[Elecraft] More about Anderson PowePole connectors

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

The conductors do press together on only one side, but that's by design. A
properly spec'd and used connector won't overheat, much less damage the
shell. 

The most likely cause of overheating is a bad contact where the wire is
attached to the connector blade. A bad crimp there can produce enough heat
to melt the shell in short order if the connector is carrying significant
current. Ohmmeter checks aren't a good guide either. At the current an
ohmmeter places on the joint, it may show only a small fraction of an ohm
resistance, but that contact area may be small enough that, at operational
currents, the junction gets very hot. After all, a 1 Amp fuse will show only
a tiny amount of resistance on a DMM too, but just try running 10 or 20
Amperes through it! 

Of course, no one who ever melted an Anderson connector had a "bad crimp"
did they? ;-)

Again, that's why we recommend soldering in the Elecraft manuals. If you
have the *proper* crimp tool and know how to use it, it'll work fine, but
soldering will work just as well at the 20 amps or so, max., that an
Elecraft rig demands, it's a *lot* cheaper and easier to the average builder
to do properly. 


Ron AC7AC


-----Original Message-----

A more specific question ...

I'm told that the actual connector/s mate on only one
side and therefore can loose tension over time and/or
with usage, resulting in less current carrying capacity
and overheating at higher current levels, which then
melts the housing.

73! Ken Kopp - K0PP
k0pp at arrl.net