Battery terminals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it. Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (January 2008)

Battery terminals are the electrical contacts used to connect a load and/or charger to a single cell or multiple-cell battery. These terminals have a wide variety of designs, sizes, and features that are often not well-documented.

Contents 1 Automotive battery terminals 2 Marine battery terminals 3 Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) battery terminals 4 UPS battery terminals 5 Lantern battery terminals

[edit] Automotive battery terminals

Automotive batteries typically have one of three types of terminals. In past years, the most common design was the SAE Post, consisting of two lead posts in the shape of truncated cones, positioned on the top of the battery, with slightly different diameters (to ensure correct polarity.

General Motors and other automobile manufacturers have also begun using side-post battery terminals, which consist of two recessed female 7/16" threads into which bolts or various battery terminal adapters are to be attached. These side posts are of the same size and do not prevent incorrect polarity connections.

L terminals consist of an L-shaped post with a bolt hole through the vertical side. These are used on some European cars, motorcycles, lawn and garden devices, snowmobiles, and other light duty vehicles.

[edit] Marine battery terminals

Marine batteries typically have two posts, a 3/8"-16 threaded post for the positive terminal, and a 5/16"-18 threaded post for the negative terminal.

[edit] Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) battery terminals

The most common sizes of SLA batteries use Faston tabs, but some larger batteries use L terminals, while some very specialized designs use other, sometimes proprietary terminals, such as older Panasonic camcorder batteries (of the type used for VHS shoulder-mounted camcorders).

[edit] UPS battery terminals

Batteries designed for use inside uninterpretable power supplies (UPS) typically use Faston tabs, often with an adapter cable between those and the UPS's internal battery connectors. Larger external battery packs use a variety of connectors, including the Anderson PowerPole MultiPole series (as used by Tripp-Lite), which are color-coded and keyed for specific voltages.

[edit] Lantern battery terminals

6-volt lantern batteries typically feature two coiled, cone-shaped spring terminals, designed to mate with flat contact plates on the inside of the battery compartment.

Some lantern batteries instead feature screw terminals, while still others instead feature pin holes. [1]