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Anderson Powerpoles: The Legos of DC Electronics, by Dan in Alaska
To say that I’m a neophyte in the electrical world, or as we say here in Alaska a “Cheechako”, is making a big understatement. So, a couple years back my co-worker and friend got me into Amateur Radio, also affectedly known as Ham Radio. I studied my ARRL Technician book and passed my test, but it just barely rattled what I had in my head 20 years ago from my only electronics class I had back in High School where we studied Ohm’s law, identified a resistor, and made a strobe light. So, I’m on a big learning curve.
I searched around and studied lots of reviews and settled on a nice hand held radio, a Yaesu VX-6R. It works great for VHF and the 2M repeaters that I have in my town. As with anything, you always strive for bigger and better! Must be the Tim “The Toolman” Taylor gene that all guys have (emphasis on the Toolman grunt)! So, I’m studying to upgrade my license from a Technician to General and get into HF. Not only am I doing this to get more into my hobby, but I feel this is part of prepping that is just as important as beans and bullets. Besides studying to upgrade my license, I have been assembling gear for my “shack”. Again going around the net (great review site for Ham related stuff is www.eHam.net) and talking with fellow Hams, I decided to get a radio that is not only good for a base station, but mobile. I ended up getting another Yaesu, a FT-897D. That turned out to be the easy part, the rest of the gear list is probably going to be never ending and always changing. This brings me to what I wanted to write about, the Anderson Powerpole.
From what I read and have experienced so far is that the Anderson Powerpole is the gold standard for 12VDC power connection. There are probably people reading this and saying “Whoopee, who cares about connecting wires”! I was there too at one time, being upside down hooking up trailer lights by twisting 2 wires together and wrapping them with electrical tape. The genius with Powerpoles is not only the ease of installation, but the mobility and adaptability of this product. One of the best features of the Powerpoles is that they are genderless, no male or female fittings. One reviewer called it a hermaphroditic plug. Because of that several emergency groups like RACES and ARES make Powerpoles a standard for equipment so everyone has the same ability to hook up all their equipment into various power sources.
So, I went to Powerwerx and bought several sets of Powerpoles, a roll of 12 gauge red/black zip cord, extra clips, a RIGrunner (more about that later), and a few other sundry items. A set of Powerpoles are 2 plastic housings, one red and one black (for positive and negative wires), 2 metal clips, and a roll pin. Now came the important question, to crimp or solder?
Source: http://www.survivalblog.com/2013/12/anderson-powerpoles-the-legos-of-dc-electronics-by-dan-in-alaska.html
