Products > Test Equipment
Wires connected without banana to binding posts (Rigol DP832 power supply)
RoGeorge:
Same here, only used the DP832 with banana plugs. I did try a few times to connect unterminated wires, and didn't like it, but never investigated, just moved back to banana plugs.
Banana plugs were not very good either, in the sense that the very few brand-name silicon banana cables I have, mostly do not fit in DP832 >:(, so until now I've only used DIY wires with no name Aliexpress banana. The no name banana were not that precise in their diameter, so they do fit in these wrong binding posts of DP832. But the overall quality was bad, big contact resistance and inconsistent when the wires were wiggled. That doesn't matter much for powering casual circuits, so never bothered about it.
This time however, I've needed to use the power supply as a SMU, to discharge batteries and measure their mAh. DP832 can measure it's own voltage and current with 1mV respectively 1mA resolution (and over SCPI it reports an extra digit, so 0.1mV and 0.1mA resolution). That would have been more than enough to count the energy stored in a battery, except the banana connectors were showing a few 10s of mV variation when wiggled, which made me insist on looking for a better way to connect the wires.
Proper fix would be to replace the binding posts, but I don't have any that could make a good replacement, plus that I'm not very willing to dismantle the power supply. I'd rather keep using banana plugs, they are faster than screwing wires anyway.
I did try yesterday all sorts of ways to DIY some banana plugs that are better than the no name I've used so far. Kind of found something, but it's time consuming. Also, during all the methods I've tried, accidentally invented the "banaligator" ;D, an alligator terminated with a DIY banana pin. I'll keep that, seems very practical and fast to clip unterminated wires, though not exactly what I was looking for.
For DYI banana plugs, best results were by using 8 stranded of solid copper (Cu diameter 0.5mm, or 0.02inch, striped from leftovers of CAT5 LAN cables). The 8 strands are passed through a piece of cable jacket from thin 3mm shielded cable (50ohms RG174A/U). Not silicon jacket, but very flexible, helps with keeping the strands pressed against the interior of the binding posts.
These 0.5mm Cu threads looked rather soft, and not very springy, but in practice turned out to make good and consistent contacts. Probably they won't last forever, but more than enough if I think of them as consumables. How much they will last for home use, no idea, probably years. Time will tell.
Don't have any proper milliohm-meter, but to give an idea, at 3.2A with a DYI copper banana at each terminal, and a soldered piece of wire between them, I get a deviation of no more than 1-2mV when wiggling the wire. This is at least 10 times better than the no name banana I have used so far. :)
tszaboo:
IDK the binding posts look and work the same than I would find on any other power supply from TTI or GW or Keithley, or Agilent, pretty much anything else I used. Maybe buy some banana plugs with spring contact, like these ones:
https://nl.rs-online.com/web/p/banana-connectors/3277994
PA0PBZ:
I use these Hirschmann cables, it's a bit of a tight fit but fine and they feel great too :-+
https://www.reichelt.com/nl/en/shop/product/4_0-mm_measuring_lead_150_cm_1_mm_red-130716
blackdog:
Hi,
In 2016 I modified my Rigol 832 and i nthe link below you can see how I went about it.
The modifications I wanted to do is to use another good fan that cools enough but gives less noise.
Secondly, since the power supply was open anyway, I addressed the wiring to the banana bushings.
The modification consists of twisting the power supply wiring separately from the sense wires which are now also twisted separately.
I also modified the interconnection between the two channels to reduce their internal resistance.
Also note where the current-carrying wires are connected and also where the sense wires are soldered, the sense wires are soldered to the PCB material and the current-carrying (thicker wiring) is soldered to the back of the banana bus.
If you do this the Ri on the banana buses is as low as possible.
Twisting the wiring helps the dynamic behavior and reduces the radiation from the transformer on this wiring.
For soldering you need a soldering iron of a somewhat higher power, think of 100 to 200 Watt and then also with a wide tip for better heat transfer.
https://www.circuitsonline.net/forum/view/130740#highlight=dp832
Yes this forum topic of mine is in Dutch, live sucks *grin*
You can always use a translation machine to make it somewhat readable.
However, keep in mind that I type pretty crooked sentences, even in Dutch and if AI starts working with that, you will probably get something I didn't say or mean. :-DD
Good luck,
Bram
nctnico:
Typically I twist stranded wire or crimp a ferrule on it if I want to use the wires for a longer period. But it all starts with good binding posts. On lower end equipment I tend to (as in always ;D ) replace the binding posts with good quality ones from Hirschmann. These work very well.
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