Why does this remind me of Nichrome wire? Is that what its made of or is it some other type of wire?
Nickel plated copper wire is what you want. Gauge depends on how many cells you have in parallel and your maximum amp draw.
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Anyone confirm this is the copper wire? https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F322823138436
I’d recommend against using 22 awg. I used it in my build and needed to replace pretty much every wire. There a couple straglers that seem to be holding up, but i’ll be changing them out as well. 20 awg should do…
Someone should build a test setup and test different wire diameters, alloys, etc to see what works best.
I already ordered 22 awg… Would it be ok to just use two connections from the battery?
yea, if you want to avoid double work, I would do two wires for each paralllel group. I’m confident 20awg would work well, but I haven’t tested it myself.
I used 22awg wire and it’s been holding up surprisingly well. I’ve pulled maybe 3200 watts max and driven plenty of back alleys. I made sure my cells and buss bar were well secured to each other. Maybe I just got lucky. Doubling up will be a nightmare to solder as there is already hundreds of solder joints might consider going even bigger than 20awg if you already defeating purpose of “fuse” wire. Wonder what guage @chaka using for fuse wire
So if I were to use two fuse wires, would I have two separate wires coming from the cell to the buss bar or would i double up the wires. I’ve added a diagram below because I don’t really know how to explain:
I do the left, but I don’t see it really mattering.
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If I read that chart correctly for 10s4p average would be 18 awg and for 10s5p 16 awg atleast thats what I read.if we are using the max amps of 60a on the vesc. But I doubt we can get all that from the vesc
wire gauge has more to do with max output of 1 cell, not of the parallel pack. 20awg for any P pack would be what I use.
That would be on the safer side
I usually refer to this chart when I need a nickel plated fuse. Keep in mind that “fusing current” is referred to very short cuts of a wire (1cm). You have to look at “current rating” if you plan to use the wire over bigger distance (1m).
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I saw a video which appeared to use very thin cuts of nickel strip for the fuse wire this has the advantage that you would be able to avoid soldering and heat damage, cons? Thickness?
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22 awg works well in a 60 cell pack. If you go to a lower cell count you might need to use thicker wire since each cell will need to discharge more rapidly in a small pack but I worry that it will be too big to blow if you use thicker wire.
@jinra I think you needed some strain relief. I get the needed strain relief from the folded tabs that the fuse wires are soldered onto. Never had an issue, and I have been doing this type of construction for a several years.
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Doesn’t it go well because 6p relieves a lot of strain being put onto each individual cell? pulling 80a on a 4p pack would put 20a current through each cell while pulling 80a on a 6p pack would pull only 13a~.
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A good rule of thumb is factor in 13% headroom over your max when fusing. 22awg is right in that range for a 20 amp cell. However, if we are pulling 20 amps constant from an 18650 on a regular basis we are killing the cells. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should, discharging around 2c max/constant is what I try and shoot for. 1c would be better but would require 120 cells!
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