Anyone else accidently/stupidly shorting their connectors?

[TheBeastie]

I been doing some nail polish color codes for my bullets which help a bit.
Green for terminal connections to actual battery packs and blue are connections going into the controller (should only be 2, one for each half of the battery)

I have discovered that merely using polarity protecting connectors isnt enough as I have managed to do weird things like take one plug that should of gone into a battery I instead end up plugging into the battery group half end.
Its still no holy grail but it all helps and I don't feel nervous like I am doing heart surgery like I used to feel when plugging bits up.


BTW liveforphysics that is some seriously impressive bbq hands!

 

[pendragon8000]

Yep can vouch for cooking human flesh smells like pork.

"PENDRAGON" branded into my left arm.
about 10years ago had my mates haold mt arm and brand it in 1 stike at a time, no it didnt hurt (yeah ofcourse it did frocking kil) any way, a couple guys in the backyard didnt know and came in asking "Mmmm whats cooking?" and relised, almost puked then left...
its a tribal thing.

 

[megacycle]

Sh@!t i only singed the back of my fingers across 415V and had other minor bullet blasting, balance lead frying incidents.
Thats cheaper and more permanent than a Tat though.
You been got by the secret order of Adelaide Jackass & Letter box bombers :wink:

 

[pendragon8000]

Sh@!t i only singed the back of my fingers across 415V and had other minor bullet blasting, balance lead frying incidents.
Thats cheaper and more permanent than a Tat though.
You been got by the secret order of Adelaide Jackass & Letter box bombers :wink:

[youtube]uuiKJ0rRTAo[/youtube]

 

[Scruffoid]

I shorted mine multiple times.

My soultion is to not charge the battery pack on the bike. therefore the serial connections of the pack are removed by a location change.

Before doing this is way to easy to forget about disconnecting the right wires.

Scruff

 

[jonescg]

http://player.vimeo.com/video/56859185

Courtesy of Ted Dillard. 450 V DC busbar being vaporised.

I think it's beautiful...





I'll get the video formatting right eventually.

 

[Ykick]

Last night, I mistakenly grabbed a 12V Headway battery lead laying among my usual bulk charger cable/connector. Plugged into my 15S3P RC Lipoly bike pack (58V or so) and uh oh!

No KFF but ton of smoke and burned insulation....

I really need to conjure up different configuration for my 12V APP's as opposed to higher voltage stuff.

 

[megacycle]

http://player.vimeo.com/video/56859185

Courtesy of Ted Dillard. 450 V DC busbar being vaporised.

I think it's beautiful...

I'll get the video formatting right eventually.

Beautifu definetly butl i think 3 Ph AC by the looks of the incomers and test short across all phases probably.
The kA would be a lot higher than we would see guessing 10's of, worse when all 3 directly involved and can end up 3 involved anyways as the 2 phase fault vapourises the copper and ionizes the air making it conductive also burning you and your lungs.
Stuck my head and arms in 200A+ busbar chambers for about 18 months to test 3 or so times a work day.
Our 1P A123 pouches 0.5kA at source x paralleled cells need a few P to reach that level. Still makes a mess though.
Copper blasted in your eye and arc flash is no fun, especially nurse leaving me with panda rings around my eyes from the dye following a trip to hospital after an eye level small blast blew the end of a new driver too

 

[friendly1uk]

I have ordered an RC balance charger, but it is only a backup. A proper battery pack should have just a polarised + & - connection, and a charger socket. There is nothing to get wrong. Even people that can't put batteries in there remote can do it.
The problem appears to be peoples resistance to spending $25 on a bms. Choosing instead to rewire there pack regularly. I'm a qualified test&inspection engineer, and I wouldn't let through lots of what I have seen go in to service. People are just not that capable. All that swapping of identical wires that can't even carry the fault currant and have no protection. It's just wrong. The mistake it not plugging it up wrong, the mistake is even intending to do that regularly.

Just make or buy a proper pack that can look after itself. Needing 72v is no excuse, you just buy a pair of 36v packs and a pair of plug in chargers. Then your number of connections to make is minimal, and the wires are fused. If that is still to complex then colour code. At the moment I'm buying 200 cable ties for £1 and there are 5 colours in the pack. Available from most cheapo shops. As are packs of assorted nail polish colours. I'm sure we all have pots of paint laying about too.

You can't play with a ticking bomb forever.

 

[megacycle]

In an ideal world what you are saying is totally correct.
What is happening is anyone without training can buy cells and batteies and make a powerful pack which could be capable of maiming and lately with a kind of 1st world unification of safety rules if that was going on the workplace and something happened some serious questions would be asked.
What we have often on motorised bikes is hobby packs used for power.
The balancing leads like JST would say would be sub standard to be made to be moved about disconnected/reconnected, theyre like a throw back to less powerfull or smaller batteries.
With balance leads, if changes are made between charge & run configuration, should be connected to be interlocked, where when its setup you cant switch it wrong.
When you have more than one bike setup & different ?

 

[bowlofsalad]

I shorted a pair of connections today with anderson power pole (APP). The mistake was incredibly stupid, I suspect part of the reason I made the mistake was my use of black shrink wrap, I wasn't paying much attention, I guess I idley assumed it was black to black as I vaguely saw it. The huge zap was terrifying. Afterwords, I was sure something was horribly destroyed. The connection (white app) has some black on it. I plugged everything together shortly afterwards, and went for about a 10 mile ride, how can one tell if something is wrong with the setup? I have no idea if anything is wrong, hah. What could go wrong when doing this? I haven't setup the cycleanalyst yet, I have no idea how the power consumption is going. All I know is it still all seems like it works and all the cells in the pack seem to be at appropriate voltages.

Anyway, it gave me inspiration for some obvious ideas. I am sure this can be done in several ways, but at least within the anderson power poles, you can have each color be it's own unique shape that could NOT be plugged to another color. I know this is a good idea, I know it would have prevented my dumbassery and I am betting it would have prevented several other accidents. I am sure it would make the connectors collectively cost more, but I am sure it's a better deal than destroying stuff. Maybe this can already be done simply by plugging one plug upside down to the other(s) beside it.

I probably wouldn't have made this mistake had I not been frocking around with this damned home depot stranded wire, it's insanely stiff and I couldn't find any local fine stranded wire of necessary awg close by (I ordered some online today, I am such a procrastinator). It took me at least half an hour just to get the wires to where I wanted them to be.

The first time I plugged in the battery to the controller there was a tiny zap, the tiny zap scared me, this blast was to the tiny zap as a large fire cracker is to a bang snap. I hope this scare the stupid out of me. I've always been extremely afraid of electricity.

 

[arkmundi]

• Don't work tired or with stressed muscles,
• use the right tools for the job,
• take care and precaution,
• setup the work table & site for efficiency & performance,
• have everything at hand before you begin,
• standard connectors (I like Anderson Powerpoles),
• pay attention and if attention fades, refocus or stop,
• to solder, use tape, clamps, weights, etc to hold wires in place,
• refine & adapt your methods if proven inadequate

Learned both the smart way (research, watch some youtube videos, etc.) and the hard way (shorts & mistakes.) Thanks for the tips, especially the XT60 and XT90 connector reference - I always learn new stuff here!

 

[ronnbot]

First thing I do when I receive a battery pack from HK is cut those HXT connectors off and replace it with Deans/T-connector. I've been using Deans for a decade since I moved from Tamiya plugs on my RC stuff.

Actually, I've been thinking of changing to EC5 or XT90 for a while now mainly for higher current, but haven't had any troubles with Deans on my larger RCs (e.g. 1/8 truggy) that can draw 100A+. The E-bike I'm building has a controller that can only do 35A.

Anyway, there were a couple instances where I accidentally/stupidly short and bad stuff happend:
- while soldering and I dropped the iron on the battery leads, shorting the lipo, which caused it to instantly burst into flames
- plugged in the charger backwards to the PS and toasted it

I been doing some nail polish color codes for my bullets which help a bit.
Green for terminal connections to actual battery packs and blue are connections going into the controller (should only be 2, one for each half of the battery)

I have discovered that merely using polarity protecting connectors isnt enough as I have managed to do weird things like take one plug that should of gone into a battery I instead end up plugging into the battery group half end.
Its still no holy grail but it all helps and I don't feel nervous like I am doing heart surgery like I used to feel when plugging bits up.


BTW liveforphysics that is some seriously impressive bbq hands!

 

[oldpiper]

bowlofsalad, if you want the flexible stranded wire, hit the hobby shops which sell RC stuff, they should have at least red and black in 14, 12, and 10 gauge. It's the same stuff you can get from at least one online supplier (I got a couple of meters red and black on eBay at auction for about 1/2 the local price, but now that supplier has raised his minimum ask to where it is actually cheaper at the LHS - go figure why he doesn't seem to sell any now). I had gotten some of the stiff wire you talk about from an auto store, and I got frustrated enough trying to work with it that I quit even before I got the batts all hooked up and went to look for the flexible wire.

By the way, thinking about connectors, I'm paranoid enough about shorting things out by hooking them up wrong (yes, I've had my share of sparks, too, most lately by connecting two batts in series, then stupidly hooking up their balance leads so the more positive battery was connected to the less positive balance connector which I use with those elcheapo cell voltage monitor/alarms), that in addition to color-coding things, I use only Deans connectors at the battery connection and XT-60's for the series/parallel connections further up, which never get disconnected.

Cameron

 

[EdwardNY]

You will be surprised with what breaks when you short connectors.

I was using a para board and noticed after a long time that cell 6 resistance was always much higher than the other cells on my rc charger, even when parallel charging 15 packs. I was never sure why that was happening until I bypassed my para board and got close to 0 resistance. Then I thought about it and I damaged something when I accidently tried to plug in a jst-xh connector in backwards and it made contact on cell 6 pin.

Must have burnt something up inside the paraboard.

 

[friendly1uk]

Car audio shops will stock very flexible wire, and motor winders use it.

I'm using fire proof silicone flex. Pop it in a blue flame, and nothing happens. It is very flexible too. Just not very good at mechanical protection. You could make an extension lead from it with high carrying capacity and extreme flexibility, but keep trapping it in a door and it will split.

 

[bowlofsalad]

bowlofsalad, if you want the flexible stranded wire, hit the hobby shops which sell RC stuff, they should have at least red and black in 14, 12, and 10 gauge. It's the same stuff you can get from at least one online supplier (I got a couple of meters red and black on eBay at auction for about 1/2 the local price, but now that supplier has raised his minimum ask to where it is actually cheaper at the LHS - go figure why he doesn't seem to sell any now). I had gotten some of the stiff wire you talk about from an auto store, and I got frustrated enough trying to work with it that I quit even before I got the batts all hooked up and went to look for the flexible wire.

I called 3 places or so, even one that was way too far, they didn't have any 12 or 10 gauge wire so I gave up and ordered online. I am sure there is some place local that I don't know about that might sell appropriate wire for this sort of stuff.

 

[fechter]

First off, if you short the battery wires, nothing in the controller should be damaged. The battery may be damaged though.

Most ebike batteries have a BMS board which is supposed to prevent fires if you short the battery. Sometimes they work, sometimes they only work once. If you still have output from the battery, it's probably OK. Fuses are a good idea in addition to the BMS.

Nobody provides schematics to controllers anymore. It is more cost effective to simply replace the entire thing rather than attempt to troubleshoot in most cases. Even if you find a bad component on the board, many times it will be some tiny surface mount part that is hard to identify and even harder to replace. If the MCU fails, even if you could buy the part, you probably won't have the software to load on it. I have managed to repair a few controllers without any documentation by reverse engineering things and a lot of meter probing.

 

[SniperGaulois]

Since 2001 i've always had the power molex on my bike fused and the right way around.

My friend had a DC 6V helicopter boat tubey cog toy, after some games, I said "plug it in the wall it will fly away" it didnt fly away.

Someone changed a 240V EU plug to 400V for a solar conversion when I was away and left a normal wall plug at 400V... i plugged my charger into 400V it wasn't happy.

I fried the 15 dollar BMS even though I checked everything. I had custom built a 15 pin molex because i couldn't find the original, didn't check well enough.

I plugged in an HDD molex upside down once. i'd just replugged it 18 times, and the molex wasn't very quality.

 

[Pat Eaton]

My wedding ring has a few arc spots from lack of attention. Don't wear rings when wiring battery......

 

[fechter]

Welding ring...

 

[Chalo]

I once got some weird XT60 plugs that instead of being pointed on one side, were rounded on one side and square on the other. I found out the hard way that if you tried to plug them in the wrong way around, you could.

That was the only time so far I've gotten the full-on sooty black Kentucky Fried Fingers. Surprisingly, the controller I had plugged in worked just fine after replacing the vaporized plug with Powerpoles.