Are stainless busbars such an awful thing?

[pvb]

With proper busbars costing less than £10 i have to wonder why anyone would want to make them.

He's entering into the true spirit of Practical Boat Owner!

 

[RichardS]

I've seen aluminum and stainless used as bus bars on boats and in testing. Either immediately or overtime, both were glaring failures.

Although due to operator error rather than material failure.

Richard

 

[rogerthebodger]

He's entering into the true spirit of Practical Boat Owner!

With proper busbars costing less than £10 i have to wonder why anyone would want to make them.

Yes to a point.

1) There was not a suitable sized off the shelf busbar available.

2) I did not like the design of any of the available off the shelf busbars

3) The connection density of the available bus bars were high enough for my application.

4) I made then from material I had available as off cuts so resulted in no cost except my own time

 

[JohnGC]

So where would you get some copper flat bar on the high street anyone? Some very skinny din rail stuff in the local b&q type place buy not seen anything else.

In the UK at least, there are many Ebay sellers of copper bar. Short lengths and different sections.
EG
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_....H0.Xcopper+bar.TRS0&_nkw=copper+bar&_sacat=0

 

[GHA]

He's entering into the true spirit of Practical Boat Owner!

Not quite, or not all anyway! Not (all) to do with money either.

But more getting something with the correct posts of different diameter for what's required with some spare, and not having much of an address makes delivery tricky, but if an hour can rustle up something way stronger and more suited to the job than commercial offerings and the sums work then it seems like a viable option. And get the job out of the way as it's in the way for some other stuff needing done.
Staring at the wiring schematic, seems no reason why the windlass couldn't share a terminal, up to 4 allowable under ABYC so it says, no point in the neg going up to the shunt and back, wouldn't affect the battery monitor in the real world enough to be bothered about. That would sort one high load, leaves the engine which might be able to share a post up near the shunt, everything else is low current & wouldn't even notice a few mΩ.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I understand that aluminium is used as the conductor in electricity transmission lines - the sort carried on pylons. Apparently, the conductivity per unit mass is greater than that of copper, so although you have to have thicker wires to carry the same current, they are still lighter than copper cables with the same conductivity.