[Elecraft] Anderson Power Poles?

[Grant Youngman]

On Jun 28, 2010, at 2:57 PM, Edward R Cole wrote:

> I had the experience that my West Mountain assembled PP cable pulled 
> loose from the crimped connection when I tripped over it (yeah 
> extreme situation). 

Why were you surprised?  Knock your fridge over and see what gives way first, and hope it isn't the screwed-in water line to the ice maker :-)

> I could not figure out how to extract the pin to 
> repair it.  

Cut it off at the connector and install a new connector.  It is possible to get the pins out, but not worth the effort.

> 
> The PP that I made up myself I soldered vs.crimping with no 
> failures.  I noted the lack of pins and someone told me they slide 
> together

This is part of the user instructions for Power Poles - they slide together  There's a reason there are instructions :-)

>  I'll try the Q-tip 
> "pin", if needed.  

There is no "pin" for a 2-pole connector that I'm aware of.  If you stick a Q-tip or a metal pin in the hole between two connectors and the connectors come apart, the stick or pin just falls out since it can't possibly hold them together.   Use super glue.  Or wrap them with a tie wrap.

> But there is no stress relief and the connection 
> takes all the mechanical stress on the wires, 

That's why there is a CRIMP tool, although solder will hold well enough i suppose, maybe, but I wouldn't trust it . I crimp them, and THEN flow solder into them.  You (anyone) could sit there and wiggle them enough to break the wires.  I don't wiggle or dodge and burn my DC connectors all that often.  But you can do that to connector with a strain relief just as well.   Just don't trip over them -- anything can be ripped out and broken. I have this vision of hams sitting in a long winded QSO or calling CW DX over and over and over ...  running out of productive things to do, fiddling with their PP's to see if they can make them break.  Of course you can break them.

I have many 12VDC circuits on power poles.  I have never had a failure, never had wires break, and never plugged 3000VDC into the back of my K3 (but I don't have 3Kv on power poles either).   Ok -- so the power lead to my K3 is #8 copper and short (by design) and pulls out when I slide the radio too far forward on the desk.  But I don't do that to get the radio closer and "hear better" or whatever :-)

Grant/NQ5T