Replacing My Bus Bars. Should Corrosion be cleaned from the sense wires?

@Elektroingenieur may have ideas.

 

If the #2 frame wire is still available for sale for Gen 2, I think I would filter my choices down to (a) leave well enough alone, or (b) replace it and call it a day. I would probably only fuss with handcrafty restoration of it if I couldn't do (b).

Hmm, if a person had a homebrew tin-plating setup, it might be possible to clean up the terminals without worrying about the plating, and then put the plating back. (Slaps sense into self to stop thinking about handcrafty restoration.)

 

Sense wires tend to get brittle after 13 years, easy to fracture the wire. Better to buy a new wire frame #2 as suggested by Chapman.

Also the flange nuts are not correct, originals are washer spin nuts, the washer acts like a tension or lock nut. Smooth washer nuts not the serrated version.

Spin Nut Class 8 Steel Special - BelMetric

Some discussion here.

I switched to nickel plated copper busbars | PriusChat

 

Just because this is the sort of thing I'd go on about ....

Back in the day, when supply organizations listed things in alphabetical catalogs, they would roll the words of the name around to put the most generic one in front, using commas, so a part named "#2 frame wire" would go into the catalog as "wire, frame, #2". That way, all the things that were wires would end up next to each other in the alphabetical list, and you would know to turn there if you were looking for anything that was basically a wire.

And oddly enough, Toyota still enters names in their catalogs that way, even though we've got computers now, and search engines that work without having to roll some word around to the front.

Militaries were notorious for that kind of thing. When I was a li'l tyke, my dad dreamed up a homebrew toy for me that he called a Dymbal Machine, and he put a label on it that said "machine, dymbal, M-1966".

But when seeing some item listed in that catalog-ese inside-out with commas form and using it in conversation, we usually drop the commas and straighten the name back out: dymbal machine, or #2 frame wire. (Or, keep the inverted order, with the commas.)

 

Mendel notice that you order from Amayama, looking at the wire frame #2, price in Canada is $127 plus shipping.

8216547040 - Toyota Wire, Frame, NO.2. Wiring | Scarborough Toyota of Canada, Scarborough Ontario

From Amayama $48cdn and $26 UPS shipping from Japan. Does UPS still tack brokerage fees on imported shipments?

 

"Wire, frame, No. 2", or just "no. 2 frame wire" in non-Yoda-speak.

 

non-Yota-speak? Holy Moly, google seems to find it all 3 ways.

 

This is what I see on west coast Canada, in CDN dollars:



$46.68 plus $21.89 shipping. They didn't use UPS for items I've got, just arrived through regular mail, very nicely packaged, and so far with items I've purchased (one order around $100), that's all the charges, nothing extra.

I didn't manage to find that part by drilling down, but entering the part number from the Scarborough, Ontario link you kindly provided, found it fine.

 

Honest to be, non-Yoda-speak meant I. Google any way find it will. But not all the time sound that way we must.

 

Unfortunately due to air transportation reduced capacity Japan Post shut down all parcel delivery to Canada. So Amayama only sending by UPS, $88 to ship by UPS, just about as much as my total order. At least I don't need the #2 wire frame as yet, to buy in Canada $127 plus $25 shipping, I can wait.

 

I made a point of logging in, cleared my basket, added that part, just now, and this is the quote I get (note shipping even cheaper). Again, West Coast Canada, in CDN funds:



Long delivery time, but reasonable price.

 

True, but when you submit order it will say pending approval, then they will calculate true shipping rate and get back to you. Oddly no restrictions to USA so I sent the order to my drop in North Dakota.

 

Ok. I've seen to-be-determined (in the shipping amount) before, on big items, but it seems sketchy that they would give you a firm quote upfront, and THEN back-pedal. In past, if they quoted shipping, that's what it ended up being, no fancy footwork.

I'll keep that in mind if/when I next try an order from them.

 

The new bus connections you have in the pictures look alot like ones that were pictures in an E-mail sent out by project lithium saying do not use because they have inferior conductive properties. If I can find the email I will cut and paste here

 

For customers who have purchased or are considering to purchase the "Hybrid Battery Bus Bars" from Amazon or eBay, think twice! These aftermarket bus bars are made out of stainless steel and Nickel coating with terrible conductivity. To give you a sense of scale, stainless steel is 45 times HIGHER in electricity resistance than copper. This will translate to excessive heat build up to over 212F / 100C degrees during hard acceleration and hard regenerative braking. This scorching heat will transfer into the the blade and damage the lithium cells inside. Product damage due to nickel plated stainless steel bus bars is not covered by warranty. Instead of wasting your money on aftermarket fake copper bus bars, we would highly recommend to clean the stock copper bus bars with vinegar. This will not only save you money but is highy effective. Also ensuring your lithium/NiMH pack can have much greater longevity and performance. For customers who have already purchased and installed the stainless steel bus bars, we strongly recommend you to replace them back with the real copper bus bars before it is too late and causes damage to your Hybrid battery/system.

Sincerely,

Jack

 

I'm not electrically learned, but I do recall reading here, that a thin plating layer over a copper core has negligible effect on conductivity.

 

The formula that matters is:

R = rho * Length / Area

Where rho is the resistivity of the material. For a thin plating of nickel Length is the depth of the coating which is very small compared to the Area (the contact area with the nut and post) and the L/A ratio is relatively very small. For bus bars the shape is bit complicated, but for the current flowing between the two holes the Length is approximately the distance between the holes and the Area is the cross section of the bar. In that instance L/A is relatively very large. The resistivity of nickel is higher than of copper, but the difference in the magnitudes of the two ratios dominates the final resistance.

The current passing between the holes through the nickel part of the bar is not zero, but since Length is about the same as for the copper core, and the area (here this is what would be seen if the bar was cut in half) is very small, that current is much smaller than that through the core of the bus bar. That extra current actually reduces the resistance compared to the unplated core, but only by a tiny amount.