Best connectors for my 8AWG lipo

[anon0973923]

So I finally got everything put together (Aotema kit, 4x6s 35C HK lipo), took my ebike for a ride around the neighborhood ( ) and everything worked great. Came back to charge the batteries and the 5.5mm bullets on one of my lipo packs shorted, shattering the bullets

Still have no clue how it happened considering the + bullet is completely shrouded in plastic. Sweat, possibly. Or maybe the high-C batteries are too powerful for this type of connector due to arcing? Regardless, I had to finally cave and drive to home depot to get a soldering kit, shrink wrap, etc since I had to make it into work today on the bike. I had enough extra deans plugs and 5.5mm to deans adapters around that I could barely scrape by, by charging my packs individually and then using a terminal deans connector for the serial connection to the controller. I made it to work, so yay. Also, the battery that shorted balanced perfectly on my charger without any errors so it looks like I didn't do too much damage.

BUT, soldering the deans connection was possibly the most frustrating thing I have done in several years. The 35C lipos have 8AWG wire so trying to solder them solidly to the tiny deans plug was crazy-hard, I actually had to stay up until 2am just to solder the single terminal plug. And those big wires conduct so much heat it was nearly impossible to keep my shrink wrap from pre-shrinking. It turned out well, but dammit if I didn't want to stick the iron in my eye a few times. The wire was so thick it was too difficult to get the solder to flow properly unless I had the tip directly on the solder. It flowed perfectly fine on the deans terminal so I think the thickness of the wire was really working against me.

So now I've got all of these lipos with 5.5mm bullets that I'm ghastly afraid of. I'd love to swap them out for something different, but there's no way I'm going through that saga of soldering the deans connectors onto all of them. No way. I should also mention that I currently have some custom serial and parallel wireless deans plugs that I use in lieu of a wiring harness so I can connect my batteries in a foolproof manner to the charger and my controller. What I want to do is permanently parallel my two pairs of 6s and then use a similar custom plug setup using my new connector du jour. One of my main requirements is that the battery pack is easy to connect and disconnect from the controller (my controller is permanently mounted and I take my batteries in side with me at work) with a connection that I don't need to worry about being too rough with since I have to disconnect my batteries 3-4 times a day. I'm also concerned that once I parallel the 8AWG wires from the batteries, it's going to need a serious connector in order to accommodate all of that wire.

Suggestions?

 

[bowlofsalad]

If you genuinely want to permanently bond two wires, why not solder them directly?

Have you considered anderson power pole?

I've read many deans vs anderson discussions, some like one, some like another. I think there is some sort of setup for soldering deans connectors. Yes, search deans soldering jig, this would probably make the task radically easier, I imagine. I have a crimp tool for anderson power pole connectors, it works as well and easily as I could have hoped. The only issue I've ever had with anderson power pole connectors was foolishly plugging the wrong wires together. I did that once, I hope I never do that again. It's easy to polarize the connectors as they slide together, so you can make one of the two or three anderson power pole connectors upside down from the others, making it impossible to mess up after you do this. Anderson power pole plugs come in lots of different colors, that should help with any confusion.

I think some people add a little solder to crimp connectors for added strength, I've never felt this was necessary, but I probably would if they ever came loose, maybe if they were locked together (there are ways) and were some how viciously tugged on, maybe something would pull apart without the dab of solder.

 

[anon0973923]

If you genuinely want to permanently bond two wires, why not solder them directly?

Have you considered anderson power pole?

I've read many deans vs anderson discussions, some like one, some like another. I think there is some sort of setup for soldering deans connectors. Yes, search deans soldering jig, this would probably make the task radically easier, I imagine. I have a crimp tool for anderson power pole connectors, it works as well and easily as I could have hoped. The only issue I've ever had with anderson power pole connectors was foolishly plugging the wrong wires together. I did that once, I hope I never do that again. It's easy to polarize the connectors as they slide together, so you can make one of the two or three anderson power pole connectors upside down from the others, making it impossible to mess up after you do this. Anderson power pole plugs come in lots of different colors, that should help with any confusion.

I think some people add a little solder to crimp connectors for added strength, I've never felt this was necessary, but I probably would if they ever came loose, maybe if they were locked together (there are ways) and were some how viciously tugged on, maybe something would pull apart without the dab of solder.

I am going to solder each pair of 6s in parallel permanently to make 10Ah 6s packs. It's the connections between the two pairs that will need to alternate parallel/series based on charging (I have a 10A 6s charger) or discharging.

1. Do the Anderson Powerpoles have enough room for 2x8AWG wires in each connection?
2. What is the difficulty in making these connectors in parallel or serial for a harness?
3. Is there a way to make sure I can't connect the connectors if the polarity is wrong?

 

[wesnewell]

I am going to solder each pair of 6s in parallel permanently to make 10Ah 6s packs. It's the connections between the two pairs that will need to alternate parallel/series based on charging (I have a 10A 6s charger) or discharging.

1. Do the Anderson Powerpoles have enough room for 2x8AWG wires in each connection?
2. What is the difficulty in making these connectors in parallel or serial for a harness?
3. Is there a way to make sure I can't connect the connectors if the polarity is wrong?

Why? Just parallel them at the balance plugs using 2x 6s parallel balance cables. There's no need to parallel the mains except at the ends assuming you're making a 12s2p pack.
1 Don't know, but the PP connectors won't carry near as much current as the 5.5mm bullets unless you can find some huge ones. The 5.5mm bullets are rated for well over 100A.
2. It's easy to make a Y connector using bullets, and that's all you need to make a 12s2p pack. Well, 2 of them. One for each end.
3. Nothing can prohibit carelessness or stupidity except you. Usually one short is enough to cure both.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39666

 

[bowlofsalad]

1. Do the Anderson Powerpoles have enough room for 2x8AWG wires in each connection?

http://www.powerwerx.com/anderson-powerpoles/ Look through the various connectors, it might help you understand some things and answer some questions. I have zero experience with unusual wiring styles. I don't know if you can just get a connector that would be suited for a 4awg wire and put two 8awg into it or something like that. But I am certain you can't just take a connector made for 1 8awg wire and put two in there and expect normal results.

2. What is the difficulty in making these connectors in parallel or serial for a harness?

Plugging the connectors together is legos easy. The difficulty is setting everything up correctly how you want it, I imagine. Maybe I don't know what you are asking.

3. Is there a way to make sure I can't connect the connectors if the polarity is wrong?

Don't be sleepy or distracted, take deep breaths, go slowly, and double check things when setting things up? Maybe use things beyond color coding like strange labels that you match together. I don't know what else you can do to eliminate human error. If you don't screw up the connection the first time you are setting it up, you probably won't do so afterwards if you did things correctly.

 

[anon0973923]

I am going to solder each pair of 6s in parallel permanently to make 10Ah 6s packs. It's the connections between the two pairs that will need to alternate parallel/series based on charging (I have a 10A 6s charger) or discharging.

1. Do the Anderson Powerpoles have enough room for 2x8AWG wires in each connection?
2. What is the difficulty in making these connectors in parallel or serial for a harness?
3. Is there a way to make sure I can't connect the connectors if the polarity is wrong?

Why? Just parallel them at the balance plugs using 2x 6s parallel balance cables. There's no need to parallel the mains except at the ends assuming you're making a 12s2p pack.
1 Don't know, but the PP connectors won't carry near as much current as the 5.5mm bullets unless you can find some huge ones. The 5.5mm bullets are rated for well over 100A.
2. It's easy to make a Y connector using bullets, and that's all you need to make a 12s2p pack. Well, 2 of them. One for each end.
3. Nothing can prohibit carelessness or stupidity except you. Usually one short is enough to cure both.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39666

I wasn't aware that I could just parallel the balance plugs and not the mains! That will certainly make things much, much easier. I was worried that the tiny balance wires couldn't handle the amount of current flowing between the batteries. I have a couple of jst 6s parallel cables I can use for that exact purpose.

Would this work...?

Or would I also need to parallel the mains for charging?

Edit: I think I answered my own question through some research about the connectors I want to use. I'm probably going to go with the XT90's. But I still have questions about the harnesses above.

 

[amberwolf]

I wasn't aware that I could just parallel the balance plugs and not the mains! That will certainly make things much, much easier. I was worried that the tiny balance wires couldn't handle the amount of current flowing between the batteries. I have a couple of jst 6s parallel cables I can use for that exact purpose.
<snip>
Or would I also need to parallel the mains for charging?

If you don't parallel the main leads, then you can only use whatever low current the balance leads are capable of, and that is only assuming you are using a charger that actually charges thru the balance leads (most of them don't).

Otherwise, the only thing you can do is balance the cells to each other via those leads.

Also, that is assuming there is not much imbalance from pack to pack--if you ahve a pack with a cell a lot lower than the same cell in a paralelled pack, the higher cell is going to start to quickly discharge into the lower one as soon as you plug it in...but that wont' change whether you parallel your packs via balance-leads only or mains-and-balance-leads.

 

[wesnewell]

Here's a video on parallel charging 6 batteries at once. Remember when you parallel any number of batteries, it then becomes just one larger capacity battery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NczQwVTI2bY
I've charged my 12 4s packs all at once in this same manor using using a 6x charge and 6x balance cable like he used, to charge 6 batteries. the other 6 batteries of my pack were tied together through only the 2x balance cables. I charged all 12 at 20A, which would fry those little balance wires if you tried to put 20A through one cell, but that 20A gets spread across all 6 batteries, so the amount of current going to the 6 batteries connected through the balance leads has <1A each (20/24). Your 4 6s packs is much simpler. Get a 6x charge cable, split your packs in the middle and remove the Y cables to the controller. now plug in all 4 batteries to the 6x charge cable and then use another 2x parallel balance cable to parallel all 4 batteries at cell level and plug that single 6s balance plug into your charger and charge them all at once as a single large 6s pack. If you don't have a 6x charger cable, you could still charge all 4 batteries doing what I did by just hooking the main charge to one battery and let the others charge through the paralleled balance wires. Just don't exceed more than 12A. That's 2A per cell through the balance wires.
BTW, your drawing above are both wrong. See the 12s2p drawing in this post.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39666

 

[John in CR]

The thing to be even more scared of is disconnecting/reconnecting batteries 3-4 times a day. Why is that necessary? If there's not a security reason to do so, then your bike will instantly become tons more convenient by securely mounting the battery as one large pack and leaving it there. All you need is a charger to charge to pack voltage (4.15v/cell to stay on the safe side), cell level voltage monitoring, and access to balance cells that get out of whack.

 

[anon0973923]

The thing to be even more scared of is disconnecting/reconnecting batteries 3-4 times a day. Why is that necessary? If there's not a security reason to do so, then your bike will instantly become tons more convenient by securely mounting the battery as one large pack and leaving it there. All you need is a charger to charge to pack voltage (4.15v/cell to stay on the safe side), cell level voltage monitoring, and access to balance cells that get out of whack.

Security. I live in one of the most crime-infested cities in America. I have my mirrycle stolen on a monthly basis, have had my wheels kicked in 5 times in the past 4 years and have 3 bikes stolen, all by cutting or jacking my u-locks (Krypto Faghhedaboutit minis). Whenever I buy a new bike I start off by sanding the paint (alum frame) and spraypainting it the ugliest color I can find, then I replace my QRs with bolts and also use a safety bolt on the seat. I generally sell my shifters and buy a $20 pair off ebay because they are usually vandalized within a couple of months. I've also had my cables cut twice. I'm nervous about even keeping my controller on the bike, but some things can't be helped.

Some places in America are worse than third world countries.

 

[miro13car]

I forgot the ebikes reading your post.
What you describe is a horror in Alabama, what city ???
Anybody from Alabama can confirm what he describe?

 

[anon0973923]

I forgot the ebikes reading your post.
What you describe is a horror in Alabama, what city ???

Bessemer. I only have 2 more years left on my contract and then I will request to be relocated.

 

[John in CR]

Security. I live in one of the most crime-infested cities in America.

Some places in America are worse than third world countries.

If you're not getting paid enough to easily afford a bodyguard for your bike then move. The US does still have freedom of movement. If moving truly isn't possible, then at least move to a safer part of town.