Battery plugs, etc.

I got male and female bulkhead connectors at a local electronics shop.
Don't need to remove batteries as I did before installing the bulkhead
connector. With the power pole connectors, I'd have to address each battery
intependently.

The down side is that, to go on the road, as when we went to NV for the
ground launch weekend, I made an adaptor cable so I could remove my 14v
battery for charging in the hotel. Turns out that I have so much capacity,
that I didn't need to remove any batteries.

McMaster Carr is great, though pricey. I used them for miniature gas struts
for the front door of my LAK trailer. Saved about $250 over ordering from
Europe.


"Darryl Ramm" wrote in message
...
On Wednesday, November 28, 2012 7:48:08 AM UTC-8, Evan Ludeman wrote:
On Wednesday, November 28, 2012 9:53:33 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:

I was unable to find Power Poles locally.



Two words: McMaster Carr.

And http://www.powerwerx.com/anderson-powerpoles/

On Tuesday, November 27, 2012 9:28:48 AM UTC-8, Richard wrote:
On Tuesday, November 27, 2012 8:46:07 AM UTC-8, Don wrote: Our club uses 4 pin jones plugs for battery plugs, 2 pins positive and 2 pins negative for redundancy. But even this is not fool proof after passage of time: sometimes they need to be "wiggled" to connect and they are getting hard to find now too. What kinds of plugs are other clubs or commercial ops using? I'm not a big fan of the nylon molex connectors. Someone recommended using PowerPole connectors. Any experience with these? Don, I have used Jones Plugs and Sockets for almost 10 years. They are very robust and have served me well. I use them both in the glider and for the chargers. See http://www.craggyaero.com/electrical.htm For battery setup recommendations. Richard www.craggyaero.com

Ditto Craggy Aero; been using Jones plugs for the last 15 years, simple sturdy and never failed. Tryed Andersons- tend to pull apart. PeterK

Ditto Craggy Aero; been using Jones plugs for the last 15 years, simple sturdy and never failed. Tryed Andersons- tend to pull apart. PeterK

Agreed. I speak as someone familiar with industrial environments where reliability and simplicity is everything. I like what I see in Jones plugs. They are simple and reliable. Anyone heard of a failure? Probably not.

On Nov 28, 4:12*pm, 6PK wrote:

Tryed Andersons- tend to pull apart. PeterK

This isn't a slight against Peter; but IMHO if your Anderson PowerPole
connectors are pulling apart, you're putting a fair amount of tension
on the wires. They're not meant to be weight-bearing or let you
"hang" equipment off of them (which, yes, I've seen in some
gliders).

The other possibility is that perhaps some folks are over-crimping the
connector. If you crimp the PowerPole connector properly, the spring-
loaded contactor and plastic housing make a solid connection that
takes a reasonable amount of force to pull apart. If you over-crimp
it I've seen this deform the metal contactor and thus it provides a
less-secure connection.

--Noel

For in-line power and/or battery connections, agree, Powerpole is the way to go.

For panel mount DC power jacks for charging on-board buatteries etc, Powerlet plugs and jacks (also referred to at BMW style). See: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss...%2Caps%2C 296

The BMW plug is smaller than a cigarette plug, about 1/2" diameter, and unlike a cigarette plug (which really is hopelessely crappy), snaps securely in place.

See also: http://www.motorcyclelarry.com/index...age=page&id=44

bumper

In article "noel.wade" writes:
On Nov 28, 4:12=A0pm, 6PK wrote:

Tryed Andersons- tend to pull apart. PeterK

This isn't a slight against Peter; but IMHO if your Anderson PowerPole
connectors are pulling apart, you're putting a fair amount of tension
on the wires. They're not meant to be weight-bearing or let you
"hang" equipment off of them (which, yes, I've seen in some
gliders).

The other possibility is that perhaps some folks are over-crimping the
connector. If you crimp the PowerPole connector properly, the spring-
loaded contactor and plastic housing make a solid connection that
takes a reasonable amount of force to pull apart. If you over-crimp
it I've seen this deform the metal contactor and thus it provides a
less-secure connection.


Also, bending the metal connector before it is snapped in, can make
it not snap firmly in, or not make good connections.

The powerpole specification sheet on the www.powerwerx.com site list
two versions of the metal connectors, low detent and high detent. The
disconnect force for the low detent is 3 pounds, so it would take a 6
pound pull to disconnect a pair (assuming they were properly assembled).

The high detent version claims 5 pounds so it would take 10 pounds pull,
but it appears that the high detent version may only be available on
rolls at some of the current levels.

My own experience was that the higher current versions held tighter,
so it might be worth using the 45 amp versions -- but having seen the
specs, now I have the urge to go measure the various types and see if
they differ. (Or were my 45 amp ones high detent???)


Another thing to be aware of is that soldering has some problems
compared to crimping. It makes a good electrical connection to the
wire, but the solder will wick back into the wire a bit, making it
stiffer and more likely to break instead of bend. Not good to have
the wire break inside the insulation while you were using it.

Another problem with soldering is it is very difficult to keep the
solder from running out on the connecting surface, covering the silver
plating. You probably wind up with a less smooth surface that makes
poorer contact.


Alan

On my own glider I'm using DIN connectors because I'm using the Walter Dittel battery box. With the exception of our DG-505 (which came with a tail mounted battery and a built in DIN socket for charging it) all our club gliders and chargers use XLR connectors. The batteries all have plastic boxes mounted over the terminals (holes are drilled in the bottom of the box for the terminals) and the boxes have a female XLR socket to connect to the male XLR plugs in the glider wiring and a chassis mount type fuse or circuit breaker wired between the terminals and the XLR socket.

I like the fact that the box mounting for the connector and fuse makes it pretty much impossible to short out the terminals or the wiring that comes before the fuse. The Dittel box accomplishes the same sort of protection. I have to say that the DIN connectors that the Dittel uses are a little less substantial than I would like but they certainly have given me no trouble in five years of service. The XLR's are beefier and easier to work with when installing and have worked well even though they weren't designed primarily with supplying power in mind. Of course they were intended for delivering phantom power in addition to carrying audio signal...

On Thursday, November 29, 2012 12:14:59 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On my own glider I'm using DIN connectors because I'm using the Walter Dittel battery box. With the exception of our DG-505 (which came with a tail mounted battery and a built in DIN socket for charging it) all our club gliders and chargers use XLR connectors. The batteries all have plastic boxes mounted over the terminals (holes are drilled in the bottom of the box for the terminals) and the boxes have a female XLR socket to connect to the male XLR plugs in the glider wiring and a chassis mount type fuse or circuit breaker wired between the terminals and the XLR socket.



I like the fact that the box mounting for the connector and fuse makes it pretty much impossible to short out the terminals or the wiring that comes before the fuse. The Dittel box accomplishes the same sort of protection. I have to say that the DIN connectors that the Dittel uses are a little less substantial than I would like but they certainly have given me no trouble in five years of service. The XLR's are beefier and easier to work with when installing and have worked well even though they weren't designed primarily with supplying power in mind. Of course they were intended for delivering phantom power in addition to carrying audio signal...

Per pin current handling capabilities of good quality standard 3 circuit/balanced XLR connectors is usually in the 10-15 amp range. But cheap no-brand plugs may vary widely. But this higher-than-you-might-think current carrying capacity has *nothing* to to with phantom microphone power. because phantom microphone power draws almost no current. That 48V nominal DC phantom power has draw is typically between 1mA and 10mA or so. The current carrying design point of these connectors was more set by using them originally being intended as speaker connectors, something that they were not really ideal for those current loads (and the unpleasant at times possibility of cross connecting speaker and line level circuits, and have universally been replaced by Speakon connectors, banana plugs and blade connectors.

Anyhow, even if XLR connectors have a suitable current carrying capacity I still think they are very cumbersome, large, heavy, conductive outer shell that is just asking to short some poorly protected battery terminals or wiring. And I've seen XLR connectors used in silly ways where the male pin connector is wired to the battery. Just asking for a short on the exposed pins on that connector (and yes the battery should have a breaker/fuse connected close it's power tags anyhow to protect against a cable or connector short).

I'll leave the XLR connectors on my microphone and other audio cables and put the PowerPoles in my glider, and my truck, ham radio, and every other 12VDC application I have.

Darryl

I can't wait for spring....

I'm well aware of the fact that phantom power doesn't involve much current. Next time I'll put a bunch of emoticons after I write something like that to make it more obvious I'm not being serious As for the possibility of poorly insulated terminals or wiring being shorted out goes that just emphasizes that it's a good idea to design the battery arrangement to eliminate that possibility. I know of someone who a few years back lost a glider and trailer due to something falling across the battery terminals when he had it stored in the trailer during transit. It wore through the insulation as he was driving and shorted the battery, setting the whole works on fire.

XLR's wouldn't be my FIRST choice but they were already standardized on when I joined the club and they haven't caused any problems. My first choice would be MIL spec connectors (since we're talking about installing things on aircraft it would make sense to me to use aircraft hardware) if I were to do things from scratch.

By the way, if you want to see a really interesting mismatch in the audio world facilitated by the use of identical connectors for very different applications you should see how well it works out when someone connects a 1/4" speaker out from a Hiwatt custom 100 to a 1/4" input on a P.A. mixer!