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11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 Wonderful Connectors Aug 24, 2008
By New England Yankee
Anderson Power Poles have become *the* standard DC connector used in Amateur Radio in the US, to the point where most emergency organizations specify them to facilitate interoperability. They are strong, reliable, genderless, easy to wire, and easy to reuse. The contacts' ability to handle amperage is limited primarily by the wire size they will accept, i.e., they will safely handle more amps (from surges or whatever) without self-destructing. The contact area is actually the same for the 15, 30, and 45 amp contacts. The contacts are self-wiping and rated to over 100,000 cycles.
The housings slide together in a variety of ways to form connector blocks as needed. The resulting blocks may be left as-is, pinned, cable-tied, glued, or fastened together using special Anderson clips. Most recommend strongly against using pins as they can fall out given enough vibration. Note also that some dealers substitute standard roll pins for the Anderson spiral pins. Anderson's bite into the plastic and hold better, but can still fall out. If you glue, use a drop of superglue between the housings (Anderson's recommendation) or model cement.
It is better to crimp than solder the contacts. While it is perfectly possible to solder the contacts, any solder on the contact face lowers the connect/disconnect cycle rating, as can overheating the contact. Solder can also interfere with the contact to housing fit. Finally, as these connectors are generally used with stranded wire, soldering forms a failure point where the flexible wire meets the stiff, soldered wire and connector. UL requires soldered Power Pole connectors to use a strain relief as a result.
You can use a plier-type crimp tool, like GB or Klein - both available at the big box home centers, but a die-type tool works far better. The GB will work on the 30 amp contacts, but crushes the 15s and won't work at all on the 45s. The Klein does better, but still won't do the 45s. The 45s must be crimped properly, even if subsequently soldered, as these are ear-type contacts, and the ears have to be crimped INTO the wire.
Anderson sells a crimp tool, but it's several hundred dollars. The best tool on the market for the money is the ratcheting West Mountain crimp tool specifically made for Power Pole contacts, and costs about $50. It produces an aerospace quality crimp and can be adjusted to produce crimps within a few thousands of a given specification. It can be purchased at any ham radio store or website. It handles the 15s, 30s, and 45s on a single die.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Best Genderless Connectors. Nov 17, 2011
By A. Dominique
"Wookie"
I love these things. They are expensive, but worth it for their versatility. The whole point of these is that they're genderless so you can easily move around components and modules without worrying about changing the gender of the connectors. Also you can build as big a connector as you want because they lock together on all sides and even have many colors (if you order from the manufacturer).
They HOLD TOGETHER WELL IF you secure the insert ALL THE WAY. It's hard to describe this, but the piece you crimp/ solder to the wire has to be inserted into the plastic housing UNTIL YOU HEAR THE CLICK. Otherwise, the leaf spring isn't engaged and the terminal has no strength.
I can't say if these would actually stand up to 45 A continuous without causing a lot of resistance, but I have put them through 20 A continuous and 40 A peak on an electric bike. They never heated up and after using ~50 of them for 4 years, not a single one has failed.
Bottom line, if the setup you're using never changes (i.e. you only remove batteries for recharging or something) then you probably don't need these. If your setup changes (move components from one end to another or reconfigure battery packs for series or parallel) then this is what you want to use.
 45A Power Pole Connector Apr 23, 2011
By A. Solywoda
These electrical connectors snap together and use little pins to keep them from coming apart. I used hot melt glue to secure them instead. They require a round crimper, not the kind that flattens the contact. I used solder.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Cheap and weak Jun 05, 2011
By W. Bellant
"Gamer Geek"
Bought the special crimper for these connectors and tried wiring my electric bike with them. About 50% of the electrodes don't hold in the plug well. Some snap in very well but the rest just sort of hold a bit but they come right out if you give it a slight tug. Then on top of that some of the plugs don't even hold together well and the plug falls apart. I'm not happy with these connectors and I will replace them with standard spade terminals.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 45A Power Pole Connector (4 Black, 4 Red) Anderson-Sermos Oct 20, 2011
By RagenRat
"A man's only as good as his word !!"
45A Power Pole Connector (4 Black, 4 Red) Anderson-Sermos
I believe these would be hard pressed to ever hold up to 45 AMPS. Very disappointed with these wimpy connectors and would never use these for a automotive connector. These might be used on electronics at best.
Was not sure why these were listed as a toy at first but after receiving them thought that was the correct category.
Look before you leap on these.
RagenRat
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