ARCHIVE Wits' End Anderson SB50 PowerPole Custom Mounts

[NLXTACY]

Another pic showing the mounting options. Needs some deburring and tumbling but otherwise good to go

 

[george_tlc]

YELLOW for 12V....

cheers,
george.

 

[NLXTACY]

@george_tlc I know you keep saying/advocating for yellow but I don't see anything that lists a "best practices" concerning connector color. Basically everything must plug into its own color.

 

[george_tlc]

Go to Anderson's Website, go and READ.... The colours are for different voltages, obviously grey for some reason has been used by some folk for 12V, probably because they a) want a neutral colour and b) they were available on Ebay etc...

YELLOW is 12V, nice if everyone would follow recommendations

I use Yellow, just recommending others do the same (per Anderson's recommendation), but do whatever you want...

• Yellow 12v Red 24v Grey 36v Blue 48v Green 72v Black 80v

cheers,
george.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Re-colors:

I remember reading on the Anderson website awhile back and seem to remember there was a lot of overlap. But for sure, Yellow was suggested as 12V. But there is not a lot of agreement there. As examples: Warn sells an SB175 PP as a winch disconnect for 12V. It's red. Our county ambulances all have a 12Volt SB350 mounted up front. They are gray.

All of my 12v are blue SB175s. The reason, I got a bunch for free and then bought about 20 more for $1 each. These were surplus from the film lighting industry. I pulled them out of a bin with maybe 500 in it-all dirty but a run through the dishwasher and they look fine.

If you look at Powerwerx website, the different colors have different prices, and gray is the cheapest. Black is almost double the price.

Realistically, as long as both sides of a connection are the same, you're good.

 

[george_tlc]

Re-colors:

I remember reading on the Anderson website awhile back and seem to remember there was a lot of overlap. But for sure, Yellow was suggested as 12V. But there is not a lot of agreement there. As examples: Warn sells an SB175 PP as a winch disconnect for 12V. It's red. Our county ambulances all have a 12Volt SB350 mounted up front. They are gray.

All of my 12v are blue SB175s. The reason, I got a bunch for free and then bought about 20 more for $1 each. These were surplus from the film lighting industry. I pulled them out of a bin with maybe 500 in it-all dirty but a run through the dishwasher and they look fine.

If you look at Powerwerx website, the different colors have different prices, and gray is the cheapest. Black is almost double the price.

Realistically, as long as both sides of a connection are the same, you're good.

Yes, as I said, do what you wish... Just be aware that your SBxxx may be plugging into one that is 24V - which in the US is less likely since there's a lot fewer 24V diesels over here. I suppose that Anderson should have imprinted the actual voltage into the plastic housing if they wanted to make it really clear, rather than rely on a colour code that most folk just think is to make them pretty. I'm sure most folk don't know that different colours (other than the grey/black) can't mate together either.

It's just the engineer in me that is trying to conform to the recommendation. I'll keep using yellow for my 12V stuff and since I'm dual battery I won't need to accept a jump start from someone with grey connectors

Hopefully those with the powerpoles have conformed to the red/black order so we can interchange at that level...

cheers,
george.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Hopefully those with the powerpoles have conformed to the red/black order so we can interchange at that level...

cheers,
george.

Absolutely. I assume you are talking about the PP15/30/45. I mostly buy the bonded connectors to preserve the convention and not have to think about it.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

George is right about voltage conventions, but they are frequently violtated. Good wiki here:

Anderson Powerpole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[george_tlc]

George is right about voltage conventions, but they are frequently violtated. Good wiki here:

Anderson Powerpole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah, wonderful how a recommendation can be ignored by the industry, especially for a product that is keyed to only work with its own colour...

Oh well, more sparks to enjoy. Anderson really should have imprinted the voltage into the plastic housings, given they must be unique molds anyway...

Yeah, the little powerpoles is what I was alluding to for Red/Black convention.

cheers,
george.

 

[NLXTACY]

Interesting. Coming from the entertainment industry we tended to use black or grey because of reflected light. Everything was 12v. If it's camera specific it's 12 or 24v and you'll never use these. It would be XLR, Lemo or P-Tap

 

[Cruiserdrew]

I think the black SB housings are universal and will mate with any other color. So I think you should use any color but black!

I have no idea why the surplus place in So Cal has so many blue housings, but they have 2 crates of them out back, and given how hard it is to get the connectors back out (can be done, but not easy and requires 3 hands), I doubt they were ever used. Another cruiserhead friend found some yellow ones there last year and oddly enough, he uses them for 24 volt connections to his on board welder. If next time I'm there they have yellow, I'm loading up.

I also noticed on the Anderson website, the tech sheet for the SB 50s makes no mention of the color conventions but for the SB175s it does.

You'd think in the future with the proliferation of electric and partially electric cars, these conventions are really going to matter.

 

[NLXTACY]

I finally sourced the hardware I'm going to supply with these. I found some use cases where a flat bottom mount was necessary so I am going to countersink the holes in the mounts to allow the 316 stainless flathead screws to be perfectly flush mount. Just ordered up a couple boxes.

 

[NLXTACY]

Well, I'm going to have test the hardware out at the machine shop. I'd rather have a Bridgeport make the pan heads work rather than my cheap drill press.

 

[NLXTACY]

I got the 100* screws and they work great which means I can stay with 14gauge stainless without the need to go thicker.

I'm getting rid of the slots because there really isn't a need since all the tolerancing on the connectors are pretty tight. That'll save on my machining costs.

I did a test fitment in a scrap piece of wood that I notched out. I suppose it's representative for rear drawer installs. This one is the flush mount version. Let me know what you folks think before I pull the trigger.

 

[NLXTACY]

Here is the non-flush mount version. Basically only requires a single bolt hole anywhere in the truck. I like the freedom this one gives utilizing any available bolt so long as there is enough space. My only issue with this one is that the single bolt can act as a pivot if it's on a smooth/flat surface. A second, smaller, screw would remedy that but then it would mean adding a hole during installation. I wasn't a fan of that. So this one is open for discussion for sure. I'll like to go into production soon so any feedback would be helpful

 

[george_tlc]

Piece of VHB underneath before you bolt down on the flat surface - that may give enough grip to prevent pivot issues ?

cheers,
george.

 

[NLXTACY]

Piece of VHB underneath before you bolt down on the flat surface - that may give enough grip to prevent pivot issues ?

cheers,
george.

Yeah I thought about that. There are other mechanical ways of solving it but I don't want to require drilling a second hole.

I have three types of VHB that 3M sent me to play with that I may play with. Some are very thin and others are fairly thick/spongy. But maybe that's the way to go.

 

[george_tlc]

Yeah, I'd imagine VHB for that area would give a huge shear resistance - might not even need the bolt

cheers,
george.

 

[NLXTACY]

Yeah, I'd imagine VHB for that area would give a huge shear resistance - might not even need the bolt

cheers,
george.

Hell, depending on the application you wouldn't even need the stupid bracket

 

[george_tlc]

shhh....