Longer bus bar or more bolted connections?

[noenegdod]

There are two different arrangements I have settled on for laying out all the components from the battery to the loads. One arrangement has twice as many connections but about half as much bus bar required. The other has almost twice as much bus bar but half as many connections. Ignore everything but function. Which will preform better?

 

[FilterGuy]

Without a better understanding of the two layouts, it is very difficult to say. If the two layouts are logically identical... it would be interesting to know how you can get fewer connections.

In general... more connections means more resistance and therefor more system loss. More connections can also mean more possible bad connections.

If you are getting fewer connections by stacking high-current lugs on one post.... that is not always a good idea.
If you are getting fewer connections by daisy-chaining high current connections... this is probably a bad idea.

 

[noenegdod]

Is there a decent free schematic drawing program out there? I have a few rough hand sketches to work through my thought process but Id like to stick something a little more polished out there than those. That said, I just got some of the components in my hands tonight and already came up with a different way of laying out the components that at the moment I think is better than both previous arrangements.

 

[FilterGuy]

Is there a decent free schematic drawing program out there?

Believe it or not.... I usually just use powerpoint. (That is not free, but the google equivalent is)

If you want 'real' schematics I use EASYEDA.

 

[noenegdod]

Just youtubed power point. Ill get a cartoon up in the next day or so. Thanks!