Where to buy crimped battery cable

I've been behind more than one helicopter console and my dad worked for North American Rockwell, and I have never ever seen soldered lugs on aircraft nor in marine service, they are ALL crimped and that's good enough for me.

Granted I didn't buy the HF crimper but mine is close to it. To properly crimp a 4/0 lug requires two different dies on mine but in the end it's bullet-proof

I bought the HF crimper!

I got mine made to length at a truck fleet supply store. They sell parts and supplies for commercial trucks. They made the cables with the crimped on fittings that had the holes to fit over threaded battery posts. They even put on the water proof heat shrink tubing where the fittings were crimped to the cable. There was no exposed copper wire when they were done.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I called a few places and ended up going with a battery supply shop near San Diego. They cut to length, crimped and used heat-shrink between the lug and the cable casing. No solder.

One problem was that according to the guy who did them, it's tough to get the length exact (I had measurements down to 1/4 inch), so he erred on the side of slightly longer, so most of the cables ended up about 1/4 inch longer than I asked for.

The most problematic cables were 4.25" cables for a direct connection between lugs which ended up at 4.75". To use up the extra space, I had to bend the cables at almost 90 degrees, which was just barely possible (they were welding cable). I'm not happy that the cables will be under nearly constant strain, but those are the breaks, I guess. I was able to get a much cleaner and safer system than what I had before (with 4 AWG cable).

BTW, I've seen lead acid battery banks where the terminals were connected not with cables, but with flat metal links that simply go directly from one terminal to the next (they must be of exact length). I couldn't find out what they were called or even if they are made commercially - perhaps they are just a homemade thing. Anyone know?

You could even use a copper bar or copper pipe smashed flat. Is this the type of metal connector you were referencing?

Almost! The ones I was thinking of weren't braided though. From the same site I found this:

http://www.gacopper.com/images/Jumper-1x6-GC-txt2.jpg

which is along the lines of what I was thinking about. They call them "jumpers" but of course googling that just results in a million jumper-cable related results.

Part way down this page you can see also what I'm talking about:

http://www.sbsbattery.com/products-services/by-product/batteries/batteries-flooded-wet-cell-batteries/flooded-wet-cell-batteries-stt-series-flooded-2v-cell.html

They call them: "solid un-insulated intercell connectors".

Hammer Lug crimping tool: http://amzn.to/1nGfDx8

Why pay a high price for a tool you may only use once. This does the job for only $20 and once you are done, you don't have to worry about it taking up much storage space.

glennts wrote:
Hammer Lug crimping tool: http://amzn.to/1nGfDx8

Why pay a high price for a tool you may only use once. This does the job for only $20 and once you are done, you don't have to worry about it taking up much storage space.

Have you used one of those? They are terrible and under high inverter loads you would risk melting the end and damaging the terminal post. Sorry

Here's a hammer crimp- note the discoloration from heat:

glennts wrote:
Hammer Lug crimping tool: http://amzn.to/1nGfDx8

Why pay a high price for a tool you may only use once. This does the job for only $20 and once you are done, you don't have to worry about it taking up much storage space.

Why spend $20 to do 4 or 10 crimps?
Genuinedealz.com will do a pro job with the best industrial crimper for $1 each.
Better quality, lower price, no tool storage.

Or use you local battery dealer.