Wire #6, #4, lugs and bus bars

I do essentially what Jose does using a small butane torch, tin the end of the cable, clamp the lug heat the barrel insert wire and add solder. Most of my 12V connections are Anderson Power Poles all are soldered.

Almot wrote:
OK, dielectric grease inside lugs. Will have to do it myself, shops like Genuinedealz won't put any grease in pre-assembled cable.

Senor Mex - in partsexpress.com for cables up to #2 I don't see a racheting crimper, only a non-racheting $39.

Alternatively, Amazon sells $15 Hammer-Crimper that fits all sizez, don't know how easy is to use this kind of caveman tool :)

One more question: All wire strippers seem to be for #22-#10 just like the one I have. Can't find any for #6 or #4, do they even exist?

if you have the finesse, a cable shear works great. Other than that it's back to a blade.

Hammer crimpers certainly work, that's what most of the crimped jumpers you see at the auto stores are built with, but there's nothing like a real full compression crimper. They are are around for ~$100 and less on sale

PS- Any time with this big cable I can find closed end lugs, I use them, and also use water tight heat shrink around the wire and lug crimp. No grease needed at that point.

I like using ring lugs and have found that the best way to solder up a heavy gauge wire to ring lugs is a torch. I do the following.

1.) Clamp the ring terminal in a vice or with some vice grips.
2.) Brush flux onto the end of the stranded wire
3.) Clip a bunch of pieces of heavy flux core solder so that they fill the end of the ring terminal and stick out a little bit
4.) Hit the ring terminal with the torch until it is good and hot, then drop in the solder. It will melt and the flux with etch the inside
5.) Before the flux completely boils off, push in the end of the wire and hold the torch on for a couple seconds more. The wire will heat all the way through and the flux will do its job.

If you used the right amount of solder, you will have a nice and full end. Once everything cools, the solder will set and you will have a great connection. Squeeze some silicone into the exposed end on the insulation side, cover with some heat shrink and you now have a very nicely weather sealed end that should last the life of your equipment.

Jose

I just use an exacto/olfa knife for stripping the insul, and a bench vise for "crimping"... No grease, no solder, no shrink wrap. I have no hot spots or loose connections, no visible corrosion, and I see .09 v.d. at 45a, over a total of 12 feet of 2ga, 2 bus bars, a shunt, and 16 terminal connections; not including those to and from inverter and various loads. If things are kept clean, dry, ventilated, and tight, there should be no problems.

OK, dielectric grease inside lugs. Will have to do it myself, shops like Genuinedealz won't put any grease in pre-assembled cable.

Senor Mex - in partsexpress.com for cables up to #2 I don't see a racheting crimper, only a non-racheting $39.

Alternatively, Amazon sells $15 Hammer-Crimper that fits all sizez, don't know how easy is to use this kind of caveman tool :)

One more question: All wire strippers seem to be for #22-#10 just like the one I have. Can't find any for #6 or #4, do they even exist?

I used these,

blue sea

And you can get similar ones with covers,

with cover

Grease under the lugs is essential! Yes, it will squeeze out and make good contact.

Thanks, people. A lot of useful tips. Soldering is not my forte, so I'll have to settle on dielectric grease under the lugs and on bare ends. Genuinedealz won't put any grease under lugs, though.

SMK - yes, the bus bars have 2 holes up to #1/0 size and 4 holes up to #6 size. I was worried about braided #6 fitting in #6 hole because there are only two #1 holes in each bus. Trimming the wire (if necessary) has already crossed my mind.

Those are very small terminals, both Pos and Neg busses fit inside Big Baby breakers box from the same Midnite Solar. The box is mounted in the trailer pass-through storage (like a basement in 5-er), so it's not quite "outside" though less protected from salty air and humidity than inside of the trailer.

Bare wire ends on solar controller are inside the trailer, the controller is my room-mate, he lives in the bedroom.

I bought a bunch of copper lugs from JcWhitney back when I was wiring up my camper in 1990. They fit the 25' roll of #4 wire I bought at the same time.

When it came time to buy fittings for my #000 wire and the 1,500 watt inverter I was installing, I used 1/2" copper tubing instead, and I figured if the ends ever failed, I was not out any money, and could install the proper ones a few years later. That was 1997 and the fittings are still working great, and have had more than 150 amps going through them.

I took about 3" long 1/2" OD copper tubing and flattened the last 2" in my bench vise. Then fold back over 1" of the tubing, and drill a 3/8" hole in it. Put in the wire, and then clamped well with the bench vise, and they never came loose. Even when I tried by pulling on the wire!

As for the clamps that you are looking at. If it says for #6 wire, it will fit, stranded or not. If you 'must' cut away a few strands of the #6 wire, it will still fit, and will still carry 100 amps without overheating. Downsizing the wire from #6 to #8 (by cutting away nearly 1/3 of the wire) will not change it's resistance in any way over the 1" long section of copper wire that is fit into the lugs. Even #4 wire cut down to #8 size will not overheat just because the last 1" is cut down a bit. Of course try to fit in as much of the wire as possible, by twisting it, and many times it will fit just fine. But don't worry about that last 1" of wire being a little undersized.

Did you know that #12 wire can carry 50 amps? In a heating element, with the proper glass insulation, (rated at 250F+) or in free air, it can carry that much amperage. #12 wire will overheat and not last 30 years inside a building when it carries more than 20 amps, so NEC code says no more than 20 amp fuse with #12 wire. And actually they limit a 20 amp circuit to not carry more than 16 amps on a normal basis.

Those fittings that you show pictures of will work great, and offer the least amount of resistance between the fittings. They should last well over 30 years.

Have fun camping, and enjoy the solar system!

Fred.

Regarding Q4: I don't think solid AWG6 wire is commonly found aside from bare wire for leads to grounding rods. It's not very flexible, to put it mildly. Terminals for #6 wire would undoubtedly work with stranded wire size-wise.