DIY 24 Way Bus Bar installation. Battery 2.0

From the off-cuts of the original copper busbar, I'm building two heavy duty 12 way busbars with M8 studs. It takes a loooong time to prepare, drill and tap all holes into this 10mm copper. The result looks great though and we're making good progress...

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[loucinci]

My OCD wants to spray paint the red stand-offs black for the negative bus bar....Looks great. Just the right length. Thanks for sharing.

[jmausk]

When its done can you do some slow motion video of dropping a screwdriver across the bussbars? Its for science. Lol.

[ronwest]

For some people it's drugs or booze, For Andy, it's his solar power obsession. Your viewers understand.

[randycain]

Andy, nice bar but I have a suggestion. Rather than threads in the soft copper, I recommend through holes with bolts and nuts, but the bolts point up from the bottom of the bars, thus creating studs. The hex heads will be beneath the bars but accessible with a wrench and will be strong enough to handle the torque you'll need to get solid connections.

[russquest]

Thanks for the DYI video. It was an excellent job😊

[farside]

I must have missed something earlier on the design of your battery bank shelf system. What I'm imagining is your Battery bank#1 on bottom shelf, Battery bank#2 on middle shelf, Charge Controller inputs and Distribution output connections to Inverter on top shelf. If this is what you are doing, I admire the forethought of you putting the Charge Controller high enough up on the wall. 👍

[USA-GreedyMenOfNoIntegrity]

Get yourself some drill bits made for plastic. It is better to use nuts instead of threading soft copper. Your connections will loosen due to thermal cycles and oversized hole. Your bolt pitch diameter is 7.1881 mm. You just lost half of your thread height by drilling a 7.0 mm vs 6.8 mm hole.

[Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya, I really like those copper bustbar have to see if I can get them here.

[djsmiley]

Nice bar! I would suggest raising 1 bar, so any wiring can be straight and don’t require a bend to go over, underneath the other bar. (So both wires are on a different height)

[joesouthern]

What about using a "hole saw" type drill bit on the plastic, so it does not crack.

[GaryGreenway]

WD40 is unsuitable as a lubricant for tapping. It is too thin and will displace rather than lubricate. Your fabricating life would be much happier if you use a dedicated tapping fluid or wax. I've had great success with the TapMagic brand fluid. I've also used a tapping wax that works well. I don't know the brand, but its what they gave us at work. Blue in color. Looked like a bar of soap. After drilling and tapping thousands of holes, I've learned the right lubricant makes a world of difference. Also, I prefer using a step drill bit making holes in thin plastic. I've never had a crack using this method.

[terryquarton]

Will super glue or the glue they on car windscreens help repair the cracks in your perspex???

[gabbermaikel]

offcourse the 6.8-7mm is a difference. The amount of force you can put on the thread is a huge difference. But wil you actually torque the cables to the spec of an m8 bolt to a copper bar? Probably not, its not like you are going to hang a swing from the cables or something.

[geozar]

Hey Andy i am looking around to your videos, comments and page and i cound not find the busbar width!?

[nordexo]

use soldering iron and melt a small spot at the end of the cracks so they don't continue growing :)

[Trapper_Al]

How do you calculate the required copper bus bar thickness? ...is it dependant on total voltage? Number of connections? Amperage draw?

[boomermatic]

Great vid as always.

Are those bars nickle plated?

Also as other have mentioned, there are drill bits for plastics, if I recall they are something like 80 degree points instead of the 118 for a normal drill bit.

Still looking to that 6 to change to a 7 :)

[pederw]

Where do you find your busbars and how do you know what busbars you need?

[pmacgowan]

You need to update your subscribers numbers on the wall to 17k, PS just use a 240v drill instead

[jameshancock]

Where are you getting the bus bar and insulators? (Found the insulators on your site but can’t find the bus bar)