Cable Lugs or 1/0 cable

brulaz wrote:
Originally setup to just run a small coffee grinder, we're now trying to pull 70ADC from the batteries to run an induction hotplate.

For some reason, these things always seem to get out of hand ... :R

Anyway it's time to upgrade the cables to and from the 1000W inverter. (And maybe later a 2000W inverter will happen.)
Was thinking about 1/0 cable, about 8-12' depending upon routing.

The old cables used simple tinned copper lugs with a V-crimp made with a "Heavy-Duty Hammer Crimper" from Del-City. And lots of electrical anti-corrosion paste, also from Del-City.

Would similar V-crimped lugs be adequate for the new 1/0 cables? Or do they add too much resistance at high loads? The old cables do seem to have more voltage drop than I predicted based solely on the cable length and size.

Alternative lugs might be the Fusion solder lugs. Not cheap, but I only need 4 and still cheaper than a $200-300 crimping tool.

And then I hear of people using thick walled copper pipe? And solder?

I would rather cut and lug the cables myself as I'm not exactly sure of their routing.

Thanks.

I used refrigeration copper tubing with a homemade punch setup which consisted of a piece of steel pipe clamped in a vise, I cut a slot in the steel pipe and the vise kept the pipe from spreading.

Put the copper pipe inside the steel pipe, a couple of good wacks with hammer and punch held the copper pipe firmly to the wire.

Then I used a propane torch to heat the copper pipe and lots of electrical solder (I made sure the copper pipe was scrubbed clean on the inside using sand paper)..

I used two sizes of copper tubing small size to fit the wire then the next larger size fit over the small tubing and solder completed the whole thing.

The result is a copper lug that can easily handle well over 200A of current and never even get above room temp.

I first did this with some welding cable to extend my stick welder leads.. Worked perfect and was able to max the welder at 250A..

Much more meat in my setup than any of the welding lugs I looked at.

Yep, the crimp vs solder folks should be chiming in shortly to blast me for my home made lugs :R