I switched to nickel plated copper busbars

Please, please, please tell me you didn't just bust into a 2017 HV battery?

Hasta la vista warranty.

To anyone else with a car under warranty, please do not do this...........

To anyone with a car not under warranty....please do not do this for the mere sake of having nickel plated bus bars. The odds of you causing more damage to the sensor wiring tabs and harness greatly exceed any benefit you will achieve. For example... There was a tiny spark when one of the sensor tabs touched another terminal.....or breaking a tab off or just causing a hairline fracture where the tab is crimped to the wire, etc, etc, etc

I hate sounding like a jerk, but this needed to be put out there............you probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning than a 'corroded copper busbar' being the root cause of an HV battery problem.

 

Directly from the website of New England Wire Technologies......

In addition to the selection of base metal and stranding technique, plating is an option to maximize and customize the properties of a conductor. Plating offers a relatively inexpensive means of combining the advantages of two metals.

The conductors and shields of multi-conductor cable are typically manufactured using copper or copper-based alloy as the base metal primarily due to these materials’ high conductivity, good mechanical performance and reasonable cost. While copper-based materials offer numerous benefits as electrical conductors, many applications require properties beyond what non-coated wire can provide. These properties include solderability, temperature range, contact resistance or corrosion, and chemical resistance; therefore, in order to improve one or more of the above properties, conductors are often plated. A variety of metals can be used for plating; however, tin, silver, and nickel are by far the most common.

Tin is the most common coating for copper and copper alloys due to low cost and very good solderability. Improved corrosion and chemical resistance is also an advantage of tin plating (but is dependent upon coating thickness). Tin has a relatively low melting temperature and therefore provides little, if any, improvement to the operating temperature range of copper. Also, tin has relatively low conductivity and, when plated over copper, forms an inter-metallic layer which will increase resistance compared to bare or silver plated wire.

Silver offers extremely high conductivity and will actually reduce the resistance of plated wire. This is particularly beneficial in high frequency applications because the skin effect will result in increased current flow through the silver. In addition to conductivity, silver plating copper will increase high temperature performance and generally improve chemical resistance. Solderability of silver plated conductors is excellent and while silver may experience some oxidation, silver oxide is a conducting material so the impact on solderability is not significant. While silver plating offers many advantages over tinned or uncoated copper, the added cost is a consideration.

Nickel is a much harder metal than other common plating options and offers excellent resistance to high temperatures. The operating temperature range increase due to nickel plating depends on the thickness of the plating but is superior to that gained by using silver. Nickel is very resistant to harsh environments and corrosion; however, due to its hardness, soldering can be difficult and requires an activated flux. Crimp termination can be a good option for nickel plated wire, but, because it is a hard material, some adjustments to tooling may be necessary. Conductivity of nickel is relatively low and plating will increase the resistance of wire (much like the impact of tin plating).

 

Just FYI, bus bar nut torque value is 48 inch/pounds.

 

I've used this one many electrical connections over the years for home or automotive. Car battery posts don't corrode when it's used. I'm sure it would help the bus bars in the batteries.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

If you still have the old bus bars I'm interested in a purchase...

This is what I used to protect my bus bars with. Another PC'er suggested it:

IMG_20180923_120752 by mjoo posted Sep 28, 2018 at 9:58 AM

 

I can't believe the expense would be prohibitive.
So I guess where I end up is...

If nickel is so superior or has no negative aspects...why aren't the batteries built with nickel plated busbars to start with?

No...
I wouldn't mess with them, especially with a almost new vehicle with the luxury of a new car warranty.

 

How about gold plating, would it be through-the-roof, or just unsuitable?

 

I'm thinking the safest and cheapest solution is to periodically inspect, and clean if warranted. A lot of work though, and not without risk?

 

Your choice.

My concern would be over voiding the Hybrid Battery Warranty.
And post #3, seems to suggest Nickel Plating changes the conductivity of the metal potentially increasing resistance.

Which if true?
Is fundamentally changing an aspect of the battery the vehicle was designed to use...to make things look shiny.

Not worth it to me.

But somebody has to ride the wave of experimentation here. The best proof? Would be long term usage.

 

From Wikipedia:

resistivity of copper is 1.68×10−8 Ohm*m
resistivity of nickel is 6.99×10−8 Ohm*m

That's a 4x increase in resistance * meter compared with copper.

However, the nickel plating should contribute an unmeasurable resistance because the plating is thin.

 

Adding nickel plating will have a negligible affect on the resistance of the buss bar as the copper is still there to conduct the current. The current just has to pass through the thin nickel layer to get to the copper. Don't be concerned about any change in conductivity.

When I bought the refurbished battery for my 2004 Prius, it came with nickel plated bus bars to prevent corrosion from causing HV battery problems. That battery was still performing well 90k+ miles and 5 years later when I sold my 2004 Prius to get my 2016 Prius.

JeffD

 

This commute (which involved a 15 mile drive of mostly freeway speeds at 60-65mph) should normally be showing me 52 to 54mpg on the display. Today it showed up as 61 mpg. Never saw that before. So it does appear that energy seems to flow better with the nickel plated busbars.

You are greatly mistaken if you believe nickel plated busbars has anything to do with a change in your mpg. Maybe some Slick-50 engine oil and Split-fire spark plugs will give you another 5-10 mpg

 

A little late now, but maybe you could test, say a clean copper-only bus bar, vs the nickel plated one. leads clamped to bolts, similar to if it was in the pack.

Not sure what you'd want to measure: resistance, or amperage?