[T3] Battery cables

Soren Jacobsen snj at blef.org
Wed Dec 2 23:23:51 PST 2015


On 12/02 20:44, Jim Adney wrote:
> On 2 Dec 2015 at 16:47, Soren Jacobsen wrote:
> 
> > When I cut the old one apart, the reason for failure was clear:
> > corrosion in the connection between the clamp and the wire strands. 
> 
> The real enemy here is acid attack. This is most common after a 
> battery has been mistreated by hammering the clamp down on the post. 
> Unfortunately, this practice is almost universal in shops that 
> install batteries. 
> 
> The problem is that the shock of hammering breaks the fragile 
> ultrasonic weld between the post and the plastic case. The damage is 
> invisible, but the result is that acid can wick up onto the 
> post/clamp and attack the copper wire.  

Perhaps that's what was going on, but it strikes me as a bit unlikely,
given that the connection between the clamp and battery post was free of
corrosion.  Corrosion was only present on the copper wire strands where
the clamp was crimped on, and that corrosion was invisible until I cut
the clamp off to investigate.

Soren


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