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home controller harness rev2:


I built my first prototype harness with long cables and lots of connectors, to try it out and see what got
used. As it turns out, having a large floppy harness hard-wired to the controller creates problems with
portability. It also used #8 CCA, which was getting pretty toasty during my load test. That definitely
needed to get upgraded to OFC, maybe even a heavier gauge. Also the SB50's on the output got very little use,
while the four PP35's weren't enough. So some redesign on that front was needed too.

I started work on a Rev2 harness when the new controller came in. I picked up a length of #8 OFC twin lead,
as well as some more SB50 connectors, and redesigned the harness. I went with connectors right off the
controller to improve ease of transport, shortened things up slightly, and changed the load side harness to
have one SB50 and two PP35. The idea there being I can attach one or two powerpole distribution blocks
instead of having to have a spray of PP45's on the harness. I also went with yellow SB50's for the battery
connections. I ground out the keys from the yellow SB50's so they will connect to red SB50's.

I was going to make a whole new battery harness for 24v (two 12v batteries) but then it occurred to me I could
just make a simple adapter harness to convert from 12 to 24v, so that's what I did. My big Tracer controller
is limited to 40 amps on the battery port, and that is what sets its power limit. Doubling the battery
voltage will double its capacity from 520 to 1040 watts. Several hams here have 24v to 13.8v down-converters
available, so I'd like to do some testing of that configuration to see if it's necessary / worth the added
hassle of converting back down, balancing batteries, swapping out dead batteries for charge, etc.

1 rev1 CCA harness, hard-wired	2 gathering components for harnesses	3 splice prior to soldering	4 controller harness closeup	5 one harness assmebled	6 gathering parts for another battery harness
7 gathering parts for another load harness	8 adapter harness for 24v

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