TitleGarrison

No bird ever flew nonstop from New York to Tokyo, or raced 15 miles high at triple the speed of sound.                                                                                                   
  But birds do something else.
  They do not conquer the air; they romance it.
.”

  Peter Garrison

HoursAndCounting

Jur's RV7 Aircraft Factory
2917 hours
and counting
Some decisions in life are bare of any obvious logic

 

One of the things that kept me busy and worrying for a while was crimping the batter wires, or let's call them "cables".
The battery cable draws up to 60 amps when the start is engaged and needs to be a very thick cable that can withstand this flow of energy. Some people use welder cable but I did purchase the electrical kit from vans before and that came with some 2AWG cable and the connectors and protector covers. Today, I made the ground block to battery ground cable and the battery positive to master solenoid cable.

The master solenoid is actually nothing more than a switch that can be engaged from the cockpit to allow the full power of the battery to be released in the system. A battery doesn't push energy, a device pulls energy. This means that carefull thinking is required when chosing cable sizes throughout the airplane. Most of the power goes to the engine start when engaging the starter switch. So all of the wires between battery and starter system will be pretty beefy.

If you would use a regular switch for the master switch would need to pass through 60 amp of current and the full current would flow into the cockpit and back into the FFW. A master solenoid is a device that is controlled by an external switch which when grounded engages the master solenoid and allows the electrical current to flow through. However, the switch itself only operates at very low amperage. The starter solenoid works in more or less the same way.

This connector needs to be installed on that wire. I had looked up crimpers before on aircraft spruce and they all were extremely expensive and only for one wire size. I'm talking hundreds of dollars for one.

Thanks to my friends from the "Fans Of Vans" dutch whatsapp group of RV builders, I found this hydraulic crimp tool from HBM-Machines which is perferct for the job and only costed 50€, and had metric sizes for all wire gauges. The conversion of metric to AWG can be found easily online. The tool can push up to 6 tons of pressure.

The cable has some inner woven cables which in themselves are woven and twisted together.

Here 's what is looks like when cutting of the shielding with a razor blade.

Crimping the cable on with the right tool is actually very very easy and a no brainer. Just slide on the connector, eventually already bent in the right angle and start crimping with the pneumatic tool using the correct crimp set until it bottoms out

 My installation required me to bend the connector 45degrees for easy installation on the negative pole of the battery.

It's very important that you pay attention to the orientation of the connectors before you start crimping. These stiff wires won't bend themselves anyway you want. The connector angle has to be checked upfront.

Also don't forget your shrink tube before crimping.

 With the ground cable ready, I installed it on the ground block firewall forward side and on the other end screwed it to the battery negative.

Forward view with the covers on.

Next I moved on to the positive battery cable. One of the connectors need a good bend because of the angled connection to the master somenoid.

The other side is flat. Again, keep control of the angle of how you crimp the connector on the cable. The cable won't twist much.

Installed the positive side as well and here is a picture of the completed work of the day.
I also connected my external charger wires on the groundplack and at the master solenoid so that I can easily switch on and off charging of the batter with the trickly charger.

I previously bought the BatteryMINDer 2012-Agm 12V / 2A Charger / Maintainer / Desulfator For Optima And Odyssey battery charger at spruce with the extention cable ring connectors.

 Different angle view of the positive cable side.

Detail of the negative cable side.

 

How to use

Use the kit buttons in the top ribbon bar to see a chronological overview per sub section per kit. For the full chronological article list, see chronological build link in prelude menu here below. The easiest way to lookup information is by typing in some part numbers or keywords using the search option in the ribbon bar

 

Caution !

Some advice on reading my log for fellow builders !

In some articles, I made corrections at later date on the original article to rectify my own stupidities or faults. Read through the entire article if you intend to use my findings/experiences on your own project !

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Legal Mumbo-Jumbo

It’s possible (not likely) that I’m not as smart as I think I am. (Occasionally, I have moments when I know this to be true. Fortunately, the feeling passes quickly.) Although I have tried to make this information as accurate as I can, it is not only possible, but also quite likely, that erroneous and misguided information lurks within these pages. I cannot and do not warrant these pages to be error free and correct. Furthermore, I accept no liability for the use of this (mis)information. And, as many would say, your mileage may vary. If, after reading this, you are intent on proceeding, please be aware that the contents of this site are protected by copyright (copyright © 2011 and 2012). Nonetheless, you may copy this material subject to these two conditions: (1) any information used is for non-commercial purposes, and (2) the source of the material is properly credited. Of course, you may link to any page herein. At some articles, snippets of the plans from Vans are visible. These are for educational and illustrations purposes only and should never be used as plans for part construction or assembly as plans may have changed since the picture was taken and more important they are protected by Copyright by the Vans Aircraft Mothership company.

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