PATA ribbon cable as a balancing wire (need advice)

[Rolling_Friction]

Hello everyone
I'm currently in the process of making my first mountain board into something slightly less mediocre. I made a harness for my lipos, so that I can leave them inside their enclosure when I'm charging them up. it looks fine but the thickness of the balancing wires gave me a pause. I am paranoid that the wires are too thin. The last thing I want is for them to melt or fuse.

I bought a twin charging harness so that I can charge 2 3s lipos in series, and I made extensions and added a plug to it. the extensions were made from a standard Parallel ATA ribbon cable from an old PC(I think its 26 AWG)
will the wires hold up to the current? ( the twin harness has red and black terminal wires which I will extend too, but with thick sturdy wires. I am hoping they will channel most of the serious current during charging)

I'm still pretty new to this an would like some advice

 

[sl33py]

they should be fine as they are only moving small voltages/amps to balance cells.

You can verify by charging up a lipo and feel the wires for any heat. They should not get very warm at all. if they do then i would get a heavier gauge wire.

GL!

 

[mccloed]

Have you tried charging like this yet? The small gauge wire should hold up to 2.5 amps without getting warm.

 

[RLT]

Be careful of them... On my first e-bike I used that kind of wire for balancing connectors, and after a few small but consecutive bumps offroad, some of them shorted out and caused a chain-reaction that destroyed 15 AH of Li-Ion batteries and the cargo bag they were in... Was just good luck, a nearby sand pit and a quick-release on the cargo bag that kept it from being worse. I suppose if you are more careful than I was it might be safe, but I'm sticking to silicone wires from now on.

 

[mccloed]

@RLT does have a point. I realize I've only used the silicone wires from the balance plugs.

 

[RLT]

Looking at your photo again... I think you would be OK with that setup if you just shortened the battery side wire and put the connector right up to where the ribbon cable comes out of the blue heat shrink... Or if you really need it longer for design purposes rather than just convenience, cover the whole length with (preferably adhesive lined ) heat shrink.

 

[Rolling_Friction]

thanks for the replies
I will charge up the batteries through these wire a couple of times to confirm that they can handle it, but I will probably re-solder them and use some thicker wires. The aim was to to leave them in an enclosure. I won't be able to monitor them at all, and that makes me nervous..

 

[amberwolf]

FWIW, the Vpower / CammyCC packs I have had to repair used a similar type of ribbon cable (gray plastic insulation, relatively stiff wire) for their internal balance wires, coming out to their BMS. You can see it in my threads about the repairs (just search my posts by thread subject for Vpower CammyCC).