Recommended battery terminal replacements?

Ranger_b0b said:
Couple of points to make...First off, I'm a solder AND crimp kinda guy. I like to crimp the connection, then solder it. Jerry is 100% correct about vibration...However...it cannot be stress enough...for a crimped connection to work, it has to be properly crimped. The $2.99 pair of crimpers you get from the big box stores don't cut it. Good crimpers for automotive style terminals are $$$, plus they are specific to the terminal you are crimping. I have a couple different sets at work, and they work AWESOME...but for the average guy that is dealing with a bunch of different style terminals, its impractical to spend 300 bucks on a pair of crimp pliers.

That is why I use a set of 25 dollar crimpers (they get the crappy terminals pretty tight) then I solder them and insulate with adhesive back heat shrink.
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And on the other side of that, the guy who spends the same amount on crappy soldering equipment, doesn't understand tinning, sal ammoniac, or has the right selection of solder is going to do just as bad of a job as a crappy crimp.

I have tons of soldering irons, good solder, and I know how to solder and yet I don't because with good crimpers and the right terminals, it simply isn't necessary. It's the equivalent of trying to wiggle the end of the welding gun in a specific pattern to make a good weld.
 
CodaMan said:
As always, proper tools always do superior work.
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Only in the hands of someone who understands how to use them. I will say that the #1 deficiency we see in all the rigs we work on is on the electrical side and we see some crap. Bad crimps, bad solder, bad terminals, bad wire, poor to worse routing, horrific zip tie use including snipping the tails with diagonal cutters at an angle which just rips you wide open if you brush against them. Everyone needs to own a set of these for flush cutting zip tie tails.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076M3ZHBV/?tag=wranglerorg-20

Cheap, sharp, effective, and perfect for cutting zip ties. We have about 5 sets of them and use them daily.

There needs to be a good tutorial on electrical component selection and tools that are cheap and effective.
 
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mrblaine said:
To add to what Jerry related, typically when you get solder (yes, even the correct rosin core for electrical) hot enough to flow correctly, you are destroying the insulation and it wicks into the cable. At the end of the solder flow in the cable, that creates a stress riser that can start breaking strands of the cable under vibration and since it is inside the insulation, you will never see it.

Do not solder cable lugs for cables. Get, borrow, or have someone use a good lug crimper and then use the adhesive lined heat shrink to provide strain relief and prevent corrosion.

View attachment 26137
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What size connector did you crimp the pair of +12v cables into @mrblaine? You're still using the OE size 6 gauge cables there? I'm probably going to redo my battery wiring soon.
 
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mrblaine said:
horrific zip tie use including snipping the tails with diagonal cutters at an angle which just rips you wide open if you brush against them. Everyone needs to own a set of these for flush cutting zip tie tails.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076M3ZHBV/?tag=wranglerorg-20

Cheap, sharp, effective, and perfect for cutting zip ties. We have about 5 sets of them and use them daily.

There needs to be a good tutorial on electrical component selection and tools that are cheap and effective.
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One of the few things that I will actually YELL at my employees about. Too many times, I've had to reach into an electrical panel, and caught a finger or back side of my hand on a ziptie, slicing me open like a gutted fish!
 
I wanted to revive this because I found a video explaining 3 of the common ways to crimp a battery lug and how well each method worked:


I am about to undergo a full overhaul on my electrical/charging system and get it to where I'm not nervous it's going to leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere 1/3rd of the time.
 
JamesAndTheSahara said:
I wanted to revive this because I found a video explaining 3 of the common ways to crimp a battery lug and how well each method worked:


I am about to undergo a full overhaul on my electrical/charging system and get it to where I'm not nervous it's going to leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere 1/3rd of the time.
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A good vid indeed. It demonstrates what works in a pinch (like so many trail repairs) and what is best. I wish he had attemped a solder connection.

Thanks for the vid.
 
JamesAndTheSahara said:
I wanted to revive this because I found a video explaining 3 of the common ways to crimp a battery lug and how well each method worked:


I am about to undergo a full overhaul on my electrical/charging system and get it to where I'm not nervous it's going to leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere 1/3rd of the time.
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He is incorrect about the winging with the hydro crimper. The little wings are very sharp and if you attempt to seal the connection with an adhesive lined heat shrink tubing, it will split on the wings. Turn the connector in the crimping die and mash them flat.
 
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05 Blue Unlimited said:
I wish he had attemped a solder connection.

Thanks for the vid.
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Again, why? Soldering for that size wire is neither appropriate nor recommended. By the time you get the wire hot enough to flow, you have very likely damaged the insulation and you can't control the solder flow which gets sucked out into the conductor and creates a stress riser at the end of it which can cause cable failure under vibration.
Did you notice that with a good crimp that the cable and connector are one? That's what you want, a solid sealed connection and you get a better one with a high level of deformation than you do with solder.
 
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Yeah, Blaine is right. Soldering for connections that size is actually very unnecessary. Hence the reason you basically never see big wires like that with connections soldered on.
 
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Chris said:
Yeah, Blaine is right. Soldering for connections that size is actually very unnecessary. Hence the reason you basically never see big wires like that with connections soldered on.
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You see them, just not from folks that know what they are doing.
 
mrblaine said:
You see them, just not from folks that know what they are doing.
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Yeah. I started thinking about how often I've seen them and the only times I recall seeing battery terminal connectors soldered on was like you said, from folks who generally didn't know what they were doing.
 
Chris said:
Yeah. I started thinking about how often I've seen them and the only times I recall seeing battery terminal connectors soldered on was like you said, from folks who generally didn't know what they were doing.
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Anyone who has done soldering and done it well knows when they try to do the bigger cables that it takes a tremendous amount of heat to get it to flow. By the time you get it that hot, the insulation is pretty much shot on most cable.
 
mrblaine said:
Anyone who has done soldering and done it well knows when they try to do the bigger cables that it takes a tremendous amount of heat to get it to flow. By the time you get it that hot, the insulation is pretty much shot on most cable.
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Yeah, I end up soldering a lot wiring harnesses for guitars I assemble. One thing I know is how much heat it takes to get a huge cable (i.e. a battery cable) hot enough for the solder to flow. I wouldn't even attempt it to begin with.
 
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