Cheap charger for "manual" emergency charging? Please read first post.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Thanks everybody. Problem solved.



We can keep the old Waeco.



The whole issue turned out to be a little bit like a sailbatten stuck and engaging a winch before properly looking aloft.



When my boyfriend reassembled the battery pack in Monastir, he was trying to get get even better contacts to the busbars and put a stainless washer on the terminals before adding the aluminum busbars.
His reasoning was, well the studs in the battery cells are stainless too.

Turned out it was a very bad idea. Very bad charging. When he remembered these washers and took them off the battery packs charging ability returned to normal.



Weird, but I suspect the washers caused a tiny corrosion layer which reduced connectivity.



We can now even run the desalinator again from the battery, very happy.

That's great news glad you all got it sorted

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Thanks everybody. Problem solved.



We can keep the old Waeco.



The whole issue turned out to be a little bit like a sailbatten stuck and engaging a winch before properly looking aloft.



When my boyfriend reassembled the battery pack in Monastir, he was trying to get get even better contacts to the busbars and put a stainless washer on the terminals before adding the aluminum busbars.
His reasoning was, well the studs in the battery cells are stainless too.

Turned out it was a very bad idea. Very bad charging. When he remembered these washers and took them off the battery packs charging ability returned to normal.



Weird, but I suspect the washers caused a tiny corrosion layer which reduced connectivity.



We can now even run the desalinator again from the battery, very happy.

The SS washers were a very bad idea and could ended badly. Stainless has a much higher resistance and conductivity means if you pull your loads or charge you create a lot heat which can even melt stuff and cause a fire or get transfered into cell and damage it overvtime. Additional washer fool the torque wrench and are not even so less contact surface that creates even more resistance=heat.

The studs are there to hold the nut, nothing else and not make conductivity.
The conductivity and power floating happens between terminal and busbar.

If you want better conductivity sand the terminal and busbar with 600 or 1000 grid wet so you remove the oxide layer and immediately coat it with No-Al-ox.
Then connect terminal and busbar with the right torque.
With studs i recommend use Loctide superstrong and glue the stud in so you cannot strip the thread of the terminal when tightening down the serated flange nut (also no washer here). I also use an alien key to counterforce during tightening. No run max load and touch every connection right away and after 5 min, like this you check for connection problem eg insufficient torque or uneven busbar.

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

The SS washers were a very bad idea and could ended badly. Stainless has a much higher resistance and conductivity means if you pull your loads or charge you create a lot heat which can even melt stuff and cause a fire. Additional washer fool the torque wrench and are not even so less contact surface that creates even more resistance=heat.

The studs are there to hold the nut, nothing else and not make conductivity.
The conductivity and power floating happens between terminal and busbar.

If you want better conductivity sand the terminal and busbar with 600 or 1000 grid wet so you remove the oxide layer and immediately coat it with No-Al-ox.
Then connect terminal and busbar with the right torque.
With studs i recommend use Loctide superstrong and glue the stud in so you cannot strip the thread of the terminal when tightening down the nut. I also use an alien key to counterforce during tightening.

Thank you.


As written we learned that :-) too.



We sanded the bus bars in the latest assembly and added aluminum contact paste before assembly.