Re: High Current Connectors, Planes, trains and Automobiles

["Bob Rice" <bobrice@snet.net>]

Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 7:40 PM
Subject: High Current Connectors


> As I've mentioned before, I'm a member of Cal Poly's FutureTruck Hybrid
> Development team.
>
> We are looking for high current environmentally sealed connectors. All the
> connector's we've been able to find so far only go up to 1/0 cable. We're
> looking for connectors for 2/0 cable. These connectors also have to live
> underneath an SUV that will be going off road and through water.
>
> Do any of you know of such a beast? I know there are some railroad
engineers
> on this list... what type of connectors do you use on your trains?
>
    Hi  Nathaniel an' All;

     I'll take the bait on this one, Amtrak. The contacters as used on
locomotives are nice for amps, easily handle stuff thast turns John Wayland
green with envey, BUT , they are BIG, expensive beasts, mostly air operated,
open frame,140 PSI, main Res. pressure, ar a few, like reversers, pilot
motor, 60 volt. My line switch on my series parallel controller, replaced
by, OH! Joy!  a DCP Rapture, was from a junked Budd RDC car's air
conditioning plant controller, with a changed out pull in coil. Yup! I'm
right there when they junk something! EVen got wheelsets and brake parts for
a friend who HAS a RR car he's rebuilding into a private car in rhe
Vanderbilt and Rockafeller tradition. Yu think BATTERIES are heavy<G>! Yu
don't take this stuff home in yur Jetta, but electricals fit. All those nice
passthrough 480 cables yu see lerking under Amtrak coaches, yu drool over,
but THEY were on to me, and say "Stay Away from those!" before I have my
toolbox downloaded on site.

   Alas, we're not junking much nowadaze, NEED it all. I know in the past,
guyz bidding a few grand and getting another car, just for the 480 Head end
power connecters cables trandformers, and other electrical knicknaks, then
THEY junk the rest, on their own, for whatever. That RR stuff is pretty
pricy, new. One foot- to- the -foot  scale trains IS an expensive hobby.

   Maybe aircraft surpluss stuff would be better, as they are made with an
eye to weight and space limitations. I've seen 400 anp stuff that would fit
in yur palm, just parallel 2 of them. Hmmm? I'll look in my junkbox. FORGOT
what I really have down there. AC stuff is 24-28 volt, big deal. Used the
stuff years ago on crude contactor controllers. Maybe be hard to find,
nowadaze.

    Bob............in training in the Big East.