Trouble with extremely frayed Solar Wires

[immped64]

This past year I somewhat completed a project in which I placed a Solar Controller in my tongue box.

The real pain with this project was in trying to get wires to fit into the slotted openings of the solar controller. The problem was that my controller panel was tight to the floor of the tongue box yet the wires needed to be connected into the box essentially blind.

The more I struggled with this the more frayed the wires got, which meant less wire segments were clamped into place and also many brittle strands just broke off.

I may have gained a couple inches more of slack by disassembling the retainment of the wiring. I was getting very short specially the positive cable.

Here is a picture of the mess that I'm trying to fix.



I am considering relocation of the wires flush to the back of my tongue box. Presently I have a plywood piece separator. If I raise this up or tilt it perhaps I could get less of a blind reach to get inside the solar controller electrical feeds. The down side of raising this up is that I believe I'm supposed to have something like 6 inches of air circulation clearance above the unit.

Even though this is a problem of itself the main issue right now that I'm concerned with is how to deal with the frayed wires.

In my best case scenario I've considered I would cut off the frayed ends and possibly apply solder on the ends without getting larger than the slotted openings of the controller. Does this sound right? If not what are your ideas? I've never worked with solder but do have a Soldering gun.

[tony.latham]

I've never worked with solder but do have a Soldering gun.

If you choose solder as a fix, make sure it's rosin core solder and not acid core or it will corrode.

Could you get a up-close photo of one cable? They look unbelievably frayed.



Tony

[GTS225]

Could you get a up-close photo of one cable? They look unbelievably frayed.

You might also include a shot of the terminals on your controller.

Roger

[troubleScottie]

You might consider adding ferrules. The keep the end of the wire together and improve the fit.

[immped64]

I've never worked with solder but do have a Soldering gun.

If you choose solder as a fix, make sure it's rosin core solder and not acid core or it will corrode.

Could you get a up-close photo of one cable? They look unbelievably frayed.



Tony

Tony: I'll check to see the type of solder that I have. Yes I certainly want to avoid corrosion.

I'll get a more closeup picture tomorrow. Yes this wire is incredibly frayed. It was very difficult getting any of this to fit inside the solar controller. It did work, but the solar voltage draw was quite low.

[immped64]

Could you get a up-close photo of one cable? They look unbelievably frayed.

You might also include a shot of the terminals on your controller.

Roger

Will do Roger.

I would like to give the whole wiring situation a good looking over.

[immped64]

You might consider adding ferrules. The keep the end of the wire together and improve the fit.

Hi Scottie: What type of ferrules were you thinking?

Perhaps when I get the picture of what the wires plug into it will give a better idea of this possibility.

[wysedav]

I’ve had to put some wire into screw clamps. Really heavy gauge about the size of your thumb with many fine strands. I took an extra strand of copper wire and used it to wrap all the loose strands into a tight bundle. Worked great.

[troubleScottie]

Lots of options.

A couple of sites: ferrulesdirect.com, digikey, of course amazon. Most likely more places. Might even be at Home Depot or Lowes or Radio Shack (do they still exist?)

Looking for a short ferrule of the appropriate gauge wire. There are lots of variety: high temperature, different length, insulated and non-insulated. One wire/two wire. And of course gauge.

Example on using/installing ferrules. Sorry about the commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMFFzpzKhFg

There might be a block for inserting two wires into your solar component like the square hole component in the Youtube video.

Given your description, this is still a blind fit. But with the ferrule, the fit should be clean.

[immped64]

Sorry for being slow on the return.

I do have the 2 photos to share. 1st is a view of the solar controller where the wire gets threaded in.
The tightening would be from the top view of this image.

One of the big challenges that I had was that the holes were blind from view and there was very little clearance between the holes and the bottom of the tongue box. I barely could twist this in from an angle. I believe that to a big degree was responsible for the frayed wires.



Speaking of the frayed wires. Here is a closeup of the beat up wiring. I lost many threads to assembly as well as struggled to fit what I had into the solar controller slots.

[immped64]

Lots of options.

A couple of sites: ferrulesdirect.com, digikey, of course amazon. Most likely more places. Might even be at Home Depot or Lowes or Radio Shack (do they still exist?)

Looking for a short ferrule of the appropriate gauge wire. There are lots of variety: high temperature, different length, insulated and non-insulated. One wire/two wire. And of course gauge.

Example on using/installing ferrules. Sorry about the commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMFFzpzKhFg

There might be a block for inserting two wires into your solar component like the square hole component in the Youtube video.

Given your description, this is still a blind fit. But with the ferrule, the fit should be clean.

I really do like this idea. I didn't realize there was such a part. I've seen numerous styles for the terminal end but this one would seem to fit well in my application.

[GTS225]

Yep.....just as I suspected. You were trying to hit that small hole blind, compounded by the clamps that were just inside. Like troubleScottie suggested, terminate the wires with ferrules, and your fraying problem will go away.
One caveat, though. Make sure your ferrules will fit into those clamps before your terminate. If you're marginal already, it may make you exercise your vocabulary a bit if they don't fit.

Roger

[Shadow Catcher]

After a problem with my controller I went with 150A Anderson PowerPoles color coded for purpose i.e. blue for the incoming from the solar panel. They can not be connected other than to a similar color.

[immped64]

I finally am tracing back to this project.

(Being back to work again is great but has removed a lot of free time.)

I clipped off the frayed wire even to the jackets.

Since the individual threads of this wire are so tiny I am concerned about removing a handful of threads in using the common stripping tool. I ran into this issue the last time.

I am wondering whether there might be an easy trick to prevent wasting the wire.

I did try holding a cigarette lighter to the jacket, but the jacket didn't melt away like I was hoping.