Making leads for power supply

[AlexanderKristiansen]

Hey!

I just ordered this power supply to top balance my battery cells:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ML2MP9Q

I understand it is recommended to use thicker leads.

How do I make new leads? Or can I buy thicker leads?

 

[halfwave]

Just make them yourself, don't use the banana plugs, use some kind of ring connector on each end.

Being a junk collector I used salvaged 10awg stranded wires (out of old AC power cables) and crimped connectors on each end. Just make them as long as needed but not too long, you will have some voltage drop top balancing at 10 amps.

That Long WEI is a good suplly, think they are the OEM for all the others like it. I have the same one and somehow managed to blow it up. But repair was fairly easy as it blew the reverse polarity diode inside and they are a common 6A10 MIC. So its fairly rugged

 

[sshibly]

the ones that come with the PS is fine to use, you are Maxing out at 10A, the end result will be that the unit will take a bit longer to charge fully as it will sense bit lower voltage and go to CV sooner.

 

[HRTKD]

I used the cables that came with the power supply to charge 8 cells in parallel. I looked around for banana plugs thinking that was the only way. Well after the top balancing was complete did it dawn on me to turn the knobs all the way off and use a ring terminal instead, like @halfwave is recommending.

 

[FilterGuy]

use some kind of ring connector on each end.

This is key. Having heavy duty wire is important, but the connections on both end are going to be the biggest source of resistance.

The banana plugs are not very good, but perhaps worse than the banana plugs are the alligator clips at the other end. With alligator clips you get a couple of tiny points of contact to the terminal and that is it. A ring lug bolted onto the terminal will have *far* less resistance. If the only thing you did was replace the alligator clips, you would make a great improvement. (But I would still recommend building your own leads with heavy wire and properly sized ring connectors on each end. The factory leads with alligator clips are still handy to have for other uses.)

Keep in mind that there will *always* be resistance and therefore you can only reduce the problem, you can't eliminate it. Furthermore, keep in mind that better leads will not change the end result, it will just make the time to top-balance shorter. This is all to say, don't get carried away trying to make the perfect leads.... you will quickly reach diminishing returns.

 

[DerpsyDoodler]

Hey!

I just ordered this power supply to top balance my battery cells:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ML2MP9Q

I understand it is recommended to use thicker leads.

How do I make new leads? Or can I buy thicker leads?

You will need crimpers, stranded 10awg copper wire, 10-12awg 1/4” ring terminals. This is the most basic, you may need fork terminals, too, depending on your power supply.

 

[FilterGuy]

I have the same one and somehow managed to blow it up.

Somehow? Hmmmmm......perhaps hooked it up backwards on the battery???? I have the same supply and yes, I had to replace the diode

 

[AlexanderKristiansen]

I used the cables that came with the power supply to charge 8 cells in parallel. I looked around for banana plugs thinking that was the only way. Well after the top balancing was complete did it dawn on me to turn the knobs all the way off and use a ring terminal instead, like @halfwave is recommending.

Thanks for that info,@FilterGuy! Ring terminals are the easiest solution. I'm going to do the same as you did, charge 8 cells in parallel to top balance them. How much were the cells charges before you use the power supply and how long did it take to get them to 3,65V?

 

[HRTKD]

I'm not FilterGuy but you quoted my post, so...

My cells didn't take that long to charge. Two, maybe three days. I did it in stages, not to 3.65 right away.

 

[JeepDaddy]

These are the 14AWG leads I used to replace the standard leads. At 10 amps, my voltage drop across the leads went from 0.9V to 0.2V.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NWXR4GJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I agree with the comments about ring terminals vs alligator clips and making your own.

 

[FilterGuy]

This is one of the leads I made for top balancing.




I was going to use 10AWG but I did not have any fine strand 10AWG on hand.

On the power supply end of the lead, match the ring connector to the stud on the power supply.

I have cells with 8 mm studs and and other cells with 6 mm studs. Consequently I used an 8 mm ring connector for one end of the lead. If you are only going to do cells with 6mm Studs, a 6mm ring connector on the cell terminal end would be better. (If I wanted to be anal about it I would build two separate sets of leads; one set for each Cell Post size...... but I am not sure it would make a lot of difference.)