Can you explain this?

Mark

 

less resistance in the wire

 

How do you figure that there's less resistance in the wire? I would bet there would be more with crimping with a hammer and vise, opposed to having a fully soldered connection.

But I do understand the pain in connecting them all to the battery, quite bulky when you have that many cables.

Mark

 

My understanding is that crimping with the right tools can put several thousand pounds on the connection and make a very very strong, air tight connection. However this is not the same as hammering or using a vise or banging with a hammer. You can buy very good connector that tighten with wrenches from many companies. You can also buy copper crimp connectors and a special hammer crimp tool at any car parts or battery shop.
You are using 0 or 4 guage wire because you want a solid, reliable connection to pass 100 amps or so.
A hammer will not do it.
Do it right, spend the bucks to get a prope connector, or have a shop crimp it. You can still solder it after.

 

this is good. everyone is giving advice on what should be done with connectors yet no one has actually compared what is better on a meter.

 

do you have anything to back up your statements, othr than "My Meter told me"?

Mark

 

u mean like theoretical back up? no, i only have real life tests/results.

u want to see added resistance with solder? use a multimeter, u will see.

 

No I don't mean theoretical information. I meant and actual explination concerning Ohm's law to back up your statement, that's all.

Mark

 

ok, just did a quick test with 2 15foot runs of 10 AWG ( all I had laying around)

first I soldered the terminals on, and then I put one terminal on the end of another piece and beat the hell out of it with a hammer...

Tested it with a crappy canadiantire DMM and then with my Fluke DMM. The fluke shows considerably less resistance, than the canadiantire DMM on the soldered joint, and the canadian tire DMM shows a lot more resistance on the "ghetto" crimp job; not as much with the fluke meter, so in the end my 'real world testing' shows that with a good meter the resistance was considerably higher with the ghetto crimp job, than with the soldered on terminal....

So I don't know then.... I think I'll stick to soldering my connections, and leave the hammer out of my cable termination.

regards, Mark

 

Ok, so finally someone is asking the right questions. I spent the last 30 minues researching scientific journals for any research into this. ( I am an electrical engineer and my company has access to these) Nada...yet. However here are some things to think about:
Commercially crimped connections vs hammer/vise. Do you really think you can do as good a job?
What about corrosion? Under the hood on a battery is ugly.
Low current vs high current: I have trouble shooted installations where meter readings did not show any problems until you started drawing current, that is when the resisance of a poor, corroded battery connection turned up.
Temperature: Every time things heat up under the hood, a bad crimped connection will expand and loosen.
So, to set up a proper test, I suggest the following:
compare:
purchased crimped battery cable.
hammer/vise DIY
DIY crimp with proper tool
DIY crimp with proper tool and Solder
Solder only
High end car audio wire/battery connector.

All this tested under identical high current conditions under the hood over several months.

So who is up to it? This is not an easy task.
Until someone does the actual testing I will stick to crimps done with the right equipment and then soldered, or quality screw tightening connectors made for the job. I have seen too many badly done hammer/vise crimps corrode and come loose under the hood and cause all sorts of dangerous problems.
You guys spend thousands of bucks on equipment, yet do not want to spend $10 to $20 on a proper connector!. You dont even have to spend that much. A connector at a car parts or battery store is a buck or so and they will even crimp em for you!