Advice for cleaning up install

[corn18]

Everything is hooked up in the electrical bay now. Two questions:

1. The covers for the battery and shunt terminals I bought are ugly and don't really work well. Any idears for what to use? Or do I even need covers? I am thinking about installing a plexiglass door to cover this compartment, but haven't decided yet.

2. I have a LOT of heavy gauge wires running into the compartment. I need to protect them from rubbing on the wood. Any easy solutions? I can remove all the wires and maybe put some of that pipe insulation stuff around the edges of the wood and then run the wires back through.

Appreciate your thoughts.

 

[Texas-Mark]

maybe put some of that pipe insulation stuff around the edges of the wood and then run the wires back through.

I have some battery cables that go out of my shed through a hole and I just spray foamed them in place. Once cured, that spray foam will break apart pretty easily if you ever need to pull wires back out.

But I assume you were talking about the solid foam insulation.

 

[rmaddy]

The covers for the battery and shunt terminals I bought are ugly and don't really work well. Any idears for what to use? Or do I even need covers? I am thinking about installing a plexiglass door to cover this compartment, but haven't decided yet.

Yes, you want the battery terminal covers even if you install a plexiglass door. At some point you will need to access the system and you will then take off the plexiglass door. You do not want to drop a screwdriver or wrench across uncovered battery terminals while working on the system.

 

[toms]

For any application where wire rubbing is a possibility i use split convoluted tubing.

 

[corn18]

If I add individual protection to all those heavy gauge wires I am going to need a much larger hole.

 

[toms]

you can get split convoluted to encapsulate the whole bundle, then tap off to smaller cables either side of the bulkhead

 

[corn18]

I ended up installing the Lexan door. I like that to keep things out of the compartment. For the hole, I just removed all the wires and put Gorilla duct tape around the hole. The pipe insulation I bought was too thick and didn't leave enough room for all the wires. I also ordered a set of better quality terminal covers that are sized for the 4/0 wire and connectors. We'll see how that works.