Melted my Anderson power poles together

[parajared]

So should I be worried? I was bulk charging my lipos with a 6s (or shall I say 24volt) cable at a rate of 10 amps when the charger stopped and said "connection break" I looked at the charger and the power poles were melted together!
The 18ish gauge wires that come with the charger were hot and the 10 gauge sized wire on the battery side was warm. My guess is 10 amps is too much for 18 gauge wire. If my guess is correct it seems silly to include 18 gauge charge leads with a 400 watt charger. Or could this be another problem?

Equipment used: Turnigy mega 400watt x2 charger. DPS-600PB 575 watt power supply. PA75 connector reduced from 10ga wire to 45amp anderson power poles on 18ga wire for charging.

Also I have run into other problems with andersons. They also get pretty warm if you use them as the connection between the battery and the controller. I have worried before about this connection melting, but never my charger cable connection.

Every time I connect the battery to the controller there is a little pop of electricity. After doing this for the last five or six months the connection has slowly corroded away. I have a picture of a partially corroded power pole, and a completely corroded one. This is what has lead me to switch to PA75 connectors for this particular connection.

and here is a PA75 after about a month's worth of use. PA75 seems to be working so far, it seems to clean itself every time it is clicked together.

 

[jonescg]

If you are bulk charging with a KingPan style charger, turn your charger on first, then plug it in. This should precharge the caps in there and avoid the spark. However, if you are charging from an RC balance style charger you probably can't do this as it will give a no battery error or something.

The bad connection between charger and battery is causing higher resistance, and results in heat being generated here. Eventually it melts, and you need to replace them. The 18 gauge wire is fine for a continuous 3 amps. Short of installing a precharge resistor on your charge circuit, I can't see a way around it apart from buy a bulk charger and use it instead.

 

[Gregory]

The two issues are probably related.

Those wires weren't the problem. They wouldn't conduct enough heat in to the PP enough to do that damage without being ruined themselves.
If the Anderson inserts are slightly backed out of their housing/not seated properly/not crimped properly they can generate heat.

I had similar damage once during a ride and mine was due to one connector being backed out.
Yours may have been a bad connection due wear on the connector from all the sparking.

You should consider a precharge resistor to stop the sparking.

 

[TMaster]

Also I have run into other problems with andersons. They also get pretty warm if you use them as the connection between the battery and the controller. I have worried before about this connection melting, but never my charger cable connection.

Every time I connect the battery to the controller there is a little pop of electricity. After doing this for the last five or six months the connection has slowly corroded away.

The other guys are right, those 18AWG wires are fine. Even at 10 amps constant is fine for 18AWG. A poor connection with the andersons is there.

Ditch the andersons, they are bulky, the housings are huge, and "IMO" an out-dated connection design. There are a lot of better connectors out there. The real Deans T style plugs are good and have les resistance then the cheap knockoffs that look identical. ALso there are plenty of Bullet type plated connectors out there. I use 4mm bullet type and the deans. 0 problems.

You need a key switch or some kind of switch between your controller and battery. Sparking blue is just asking for trouble! I have a 40A key switch $15, That I modded with 12AWG, and I pump 110Amps through it peak. haha!

 

[Beachcruzer]

I had the same thing happen with my iCharger 106B. I put an Anderson on the wire between the power supply and the charger, so that I can quickly convert to the 12-volt car battery clips if I ever want to charge off my car (which I've never done). The Anderson melted, the charger threw an error message and I thought it was toast until I troubleshot and found the melted connector. I replaced it and haven't looked back.

Andersons catch a lot of flack on this forum, but I love them because it's almost impossible to connect them the wrong way. For that peace of mind, I'll take a little inefficiency or the slight chance that I'll melt one and have to replace it.

 

[biohazardman]

I think the wire that manufactures put on the several chargers I have purchased has been sub-standard. If your wires heat up much then you are loosing efficiency and wasting juice. I replaced the wires on my chargers with good 12ga wire and always use 45A Andersons. They hold up to the spark better than most connectors and are great for connections that are often connected/disconnected. My higher voltage chargers, have larger capacitors so, do more damage to the connectors. At 66V my Andersons are toast with three or four sparking connections as big chunks of metal are vaporized from the ends. If my charger is on before I plug in, usually is, I have little or no spark. I use a switch for battery power so no spark at the connectors. Although larger connectors will take more abuse, the 75s will take allot, the spark needs to be stopped ie.; turn the charger on first to charge and or use a switch or pre-charge resistor for battery to bike power or the problem will continue regardless of the connector you use. I use Andersons, bullets and have used Deans as well all are good connectors if used within their limits and installed correctly.

 

[dogman dan]

My guess is that the poor connection was in the anderson, it can be a bit harder to crimp small wire and get a really good connection. But replacing all that wire with thicker stuff would not be a bad idea.

 

[cheetor]

My guess would be poor crimping, or a poorly seated contact. I've put quite a bit through my smaller andersons over the last 2 years 50A peaks and 35A continious and they definitly did get hot when hillclimbing. I eventualy swapped out for much better connecters mainly because the genuine andersons were too pricey.. and the ripoff andersons tended to melt on me.