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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Wrenches for working around batteries
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ICC
Member
# Posted: 29 Jul 2023 16:35 - Edited by: ICC
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When I built my 24 volt off grid cabin system I used 12 golf cart batteries. Series/parallel and 12 because back then I spent a lot of time there in winter when cold lead-acid batteries perform poorly and there could be a series of cloudy days. And I wanted to be able to run the microwave as much as I wanted.

That could have been a real tangle of cables. So, I used copper buss bars for the serial connections. Plus a couple of long buss bars on yhe wall behind the batteries. A short positive cable and negative cable from each end of the series string connected the string to the system buss. Minimal cables. Lots of bolt and nut connections. Lots of opportunity to accidentally/carelessly touch the wrench to another electrically active point and make lots of sparks.

All bolt and nuts were 5,/16” needing 1/2" wrenches. I took a pair of combination wrenches and covered most of the wrench with 10 mil thich pvc pipe fitters tape. No chance of inadvertent shorts and sparks.

Just thought I'd pass that on.
Wrenches
Wrenches


Steve_S
Member
# Posted: 29 Jul 2023 17:35
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Smiles, I use heat-shrink on the wrenches, screw drivers (just the tip exposed). lessons learned long ago and "really quickly" I might add... hehehe

gcrank1
Member
# Posted: 29 Jul 2023 19:43
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Yep
Not a question of 'if' but rather 'when' sparks are gonna fly and/or fry

travellerw
Member
# Posted: 30 Jul 2023 18:58
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LOL.. Only people who "know" do this to their wrenches.

The other good advice.. NO RINGS when working with batteries (or tape them too). If you don't believe me and are brave you can google pics. Its bad!

jsahara24
Member
# Posted: 31 Jul 2023 09:09
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Quoting: travellerw
NO RINGS when working with batteries


That's one of the reasons why I got a silicone wedding ring!

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