Good Morning,

I've got 6 x Earths from the bike loom that I wish to ground at the same point. What's the best way to do this? Can I solder them together and then use a battery-type ring terminal? Would I be better-off if I didn't solder them?

TIA

TC

Imho: no solder to avoid the whole work-hardening debate. Crimp a ring terminal to each cable and put them all on one bolt through the chassis.

I used individual crimp ring terminals, and stacked them together. Any problems I have had, in the past, have been with soldered joints.

For the last couple of years we have been using contralube from maplinms particularly on earths on kit cars as well as any joints we disturb on older looms seems to help and builds in a little bit of low maintenance!
Atb
Mike

Number of ways of doing this the simplest way a Helacon Plus Push in connector block, dead easy to use but apply silicone grease before pushing the connectors in.

http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu/VWP-onlinestore/connectors/connectors.php

The best way is to use a bus bar designed for the job.

Stacking more than two ring terminations on a single bolt is not ideal (and not permitted in any safety critical installations, trains, planes etc.) because they are very likely to loosen with age as the copper in the ring terminations creeps under the pressure.

On the (oldish) bike looms I have repaired, multiple smaller ground wires have been soldered to a single larger one to attach to a frame (with the solder joint within the loom itself). I'm certainly not a fan of soldering within looms in general, but provided the joint is in a well supported section of loom that will not see any flexing it should be ok. If going for this method I would mechanically support the connection with a few turns of single core copper wire around the outside before soldering.

Wago lever connectors from TLC cheap and effective

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/WA415.html

Battery lug terminal will be fine on one earth point think a 6mm shud take all six wires from a bike loom

On the last mega squirt loom I built, all the earths were crimped into a single uninsulated ring terminal, then flowed with solder, and heat shrunk. Very solid joint.

What are the earths for? Would consider grouping them in batches of 2 if similar thickness and type. If larger thickness I would attempt to bring the back to battery, for smaller ones I would be happy with chassis bolts or these linky

[Edited on 14-7-13 by loggyboy]

All,

It's been a long time since I've had such a useful set of responses to a thread - many thanks. The picture below shows the issue:

The collection of earths can be seen just above centre in the picture, taped together and sat just above the ECU (big black box with the orange sticker). The majority of the earths go directly to the ECU, a couple go elsewhere within the loom and none of the cables are large gauge.

Adjacent to the wires you can see a 6mm stud welded to the chassis - if you look closely you'll see several of these in the photograph. These are the earth points.

From the responses thus far, I'm inclined to get a bus bar - not least because the supplier is close enough that I can pick it up in my lunch hour.

Any further thoughts now you have a visual aid?

Thanks again.

TC

Based on that none are that thick id bundle them in one or 2 non insulated crimps and bolt them with a toothed washer. Unless you have 10 or 15 other earths terminating close by, a bus bar seems overkill to me.

Bus bar has the advantage of being able to replace individual earths should one become faulty? Also if you get one with a couple of spare terminals it gives you room for expansion?