Purpose of Bus Bars?

[Kyblack76]

We just bought raw stock, and made ours. When you have over 75 connections, just for power and ground, they make it easier. Just the boards take up 18 connections, then other grounds, alt runs and shit. It can be a nightmare.

[moh.vze.com]

octopus

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[slowfkncar]

After a certain amount of power, you'll want the most efficiency you can get out of your electrical system & swapping 0 guage for bus bars made quite a difference for me. My old 2/0 wires on the bank would actually get a bit warm with long demos or songs that clip heavy.

[RedFred]

7 hours ago, slowfkncar said:

After a certain amount of power, you'll want the most efficiency you can get out of your electrical system & swapping 0 guage for bus bars made quite a difference for me. My old 2/0 wires on the bank would actually get a bit warm with long demos or songs that clip heavy.

Can you elaborate a little more on how bus bars are more efficient?

I'll be running dual 370A alternators with 4 runs of positive and negative 2/0, and 6 G31 batts.

Right now I'm leaning towards just running the wire, since the bars are expensive and seem like a PITA to get correct.

[slowfkncar]

47 minutes ago, RedFred said:

Can you elaborate a little more on how bus bars are more efficient?

I'll be running dual 370A alternators with 4 runs of positive and negative 2/0, and 6 G31 batts.

Right now I'm leaning towards just running the wire, since the bars are expensive and seem like a PITA to get correct.

You can run the wires, sure it will work. In my case my DC 10k could not pull off the bank from one side (space limitations didn't give me the option of tapping the amp off multiple terminals) my bank sat in a narrow chassis wall with only room on one side forcing all my connections on one side.

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

The way that it is more efficient, is that the bars can carry more current than cable. You want to give your amp all of the current that it wants. When the current is restricted going to an amp then there is a voltage drop. If I had six g31s I would definitely do bars. You are wasting money on batteries if you don't get what you paid for out of them.

[RedFred]

And do you guys do anything to protect your bus bars?

I'm really accident prone (hitting my ratchet to vehicle grounds while tightening positives, usually), and would hate to have my entire bus bar line up short out from a stupid mistake.

[WalledSonic]

On 5/26/2017 at 10:07 PM, RedFred said:

Can you elaborate a little more on how bus bars are more efficient?

I'll be running dual 370A alternators with 4 runs of positive and negative 2/0, and 6 G31 batts.

Right now I'm leaning towards just running the wire, since the bars are expensive and seem like a PITA to get correct.

Amperage ratings are based on the temperature of the conductor (or in the case of insulated cable, the temp rating of the insulation).

In my case, all my amps at rated load could theoretically flow around 700A.  My bus bar at my battery bank is sized for 1000A at 30degC temperature rise.  Since they would never see more than 700A, my bars wont increase in temperature as much.  Also, since the cross section on the battery bus is larger than the cables leading to the amps, the bus bar has the least resistance.

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

Amperage ratings are always at a specific voltage drop too. They don't tell you but some companies rate their cable at several volts dropped across the cable.

[RedFred]

Okay so I'm sold on bus bars, but they look simple enough to make at home.

Is there a distinct difference between this type:

Where it's basically just one piece of metal or steel or whatever, and then I could put two wires to each bolt I guess.

Or the expensive fancy bus bars like this:

Where you have the bolt locations for the battery terminals, then you run the wires into the side everywhere?