Wiring Questions ...

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MB-1-E
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Wiring Questions ...

I need to find a good two wire connector (both male & female) for charging my batteries.
I'll have two #8 or #6 wires comming from my batteries and I want to mount one of the connectors on the bike, the other will be on a pigtail from the charger (#8 wire).

I also have a question about hooking up my "Doc Wattson" meter (similar to Watts-Up). It has a rather small wire size. I think I need to run all my load through this to get the information that I need.
So, I'll need a butt-splice from a #6 wire to the (maybe 10Ga wire size) on the meter. Is this going to be a real bottleneck in my system and will the smaller wire size cause problems?

Parameter Range Resolution Accuracy
(worst-case)
Voltage 0-60 Volts 0.01 V ± (1% + 0.035)
Current 0-100 Amps 0.01 A ± (2% + 0.06)
Power 0-6554 Watts 0.1 W
Charge 0-6554 Amp hours 0.1 Ah
Energy 0-650 KiloWatthours 0.01 KWh (10 Wh)

Thanks for any information or suggestions.

Dave
(aka MB-1-E)

reikiman
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Re: Wiring Questions ...

Charging generally doesn't run at high wattage and therefore generally doesn't require thick wires. 12 gauge wire or even thinner ought to be sufficient.

For connectors ... the scooters commonly come with XLR connectors; these are the same connectors that professional microphones use. I personally don't like the XLR connectors, and in the past have either used the small scale powerpole connectors or the most recent charger hookup I did used a 12v accessory socket like you'd have in a car. Radio Shack sells a prewired connector that even has a lighted switch. It's a little overkill but I like it.

- David Herron, http://davidherron.com/

Fechter
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Re: Wiring Questions ...

As long as the 10ga section is kept as short as possible, the losses won't be significant. Depending on how fast you're geared for and what the actual current is, the 10ga. part might get pretty warm. That's a big motor.

On my scooter I use heavy wire (8ga.) between the batteries and the controller. My charger is only 4 amps, so the charging wires are much smaller (16 ga.) and come out to a XLR connector. XLR connectors are generally good for 10 amps. You could use just about any convinent, strong connector for the charger. I used XLR's because that's what the charger came with.

MB-1-E
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Re: Wiring Questions ...

Thanks to you both, all very helpful info. !!

I've decided to leave the Doc Wattson meter off for now and just make sure that I have a good volt meter. At least until I get in some test rides to see how things are going to work out.

I do have a 15A charger that I'm using, but it is a good three stage and I have the full array of eight 9Ah batteries in parallel when charging so I think it should be fine.

I do have several auto accessory type connectors (male & female), so maybe I'll try one of those and just make sure it's a fused one and fairly well built (some of those are definately better than others, I've noticed). I don't know why I didn't consider using one.

Thanks for all!

Dave

MB-1-E
Electric - Bridgestone MB-1 Mountain Bike
Icon Photo of lighning striking Eiffel Tower Jun 3, 1902, taken by MG Loppe'

Dave B

MB-1-E
<a href="http://visforvoltage.org/book-page/996-mountain-bike-conversion-24v-3-4h... - Bridgestone MB-1 Mountain Bike</a>

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