Upgraded truck to camper wiring. I learned new stuff.

craig333

craig333

Riley's Human
Joined
Jan 12, 2007
Messages
8,158
Location
Sacramento
Okay, I've had the wire sitting around for a couple months and completed the rest of my projects, its time to do this one. I had even considered not doing this one. I have plenty of solar and battery now to run my stuff, but then I thought about trips like my one to GBNP and Carizzo where it rained most of the time. Much as I'd prefer to let the solar charger charge my batteries, its programmed with the right parameters for the batteries (I think) sometimes you need a little assistance from the alternator. I don't have much experience with heavy gauge wire other than premade starter wires so there was a learning curve, hence the five hours involved.

An extra hand feeding wire would have been helpful also. I considered ANL fuses but opted for Maxi fuses.

I also found out there is a wrong way and a right way to assemble an anderson power pole. Should have spent a minute on youtube first.


I like that I can disconnect without raising the camper. I also had to learn about splicing 6ga wire. I now know about split bolts and other methods of joining wire.

Fortunately someone on WTW had already mentioned the rubber splicing tape to use on that.
A fair amount tools used on this project.

I was surprised to find I already had a cable cutter in my tool box. 25 feet of wire and I had very little left over. I also recently added a second battery for which I used 6ga wire. I used a cheapie hammer crimper plus solder on the lugs on that project then I read you shouldn't use solder just crimp so thats what I did. I'm curious to see what WTW has to say about that.
 
I work for the Maryland Transit Administration on heavy rail subway vehicles. When they put lugs on the cables for the motors (750volt) I think they are 6/0 ( I work on the electronics not the rail power) they crimp. It's a big powerful crimper but a crimper none the less :) Apparently good crimpers actually bond the strands together is a fashion that is more secure than soldering.....
 
Soldering also makes the wire brittle as the solder wicks up into the wire beyond the joint. A brittle joint along with random vehicle vibration can lead to a broken wire. If the wire is well supported, or very short after the joint then it isn't a concern unless you're building rockets . . .
 
Former co-worker (past employer for me) was at one time employed by Boeing and one of his research projects there was to look into crimp vs. solder. Spent something like 18 months on that project. I could ask him for all of the particulars, but the Executive Summary was that done right either works very well and done wrong neither works very well.

For solder to work right it needs to be the right kind of flux and the solder volume needs to be carefully controlled or the mentioned wicking becomes detrimental. My own thought is that if wicking has happened that the strands need to be rigidly supported slightly past the end of the wicking.

For the crimp to work right the strands again need to be clean and free of oxidation. The crimp must fully compress both the lug and all of the strands eliminating all air gaps without compressing so far that there is a gain in length. That is a pretty narrow window to work within. My analysis of his work is that a gain in length is an indicator that the strands have been work hardened right outside of the crimp zone and an eventual fatigue failure is likely. This is why in Code Electrical the lugs are color coded to the particular crimp dies. All of that (volume of copper vs. die opening) has been carefully worked out so that a good crimp is easy to execute repeatedly. If you have access to such crimpers you'll notice that they more than likely leave behind a mark in the crimp that tells any inspector which die size made the crimp. My Greenlee's do this.

At my own work we pinch-weld an annealed copper tube on every product to hold a gas charge inside. This is done cold. Some refrigeration systems are also initially charged with refrigerant in this manner. Indeed, my former co-worker told me that he knew it was a good crimp when cutting across the crimp and then polishing the cut looked like one solid piece of copper and it wasn't until after they had done an acid etch that the inside walls of the lug and the individual strands became apparent.
 
Both solder and crimp work well when done right. I soldered everything on my bass boat 10 years ago and it is still fine. I'm currently upgrading the wiring in my Eagle for both truck to Camper and and solar. This time I bought a decent cheap crimper and it's working fine on both the Powerpoles and battery terminals. It does take a strong hand to do the crimping. I'm using SB50 connectors.
Powerwerx Economy Crimping Tool for 75 amp Powerpole and SB50 SB Series Connectors

Craig it looks like you did a nice job. I like the idea of being able to connect disconnect while the camper is in the bed. Timely as I haven't gotten to the truck wiring yet.

I'm behind on posting pics. I've been dabbling with this project for a few days and should have an update later today or tomorrow in the Rice build thread.

Another great thing to do is to paint all hard connections and splices with liquid electrical tape when everything is secure and tested. It comes in colors and seals out moisture and prevents accidental shorting at terminals.
 
Wandering Sagebrush said:
that's what is what I tell The Bride when she sees the receipt.
Click to expand...
Always eat the receipt. They have a way of surfacing at an unfortunate time.

Nice crimper, no problems with those connections unless you use pliers for a hammer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads - WTW

J
Circuit Protection in Typical Camper Power Systems
Jon R
J
F
Project M Interior Build 1st Gen Tundra
Casa Escarlata Robles Too
Casa Escarlata Robles Too
S
Should have checked wires from below....
2
AWG_Pics
AWG_Pics
F
New project M owner here
j_f
J
E
Bad Battery Overheating/Causing smell
Tom n N
T

New posts - WTW

Back
Top Bottom