the impact if you use a large busbar and a solid connection - so the heat can easily dissipate, i.e. the bottleneck is really only a problem if/when that portion of the conductive path heats up, otherwise, it's not such a big deal... But, I don't really know...
Any insights greatly appreciated...
The main question is, Is the sizing of conductors, like a busbar and battery terminal, or just a wire, mostly about minimizing resistance under whatever currents you expect to see -- and then, is the resistance mostly, primarily, only about heat? For instance, if you used a small wire -- say 10 AWG for a 100 amp load, clearly an undersized choice -- yet you used some elaborate cooling mechanism, would you prevent the small wire from becoming a problem -- because, as my thinking goes, the heat is what increases resistance, so if you control the heat you control the resistance??...
Practically speaking, I'm trying to better understand the choices surrounding battery terminal size and material, connection types and materials (such as welds and fasteners and type of metal), and busbar size and material... I have batteries with aluminum terminals that have been tapped, the tap creates a big hole and reduces cross sectional area (plus as-is it has stainless steel threaded inserts and SS screws, much less conductive than aluminum), so in a conductive sense the terminal is like a bottle neck, yet I'm not sure how much that matters. I'm thinking it mainly matters because under a high load the area of the bottle neck will heat up and the resistance will increase, and voltage will sag; I'm also thinking that you can mitigate the impact if you use a large busbar and a solid connection - so the heat can easily dissipate, i.e. the bottleneck is really only a problem if/when that portion of the conductive path heats up, otherwise, it's not such a big deal... But, I don't really know...
Any insights greatly appreciated...