[Discuss] Great talks last night, however...

[mark at buttery.org (Shirley Márquez Dúlcey)]

I second the recommendation for PowerPoles. They work well, they're
easy to connect and disconnect, they won't be confused with connectors
for other things, and a lot of the ham radio community has
standardized on them. The only downside is that the tool for
assembling them is a bit costly (around $50); if you only have a few
to do try to borrow the crimping tool rather than buying one. (That's
the price for the crimping tools from ham companies. The official
Anderson ones are a LOT more expensive, so don't buy those.)

Those Philmore connectors are PowerPole clones. At the sources I
checked (Amazon and eBay) they cost more than real PowerPoles from the
usual ham sources (PowerWerx, Quicksilver Radio, West Mountain Radio),
so there is no reason to buy them. All three of the ham companies I
named are good sources; if you run into any of them at a hamfest you
can buy from them with confidence.

You can also buy PowerPole components from Mouser, but you have to buy
at least 100 at a time for them to be cheaper than buying from the ham
suppliers. They sell the parts separately; you need a black housing, a
red housing, and two contacts to make a complete set. There are two
different versions of the contacts; one with round ends with a slit
and another with vertical tabs. For crimping with a tool you want the
round ones.

The PowerPoles that hams use come in 15A, 30A, and 45A versions. The
housings are the same and they all interconnect; the only difference
is the size of wire that the contacts are designed to accept. If you
try to use a small wire in a high power contact you won't get a good
crimp; if you try to use a big wire in a low power contact it won't
fit. Power handling capability is limited to the lower of the ratings
in the connection. There are also larger PowerPoles for higher current
connections; they don't mate with the 15A-45A versions.

If you want to use PowerPoles for something other than DC power
connections in the 12V neighborhood, you should make them distinct
from the ham power connection standard in some way. Use different
colors, a different configuration of jacks, whatever. That way nobody
will plug your other thing into a 12V power supply.

The best prize I ever won at a hamfest was an AndyCrimp - the old
dedicated version, not the Pro with interchangeable dies. Not quite up
there with getting a KX3 but it's been very useful.

On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 2:12 PM, Brian DeLacey <bdelacey at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the PowerWerks pointer ... and
>
> Remember the meeting  / talk reminder and disclaimer, not to do any of this
> at home  ..
>
> There was a lot of encouraging discussion about education and learning
> about these topics ..
>
> How does Anderson compare to Philmore DC 30A Quick Disconnect?
>
> Brian
>
> On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 12:57 PM, Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Jul 20, 2017 10:15 AM, "Bill Bogstad" <bogstad at pobox.com> wrote:
>>
>> I have to repeat my negative reaction to the idea that one would
>> consider using polarized AC plugs/sockets for low voltage DC
>> interconnects.  That is probably as bad an idea as ...
>>
>>
>> Seconded.
>> And totally in contradiction to any underwriting, code, or best practices.
>> No No No.
>> This is a recipe for a housefire with insurance claim denied.
>>
>> DC POWER
>> Anderson power pole is a DC semi standard.
>> My preferred supplier aside from MIT SwapMeet is
>> https://powerwerx.com/dc-power-products
>> (Their new england distributor comes to NEARfest)
>>
>> Re Coax DC see
>> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_power_connector#
>> Listing_of_DC_coaxial_connectors
>>
>> (I have one ancient piece of test equipment with dual power options. It has
>> a 4 pole Cinch-Jones port with one pair AC, one pair DC so you can only
>> connect one cord. CJ is polarized |= so hard to screwup ...)
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