DIY battery cable supplier
Going to replace some battery cables and wondering where you folks purchase your lugs, cable and shrink tubing. Looking for the go to supply house. Thanks
Forum Discussion
mchero wrote:
Chum lee, McMasters good suggestion. I will look into them as well
GDEtrailer
Nice write up & pics. Great idea making your own lugs! I noticed those quality lugs can get up to the 5.00/pop! One pic looked like you sleeved that one end.
You guys got me thinking!
Thanks
I sleeved the entire lug end to end, mainly because I had the copper tubing on hand which happened to be the right size to slip over the other copper tubing.. In reality, most likely not needed but made for an extremely sturdy lug that could withstand many more amps than the copper wire.
Don't need solder pellets, I used good old rosin core solder for electronic/electrical work. This is not the place to use acid core or acid type flux.
As long as you have good shiny copper the Rosin core solder will work perfectly fine, the solder will wick right up between the two copper sleeves and even the wire into the copper sleeve.
The key here to soldering is to have clean copper surfaces before soldering.
Give the inside of the copper pipe a good cleaning with sand paper or a small round wire brush.
The trick to soldering my homemade lugs is to apply the heat to the outside of the lugs only, you will need a torch to get enough heat quick enough without melting the wire jacket. Applying the torch flame to the copper wire will oxidize the copper and solder will not flow between the wires.
This is pretty much the same idea as sweating copper pipe connections , heat the outside of the pipe near the connection then press the solder to the joint and when the copper gets to the melting temp of the solder it will wick right into the pipe joint..
Rosin flux is not as aggressive of a cleaner as paste flux for water pipes so you must start with absolutely clean copper. Most paste fluxes for water pipes you have to wipe and remove the remaining flux after soldering or it will start corroding the copper.. With wire, you cannot remove all of the leftover flux and the more aggressive flux for water lines will over time corrode the copper wire.
