Who hates crappy jumper cables?
Submitted by drbob on November 8, 2006 - 5:55am.
Other Technology
Today I made a set of jumper cables for both myself and my girlfriend. Wasted the entire friggin day and I felt great doing it. I attached some pictures.
Have you ever noticed that you just can't buy good quality jumper cables anymore? Most cars are around 13-15 feet long, and if you car is stuck in a parking space, you need a cable long enough to reach it from behind. Most have crappy* clamps, and all have really small gauge cables that aren't very flexible.
Sooo, as you know, Dr. Bob doesn't do anything small. I bought some heavy duty epoxy coated 500 amp clamps online with big springs in the handles to provide strain relief, solid copper jaws, and closure springs so powerful it takes two hands to open them to full extension. Then the wire fairy happened to drop 65 feet of the finest stranded 2 gauge wire I've ever seen in my lap. Each strand was individually tinned, then wound into small bundles which were then wound into one large bundle. It's flexible like a wet noodle with a thick rubbery chemical resistant jacket.
I crimped every copper terminal using a 6 ton hydraulic press we have here at work and covered each one with heat shrink tubing to keep water from wicking up inside the wire. I also added 2" of red heat shrink tubing every foot to hold the two massive conductors together in a nice bundle. The complete 16 foot assembly weighs twelve pounds.
*Edited for language by DrW