problem with anderson connectors? can't get them to click!

[auraslip]

What would be the best conectors to use with solder?
I want some seperate ones to go to lipo's
and some twin connectors for main battery cable? `

These are good - a bit pricey - but polarized
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=9572

these are good and cheap - require heat shrink - also too small for thick cable
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=4136

these will handle any current you can throw at it - and come with housings that allow polarization
http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=12887

Don't be daunted by learning to work with them. It took me half an hour to get it right - 10 minutes on youtube and 20 minutes practicing

 

[bigisland]

Thanks for thoes links Auraslip,

these will handle any current you can throw at it - and come with housings that allow polarization

So with this style if you link two together to make a + - connector you cant plug it together incorrectly right?

 

[auraslip]

o with this style if you link two together to make a + - connector you cant plug it together incorrectly right?

I'd do three if you're worried about plugging it in wrong. The positive on the outside, the negative on the outside, and a blank one on the outside. This way if you plug it in wrong nothing happens. For battery mains, the xt60s will work fine for most people though.

 

[dogman dan]

Both bullets and andersons have thier place. Some solder horribly, like myself. Much of my problems with soldering and welding is my blindness, which is getting worse and worse with age. Then it's made worse by shoddy tools and no good workstation with a "third hand" I became a crimp fan because I could nearly do it blind and still get it right. The investment was $12.

For sure though, if building a big pack of lipos again, I won't be doing the whole thing with andersons a second time. Andersons do make some sense, because you can do both series or paralell connections. Can't do that with bullets unless you make an adapter. But in the end, the andersons on my lipos have needed a lot of vigilance to keep from having disconnects. I'm really tired of contacts backing out of phase wire plugs on bikes too.


But for the connector that takes the spark all the time, andersons do have the advantage. I also like the way you can specialize a plug. It's physically impossible for me to plug my 48v charger into my 36v battery, for instance. Or to mix up the discharge plug with the charge plug. Possiblities for screw up proof configurations are pretty big for andersons. So for some uses the andersons rock. But I no longer love em for everything.

When I got stoked on andersons, I had never seen the good bullets that come with lipo packs. I thought bullets were crap, because the ones in the kits I was recieving were crap.

The stuff we have to work with continues to evolve. Much of it always was there, but who knew till we saw it on the sphere. 8)

 

[Ypedal]

For 20 and 40 amp setups, andersons are perfectly ok..... if you loose 50w in your connectors your setup is not typical..

 

[dogman dan]

Yeah, especially for just a typical commuters 25 watt rig. The 30 amp size contacts or smaller are much easier to work with. 10 guage and 45 amps is where I have the most difficulty getting reliable plugs.

 

[Ykick]

I do many parallel/serial connections and find Andersons to be anything but horrible. In fact, I can't find anything else that will work quite the way they do.

btw - I crimp, then solder my Anderson connectors but not so much heat/solder that it stiffens the wire running into the connector.

Bullets are okay - I've used 'em and they certainly have a place in this but I like being able to add/subtract battery capacity and parallel block connectors seems to be the logical choice for that task IMO.

 

[bigisland]

andersons do have the advantage. I also like the way you can specialize a plug.

How do you do this?

Andersons do make some sense, because you can do both series or parallel connections

Do they have a way to internally connect two terminals

 

[corkscrew]

Okay, I'm having a different problem, but while I have all the experts looking at a thread, I'll go ahead and ask. Is there some kind of system you guys use to make all your red/black Anderson connections go the same way??

I bought a few bags of the ultrasonically welded red/black combos - makes it simple for the most part. I keep one of those around for when assembling pairs out of other colors.

 

[skeetab5780]

ya ykick i have the same method your using. I use the Klein multi-crimp tool for 14-12awg random crimps(non insulated) and after i crimp the connector i place a small dab of solder into the area i crimped and then i drop a tiny bit of solder onto the conductor strands you see poking out the end of the crimp ferrule. I find that after doing this it makes it much more difficult to get them to click in the housings...but i just use a small hex key or screwdriver and tap the crimp into the housing with it.

I dont trust any connections that arent soldered, i know they probably wont fail crimped but if theres ever a problem in your circuit you never have to say "i wonder if its the connectors?" then check continuity thru your whole run of wires for no reason.

 

[Alan B]

The Klein tool is the best tool of the non purpose built tools, but it is pretty marginal. I can see why soldering with it is helpful.

With a good crimp tool soldering is of no value, and in fact has some disadvantages.

 

[RVD]

I basically bought all of my stuff from powerwerx including the andersons powerpole connectors, tricrimp, etc.

I find that after I crimp, the crimp itself looks pretty sturdy and good but when i try to insert it into the housing, it doesn't go in all the way so it doesn't click. It gets almost all the way there but just won't go in any further.

I use a small hex wrench to push it through but that doesn't always work either. I also feel like I'm possibly doing some damage to the wire with all of this pushing, shoving, pulling back out, etc.

I tried re-crimping with the tricrimp and sometimes that seems to help but it's still frustrating.

I get the impression that if you happen to have some extra long wires sticking out, then it won't push in all the way and it needs to get in all the way in order to click so I try to be cognizant of that.

One time I just cut out the metal housing to re-do it (thinking I screwed up the crimp) but it was the same thing the second time. With the one that I discarded, I tried crimping again upside down. The crimp looks a little weird but by crimping again like that, it actually did go in and click since the crimp made it more compact I guess.

I also find that it's better to crimp by putting the metal piece into the crimper first, then put in the wire, and then crimp down while holding the wire.

When I crimp, I crimp with the metal tongue hanging down like this picture here....

Maybe I just need to get the hang of it. I tried to crimp some smaller 18 gauge wire yesterday onto 30amp powerpoles and that wasn't so successful either. It was like wrestling to get these in there.

I like the idea of these connectors because I'm not very good at soldering, they are easy to use, etc.

 

[auraslip]

I agree - andersons are "fine"

But why spend $40 on a crimp tool and $20 on connectors when you could spend $50 on a decent soldering iron and $10 on 50 4mm bullets or 20 6mm bullets]? Unless your building a bunch of low power setups, or are swapping batteries around a bunch they just don't make much sense to me. Unless you only see in black and white like dogman hard to tell polarity with out color lololol jk though

BTW - I'm working on adding connectors to my I^2R power loss calculator. Does anyone have any information on the resistance of andersons?

 

[rscamp]

I always solder these but I've been doing it for almost 20 years. Hard to believe...

Anywho, here is the tool I use for contact insertion/removal. For insertion, the U-shaped end goes around the wire and can be used to press quite hard on the collar if necessary. For removal, one leg of the U-shaped portion is slipped under the contact beam and a twisting motion lifts the contact beam above the flat strip that locks it in.

 

[rscamp]

I just checked, and they still make the same tool, P/N 111038G2...

 

[auraslip]

Did a bit of research - turns out even at 100 amps the difference between properly soldered and crimped 4mm bullets and 30a andersons is only 30watts (20w and 50w respectively) - at this amperage the APP would melt though
at 20 amps the difference is only 1 watt (.8 watts and 2 watts for the APP)

So really no big losses from I^2R until you start playing with a lot of power.

Also it should be noted that for either connection, poor soldering or crimping can vastly raise resistance and failure rates. The question is, which one is more likely to be put together poorly; the crimped connection or the soldered?

 

[Alan B]

Properly crimped PowerPole pins snap easily into the connector body. If they won't go in easily, something is not right. The pins need to move to properly make a good connection, driven by the stainless springs in the bodies. If they don't move properly the contact resistance can be high and heat would result at high currents.

30 amp pins work well with #12 wire. #18 is pretty small, probably better to use 15 amp pins for those.

PowerPole current and resistance specs are available on the web. Their specs are quite thorough.

If you can take a good closeup photo of a pin you have crimped we might be able to spot something.

As to soldering versus crimping, each has its place. Generally a reliable system makes a solid mechanical connection first, and then possibly a solder wetted joint, (though a properly crimped joint is not improved by soldering). One problem with the cheap bullets is that they rely on solder for both mechanical and electrical connections. I've been using the 4mm Turnigy bullets and they have worked okay. I have also used 15/30/45 amp PowerPoles (and various sizes of SB connectors) and they are, in my experience, much quicker and cleaner to deploy. They are not suitable for quite as much current but they have many advantages.

My suggestion is to use the connectors that come on the batteries, it saves a lot of work. But transition to other connectors as appropriate. Design the wiring system so it is difficult to install the connectors wrong. One way, no mistakes. Use PowerPole 30/45's for 20 amps or less, use other connectors such as PowerPole 75's, SB50's or polarized and shielded bullets for higher currents. Saving a couple bucks on connectors is false economy.

 

[auraslip]

Saving a couple bucks on connectors is false economy.

When a $800 battery or your safety is at stake you are absolutely correct.

 

[Ypedal]

Agreed.

Powerpoles work perfectly for me since all my bikes, chargers, cycle analysts, RC toys, etc etc etc all interchance , i can series, parallel, connect item A with part B without every having to cut a wire or use cumbersome pigtails to mate stuff.. ever...

I only solder certain wires that are too small to give a good crimp hold, the technique of stripping back double the amount of copper and folding it over works for most but in certain applications ( rare ) i so solder the pp30's... the 45's on 12 gauge and up i never bother with solder.

And i agree, take a picture of your crimp work, show us what you got and we can figure out why you are having so much trouble getting them to click, it should be really easy to do, if it's not you are doing something wrong.. specially if you have the tri crimp tool.

 

[RVD]

ok, i'll try to create a video / pic, etc.

btw, ypedal i watched a lot of your youtube videos already and you were one of the reasons why i went with andersons.

RVD.

 

[dogman dan]

Re the customizing the plug. I was refering to the way you can put them together many different ways. The lego like way they slot together allows many configurations of plugs. Two side by side is the common way. But you can put two top to bottom and they won't plug into a side by side plug. From there the combinations go on and on, three in an L shape or three in a row side by side, or top to bottom. Then blocks of 4, 5, etc. Whatever you need.

If you need to use small wire with larger contacts like 30 amp ones, try stripping a bit longer wire, and folding it. Then crimp. Smaller contacts may still need that trick, if the wire is very small. Or you can fold the wire over the insulation, and crimp the insulation into the contact, with the wire on one side.




The reason my first 25 lipo bricks all got changed to andersons is because I do constantly use them differently. On different bikes, or different configurations. Anything from paralelling a bunch for 36v 30 ah to 100v 15 ah is possible. The andersons had that ability to swap back and forth from paralell to series configurations anytime. Bullets on the other hand, can't do that as easily. You'd end up wanting to connect two males or two females together when paralelling. Putting two wires and two sets of andersons on each brick gave me the abilty to series or paralell any of them. No need for a buch of adapter harnesses.

Now though, I have many of the packs permanently paralelled, and the problem doesn't exist. All I need to do is series them. So I find myself thinking bullets may have been a better idea, just because they at least can't back out of the housing. There you are at the racetrack, the contoller won't power up. Somewere in the 40 connectors in the 100v 15 ah pack one lousy contact has backed out of the housing. ARRRRGGHHH! It never did happen that way, but I sure spent a bunch of time fussing over the dang things to be sure it wouldn't. Definitely, at some point you find that 6-10 andersons on the bike was no problem, while 50 or more can be a bit more trouble to deal with.

One thing I find true though, Do the crimping and housing install good enough, and there will be no problems. No hot contacts melting housings, no backed out contacts, no plugs that shake loose, etc. Take the time to get it right, and the andersons work beautifully. I'm thinking more bullets in the future, or bussbars with bullets attached, but I still love andersons for being able to just crimp and get a good plug. Still the ideal plug when all you need is to connect the ping to the controller, and the charger to the ping.

 

[bigisland]

Ok so I getting ready to order some stuff from the internet, and I am thinking about connectors as sit here............

And I heard the chatter about the Andersons; and then you read this and I have to ask myself what frocking kind of connector needs a god dam cotter pin to hold it together !

But in the end, the andersons on my lipos have needed a lot of vigilance to keep from having disconnects..

 

[Alan B]

Ok so I getting ready to order some stuff from the internet, and I am thinking about connectors as sit here............

And I heard the chatter about the Andersons; and then you read this and I have to ask myself what frocking kind of connector needs a god dam cotter pin to hold it together !

But in the end, the andersons on my lipos have needed a lot of vigilance to keep from having disconnects..

Anderson makes pins that have higher retention force, but you generally don't see them for sale. The larger connectors such as SB50 or PowerPole 75's have much more retention force than the 15/30 PowerPoles. I never have used retention devices on the PP30's and have not had trouble, if the cable is properly supported and routed it should not be pulling on the connector anyway. If it does get yanked the PP30 will disconnect whereas with some other connector you might pull the wire right out of the connector, so it is a tradeoff.

If you are running more than about 20 amps the PP30 is going to get hot, so better to use a PP75 or SB50 (or maybe a shrouded polarized bullet) anyway.

 

[RVD]

after struggling with this tonight for a few hours, i think i finally figured out my problem. i don't know if i have a faulty crimper but when i put the metal part in all the way into the crimper, a small section of the metal part that should get flattened and crimped does not.

here's an attempt at explaining...

TOP OF CRIMPER

_______________ (covered part for the metal hook)

************************(metal hook)

As you can see, there's a slight gap between the flat part on the top of the crimper and the covered part where the metal hook goes in.

Therefore, when I crimp, there's a small section before the covered part that doesn't get crimped. It's hard to tell because this part of the metal thing is pretty low anyway.

So my solution is to crimp twice....

crimp #1
_______________ (covered part for the metal hook)

************************(metal hook)

Result #1

---------------------***(metal hook)

Since there is a small section not crimped, I pull it out to the a little bit and crimp again.

crimp #2

_______________ (covered part for the metal hook)

--------------------***(metal hook)

Result #2

------------------------(metal hook)

good!

Since I had that little part sort of sticking up a little bit, it wouldn't push through all the way. After discovering this issue and finding my workaround it works a lot better.

One question. Are andersons powerpoles safe to use through the e bike system? Or is there any place where it's just not safe?

e.g. battery leads (on lipos), controller power leads, controller motor leads, charger leads, etc.

thanks everyone!

 

[amberwolf]

As long as you're using PPs taht are large enough for the current you want to pass thru them, they'll work in any part of the bike you want to use them on.

BTW, if you want to *really* learn about crimping problems, try recycling your contacts like I have had to do; prying the old wire out, re-forming the barrel into a mostly-tube, then inserting new wire and crimping again.

This only works twice; after that either the contact tab breaks off or the barrel begins to crack and you have to solder instead of crimp.