Reddit mentions: The best screw terminals

> I would be indebted to you if you reminded us what you did and how you did it. I love creating DIY gizmos, and recall your setup being a very manageable blueprint.

I suppose we can arrange that.

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TL;DR - 101 Ah Battery, DIY Distrubution Box w/ Banana Plugs, Mount/CCD/Arduino power cord converted to banana plug, 12V Laptop Power supply and 110V DSLR power supply hacked up, a few bits and pieces, couple of solar panels thrown in for fun.

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The long version

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• Start with the battery. Mine is an EverStart 101Ah from WalMart.
  
  
  
  What's important is that this be a DeepCycle or Marine battery, designed to deliver low current for extended periods of time (vs LOTS of current QUICKLY, like when starting a car) and be drained to low amounts of remaining capacity and recharged many times.
  
  You completely do not care about "CCA" - Cold Cranking Amps. If your rig ever draws more than 10-ish Amps or so at one time, you have much bigger problems than whether your battery can deliver it. :)
  
  What you're after is capacity, in AmpHours. I'll talk below about how to calculate your needs, if you're really wanting to be picky...but suffice to say, 50-100 Ah should be plenty for any normal AP use, especially if you'll be charging after every evening.
  
  
• Now we need a way to distribute all that power. I built this one myself. Start with a suitable project box, grab a fuse holder (I use a 10A fuse btw), maybe a terminal block for easy connections to the input power, and some banana jacks and wire it all up with some 14 or 16 gauge speaker wire, and you're set.
  
  Mine has banana plugs on the input side, so I can plug it into my 12V power supply when I'm at home. When i'm in the field, I have some battery clips that you can plug banana plugs into like these, but you can also rig up your own if you wish with some simple 3/16" brass tubing and some solder. :)
  
  
• Then we've got a bunch of cables. Nothing really surprising there...it's just the various power cables for the mount, the CCD, and so on, with all their various connectors (usually cigarette lighter plugs) removed, and replaced with banana plugs.
  
  
• Next is laptop power. This is the result of hacking apart a 12V laptop power supply (That company makes more, for several different breeds of laptop) and stuffing the guts into a small project box. Isolated the input power inside the guts, and connected it to some banana plugs.
  
  BE VERY CAREFUL HERE The company that makes these uses black for negative, and red for positive. Great way to get confused and short your power supply, etc.
  
  
• Finally, the DSLR Power for when i'm shooting planetary/lunar. This one takes the most "hacking". You start with an AC power adapter for your DSLR. All you really need is the camera end...the plug, and the little adapter bit shaped like a battery. In fact, sometimes you can buy them seperately, though they're often as much or more than the whole power unit.
  
  Next, read the power supply to see what its output is (or use a multimeter to find out). It is a pretty safe bet it'll be 7.4V, since that's the output of a 2-cell lithium pack, which is what most of them are these days, but check and be sure.
  
  The, grab yourself a little step down module (You can find those in packs of 10 or more for less per piece if you think you need extras for other projects), These guys are slick....just hook up your power supply and a voltmeter, twist the little gold screw to adjust output power, and when it gets to 7.4V (or whatever your DSLR needs) you're all set.
  
  Clip off the output cable and plug from the DSLR power adapter, solder that onto the output side of the step down module, hook up some banana plugs to the input side...done. 12V DSLR power for the night.
  
  
• Finally, because it seemed fun, I grabbed some good monocrystaline solar panels and a charge controller, and rigged up a little wood frame I can set up
  next to the RV. No picture, I'm too lazy to drag them out of the RV storage. heh I do want to be clear, though...having some solar recharging capacity is not necessary at all unless you're just crushing this rig for power (see below), but it IS pretty cool and gadgety if you're into such things. :)
  
  ---
  
  
• Ok, smartass, how much power do I actually need?
  
  Easy...you need the number of amps your rig pulls, times the number of hours you'll be using it, times the number of times you want to use it between charges, times 1.5
  
  The two biggest consumers in a typical AP rig will be the laptop and the cooler on a CCD if you have one. DSLRs, focusers, tracking mounts, etc...None of these things use much power at all, and they use VERY little on a constant basis.
  
  Best way to know for sure is simply to use a multimeter to measure the current each one is using under its highest load. In other words, measure the mount while it's slewing, the CCD while it's cooling, the laptop while it's screen is on and drives aren't sleeping and battery is charging, etc.
  
  Add all those up, that's your current needs....you need to be able to provide that many amps at any given time. (That number almost CERTAINLY ought to be under 10A, hence the suggestion of a 10A fuse above).
  
  Now...multiply that number by the number of hours you'll be running the rig. Say you pull 5A, and will be imaging for 6 hours. That's 30AH of capacity you'll use (if everything's running at max).
  
  Now..maybe you want to be able to go camping for a weekend, and not recharge...so you want to shoot for 2 nights. Ok. 30Ah 2 = 60Ah.
  
  And finally, give yourself a nice cushion, so you don't drain the battery completely (a deep cycle CAN handle it..but they still don't "like" it). Let's say 1.5 times the need, so 60 1.5, 90Ah.
  
  You can quite comfortably figure on a 90Ah battery getting you two full nights of use, with no worries. :)
  
  For what it's worth :
  
  I run a cooled CCD, a Losmandy G11 mount, a Toshiba laptop, an Arduino-based focuser, AND support my son and I recharging our RC batteries (various 1.8Ah - 4 Ah capacity 2-6 cell packs) all off the same 101Ah battery. We can pull a complete weekend (leave on Friday afternoon, image Fri/Sat nights, fly Sat/Sun day) RC/Imaging camping trip and come home with about 20-30% capacity left in the battery. With the solar rig added on, we could go 4-5 days or more, depending on sunlight. I did my recent 3 night imaging trip with the same battery, and wasn't even down to half-empty when i got home.
  
  

Beauty!

Potential eventual fire hazard? Maybe.

But a beauty nevertheless!

Constructive criticism: Try not to have floating resistors like the three or four near the righthand side. I understand you were running thin on both board space and lanes -- I suggest using a perfboard where the perforations are not connected, such as these:

https://www.amazon.com/AUSTOR-Including-Double-Prototype-Connector/dp/B07CK3RCKS/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=perfboard&qid=1562508877&s=gateway&sr=8-4

You can connect separate holes by bending the excess wire on your components, or, where necessary, by bridging the separated pads using solder.

An added bonus is that these also contain screw terminals which will offer a more serviceable way to connect your wires.

You will need to drill holes for mounting screws, of course, but this is doable. You can also manually cut between the rows using flush cutters if you want to cut a board that is too large down to size. This is a good way to maximize space usage.

GLHF!

It really is a neat box. I would love a wall wart that looks like that.

Here’s my write up on JeepForum

This is the fuse block I used

I used 6-position covered terminal blocks similar to these, although I got them for $3/ea at a local store

This was my ground bus bar. it was cheaper when I bought it, and 10-position is nice but I probably could’ve gotten away with less

These are the waterproof sealed relays I would recommend

This is the circuit breaker I wish I used, but I had the 150A on hand. I’ll probably swap it out at some point

Edit: to add on, I used heatshrink on noninsulated female disconnects so that I could have everything properly color coordinated for easier work if I needed to make repairs/modifications in the future. I only used 1/4” Red/Yellow/Black HS on the board :)

EDIT 2: I used the wrong link for my writeup. It's fixed now!

I mean, any case that can hold an mATX motherboard (and any other components, like a normal ATX power supply, GPU, etc) should be able to fit it. You'd just need to convert the non-standard power switch header to the case's standardized connectors.

The "simplest" way that I think would be relatively reliable, would be to get something like the original power connector assembly (like this one, though there are some cheaper from China, just that they'd probably take longer to arrive), cut the cables, strip the wiring just a little bit, then shove those loose wire ends into the proper corresponding normal header connections (or if you get fancy, solder them to breakaway header pin sort of things (maybe like these, though I'd have to look at actual pin sizing and make sure they're the right type)). The biggest issue with the 5-pin header on this motherboard is that the pins are much smaller and spaced closer than your normal connectors.

To adapt the sysfan fan connection to a normal fan, you'd probably need to get something like one of these or these to adapt to a normal case fan connector. Basically, you're looking for that 5-pin connector to then be able to connect it to a standard fan connector. Most people don't have spare parts lying around, but if one did have a random dell 5-pin fan, you could chop off its plug then "splice" it into a normal fan connector like this.

• Watch Winston Moy's videos, especially Basic Shapeoko 3 Tuning.
  
  
• Make sure that your Y rails are exactly the same length before assembling. There's a little variance out of the factory. You might need to file one of them down, or use shims to square things up.
  
  
• Make sure that your Y belts are cut to the same length, and tighten them the same amount. Otherwise you'll effectively end up with a (slightly) different number of teeth on either side.
  
  
• Consider drilling out the holes on the wasteboard to give just a little wiggle-room before mounting it. The rigidity and squareness should come from the frame, so a misaligned wasteboard can only make things less square.
  
  
• Invest in a proper workholding solution. I don't really know what Carbide3D are thinking by not providing one out of the box. I use the Inventables Clamp Set with a bunch of M5 threaded inserts, which works pretty well.
  
  
• Oh, and don't forget to build an enclosure and get a dust boot :)

Sorry I should have taken a bit more time to explain this to you.

It's TERMINALS, not wires. They are the things with the screw heads on the top of them. They look like these:

https://www.amazon.com/DIYhz-green-Terminal-Connector-Arduino/dp/B0774YRVVX/ref=sr_1_17?keywords=wire+screw+terminals&qid=1573702754&sr=8-17

There will be a row of them on the edge of the main board, the bed connections are the 3rd and 4th from the top. The 1st and 2nd screw terminals are the 24 volt input from the power supply, and the wires should be RED and BLACK.

Feel free to ask any more questions you have, I'll be happy to help you out.

So you'd have to solder on a new connector. You can use a 5 pin harness, just splice both ends and combine with your current one that just has the bare wires exposed. Another option, if your encoder has the 2 pin connectors for UP, DN, RT, LT, then you could take four 2pin connector cables and solder those onto the exposed wire. 4 of the 2pin connectors need to connect to the black exposed wire (ground) and then the remaining 4 match up with the other 4 depending on color and direction which you can find out here.

If you can't solder, you can use Lever Nuts(they have 2, 3 and 5 sized connectors) or connectors like these or terminal blocks like these.

EDIT: Sorry for not giving credit where credit is due. This was mostly taken from this post here. It has a lot of pictures to refer to as well. Good luck!

All the cat5 cables ive seen have 4 pairs; blue, brown, green and orange/red and a striped counterpart. In the image posted it looks like the colors are still there, they just went with different patterns and shades.

So im seeing the orange one come out of the wall, and it LOOKS like its going into the third block from the left, but i notice its actually connected to the second from the left, so its matched with the solid orange. The fourth from the left appears to be the solid greens, as i can also see the third block contains the striped greens (as well as some of the leftover from the wall cable). And of course the far right block houses the orange striped wires. So it looks like someone was bridging the orange and green pairs, but the green striped line is broken or cut on purpose.

So like i said before if it was coming from the phone line we would only need 2 to get data to the modem, but as this is coming from a router, itll need most, if not all, of the 8 wires connected. There is a guide to wiring all this up and it goes by color of the wires, but thats just a guide and may not always be the case in how it was actually wired up.

This is how a standard ethernet cable is hooked up

Also cat 5e is just a cat5 cable that can handle more data and is better shielded so thats a non issue.

So long story short, its looks like all of them need to be hooked back up. All the suggestion in my first post should still be valid and if i were doing it i would probably run a whole new cat5 cable from the router to the pc. Failing being able to do that, i would trim up the cables in your pic, crimp new heads on following the diagram color chart, and patch them together with a female-to-female rj45 patch socket. Failing ability to do that, i would solder each wire to the other and shrink tube the joint. And lastly i would resort to twisting them together with electrical tape, or using a wire block like in your pic to join them and throw the whole thing in an enclosure like a plastic bag or something lol. Basically anything to get those wires touching and not falling apart will net some degree of success.

You'll need:

Edge trimmers

Cat5 head crimper

F2F rj45 coupler

Cat5 heads

Something similar to this 8 wire bus bar will work, but smaller would be better

And thats about it, depending on how you decide to go about the repair. Also no problem at all. shoot me another message if anything else pops up and ill help however i can.

You can pretty much do as you wish. You can normally put 2 or more wires in those clamp down terminals.

In my day, we'd use something like this to connect up our circuit.

Don't have a picture of the flip side I'll try to grab one. It's pretty basic. I bought these fans: WINSINN 50mm Fan 12V Brushless... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WDG3NYZ

Clipped off the connector it came with and grouped them all together (red w/ red, black w/ black) and crimped and soldered them to these terminals:
Baomain Red Insulated Fork Spade Wire Connector Electrical Crimp Terminal 18-22AWG 100 Pack https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B1753K2

Then connected them to a barrier strip (for easy detachment and in case I want to add another fan later):
10pcs (5 Sets) 5 Positions Dual Row 600V 15A Screw Terminal Strip Blocks with Cover + 400V 15A 5 Positions Pre-Insulated Terminals Barrier Strip (Black & Red) by MILAPEAK https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CLY91HZ

From the strip I ran 22awg wires to the +12v on the PSU.

I was just making fun of this item earlier today but it might be perfect for your hackery.

USB 2.0 A Female Plug to 5 Pin/Way Female Bolt Screw Shield terminals Pluggable Type Adapter Connector Converter 300V 8A(2Pack) (Female)

so these wires to replace that melted white one and these wire nuts are fine for that outlet in my pictures right?


If I should be buying anything different or something better please let me know

• 12v vs 24v question - many 24v strips have longer "cut intervals", so if you needed a piece exactly 9" long, you might have to go over/under to fit. For the same wattage, 24v strips draw less current which lets you use smaller wires.
  
• wiring - There are many ways to do this... as you made reference to, voltage drop happens w/ long strips. If you attempt to daisy-chain them, it can get pretty bad. If you do a sort of star or home-run configuration, you mostly avoid the problem. You run a 2-conductor power wire to where each strip is from your power supply. If it were just a couple, you could just use wire nuts. (not very sturdy, but they work fine).
  For this job, I'd probably use some of these:
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CM1JQCR/ref=emc_b_5_t?th=1
  
   
  
  One bar for positive (red), one for negative (black). You run a slightly larger gauge wire from your power supply to the bus bars. You then run a wire to each strip location. Just keep your polarity (red/blacks) straight. On the side w/ the bus bars, you can crimp on little spade lugs to the wires if you want it to look neat. You could mount the bus bars to a board, or put them inside a little plastic box if you want to hide it, just make sure you don't short out any of the wires if you have 'em all bunched together.
  
  You can probably still daisy-chain a couple of those cubbies w/o too much dimming, though.
  
  PowerSupply --> Bus ----> cubbie1 --> cubbie2 --> cubbie3

I understand tri-phase more now, thanks!

I'm using the Smartstim's Midistim design, which I haven't built yet so I'm not sure how it all works. I've read the guide and have a vague understanding. But I'm not sure what you mean by output jack or wiring harness.

If you mean the 3.5mm to 2RCA cable, I think I'll get something like this.

If you mean the resistor + terminal blocks (I assume that's where electrodes are plugged in?) I'll be getting both from Allied Electronics from the p/n listed in the Allied Electronics part list at the bottom.

Here is where I'm getting my parts unless something's wrong with it. I'm listing all in case you meant something else or want to take a look at the specs.

Both these from Amazon: Amplifier and PSU

These 5 from Allied: Resistor, Transformer, Terminal Block, BLK Patch Cord, RED Patch Cord

The rest like plate and cable ties, I'll have to find in a store (I'm not familiar with any diy but I'll get it eventually).

I also read your reply in that other thread about the quality of transformers. It seems the Allied one is the same as the Zoro one in the smartstim downloaded parts list. The quality should be good then as long as nothing goes wrong.

edit: I need to find a new source for the 1 or 2 terminal blocks, Allied require a minimum of 100... I heard the terminal blocks don't need to be exact so I can get away with a variation. I found this terminal block and it might work.

The one I recomend uses mirco USB. I ended up having to re-wire everything too but lucky for me, I just had to tap into the 12v power supply from the rear view mirror. I tuck everything underneath the headliner.

I bought this

And soldered these to the bare ends. I used those pins to put them into the connector behind the rear view mirror. Looks like this.

This was a super cheap build and the prices have changed since I made mine, nor is it the best but: Dayton pucks 16ohm - USB DAC 3.5 - Cheap amplifier - 12v Power Brick - 3.5mm to RCA cable - 16awg speaker wire

You'll also need some small wood screws to attach the pucks to the chair, zip ties, and a couple of wire nuts or you can solder the wires together. If your computer has a front headphone jack that can be its own output independent from the rear jack (like most Realtek onboard audio) you can omit the USB DAC.

You will want to wire up the pucks in PARALLEL (see example 3) so the amplifier only sees an 8ohm load.

I don't know about an amp for the Aura since I don't use them and you'd have issues running one amp for different powered transducers, they all need to have the same wattage

Looks kinda like this:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Phoenix-Contact/1862123?qs=tlR8i4ZVbUc1f5k7IsCy7A%3D%3D&gclid=Cj0KCQiAtrnuBRDXARIsABiN-7Bw9X-xP4Ks10MUICn1q7rDXfOYfPhq44Q1JzXB-dmC0GTtTntXgMIaAnElEALw_wcB

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Can use the screw down type as well:

https://www.amazon.com/SamIdea-10Pieces-2-54mm-Terminal-Assorted/dp/B07FTJSNN7/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=terminal+block+pcb&qid=1573830689&sr=8-4

That looks to me like BX or Greenfield clamped under those clamps in the back -- the wiring inside the walls being metal-clad. If this is the case, then the metal box being clamped to the metal cable-sheath is your ground.
As a musician you should probably have an outlet tester for when you are playing out anyway (lots of hums and buzzes result from miswired outlets). If you are not in Canada you will have access to a cheater-plug. Connect the cheater plug properly, and then plug in the outlet tester. If it indicates that you have ground, then you are all set.
The cheater plug relies on there being metal-to-metal contact between the yoke of the duplex outlet and the steel box, so if there are paper insulators on the screws when you replace the outlet to test you might remove them, and perhaps burnish the steel a bit to make sure there is good contact.
IN theory the steel yoke of the new 3-prong outlet is adequate to connect to this ground, but you are better off grounding with a wire in addition -- hardware stores sell green "thhn" wire by-the-foot for such tasks.
Connect the green wire to:
•A grounding screw you find in the steel box
•A new screw in a threaded hole you find in the steel box
•A grounding clip
that you slide over the edge of the outlet box.

>Can use the screw down type as well:
>
>https://www.amazon.com/SamIdea-10Pieces-2-54mm-Terminal-Assorted/dp/B07FTJSNN7/ref=sr\_1\_4?keywords=terminal+block+pcb&qid=1573830689&sr=8-4

I find these to be easier to use than the ones on the OW jigs.

That said, they may be harder to used if you have a big pot right in front.

The original Maestro comes with all the connectors needed, if you bought a clone it may not. In that case just get yourself a box full. I soldered the connectors of the KF2510 to the original wiring loom which was very tedious work, even so I am fairly experienced with soldering. The much better method is to use a proper crimping tool, the one I bought of AliExpress just didn’t arrive in time…

Edit: no DuPont needed, the drivers are on board and properly wired up.

I'd clean it up with one of these and it would still fit in a regular junction box.

https://www.amazon.com/uxcell-Positions-Terminal-Electric-Barrier/dp/B01M73WTGG/ref=sr_1_6?crid=324IIXH6JK09&keywords=terminal+block+8+position&qid=1550350588&s=hi&sprefix=terminal+block+8+p%2Ctools%2C152&sr=1-6

oops, that might just be a straight through, but they make versions so everything is internally connected.

Yes it has a fourth bare wire, but technically speaking that's not a "conductor" it's a ground. Hence the name 6/3 meaning 6GA, 3 conductors, PLUS a ground.

The Polaris connector you have linked above will only tie 3 wires together - you could not use just one of these for the 2 hots and neutral, or you would in fact be tying the two hots and neutral together. The 3-hole connector is for situations where you have a single wire and need to branch off two leads. From the pic it kinda looks like wires go in the top and out the bottom but that's not the case, wires go in the bottom and the set screws are in the top, with a dust cover over the screw to keep junk out.

If you want to use the Polaris connectors for the two hots and neutral you'd need one with two holes, and buy 3x of them. Given the price . . . hence my suggestion to use split-bolts. Gardner also makes wire nuts that work for 6AWG wire.

Sure do.

Terminal Blocks

4 Conductor Wire

Thanks. Polaris taps and a transition j box are the missing pieces for me. Do these look right? https://www.amazon.com/NSI-INDUSTRIES-GIDDS-106850-Insulated-Connector/dp/B00CTTN7J6/ref=pd_sim_328_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00CTTN7J6&pd_rd_r=M0MGGKHG2GT7MM4KFGB8&pd_rd_w=iDRbv&pd_rd_wg=8oMXL&psc=1&refRID=M0MGGKHG2GT7MM4KFGB8#feature-bullets-btf

My puppy chewed the cord of a relatively new floor lamp. I was surprised when I took it apart, that it had a pair of crimped connections.

I replaced the cord and used these pigtail connectors from Gardner Bender. These look identical to the connectors that were in the light, originally.

Just don't ever jam things into the holes on your breadboard and you'll be fine. You can always solder the wire to a 0.1" spacing header pin for use in breadboards.

These are also a thing. Breadboards are spaced at 0.1" which is 2.54mm in the rest of the world:

https://www.amazon.com/Simpo-2-54mm-Terminal-150V6A-Material/dp/B07DG4798T/

Ah, figured it out. https://www.amazon.com/Polaris-Insul-Tap-Connector-Splicer-Reducer/dp/B00CTTN7J6 is for 12.