SOARA has “battery box” building events every so often. The idea is that you build a portable container with a battery, cigar lighter socket, power switch, volt meters, and Anderson PowerPole connectors that you can use during an emergency. I have designed and/or printed and built several such breakout boxes. I built a Pelican case with a 9AH AGM battery and single PowerPole connector. That provides power to two breakout boxes that I designed and/or printed:
I use 12V DC power on a daily basis and need ready access to power plugs. I have connectorized at least 500 radios and other equipment with PowerPole connectors over the years.
I designed and printed a simple under-the-shelf voltmeter as one of my first 3D projects. I thought it might be nice to have some powerpole connectors in the same under-the-shelf design.
I designed a 90 degree bracket with integrated voltmeter and 4 powerpole outlets copying the design of the 1 1/8″ round PowerPole receptacle to hold a PowerPole plug captive such that it can easily be connected to.
To interconnect the PowerPole connectors, I etched an FR4 copper clad circuit board in Ferric Chloride. My printed circuit board (PCB) drafting supplies are over 33 years old and most have dried up so I ended up using electrical tape and some round etch resist press-on film that was still good to do the job.
I drilled the holes too large for my 16 AWG wire. The problem with that is that solder ends up running down into your connectors. I had to smack the assembly on the bench to eject the excess molten solder from the jacks.
Update – Not being satisfied with the first PCB I etched, I tried a new method. I used my Cricut die cutter to print the PCB layout onto vinyl. I transferred the vinyl to a blank PCB and used it an etch-resist. It worked very well.
I used a smaller drill bit. I have a PCB drill however, the motor attaches to a Weller rechargeable soldering iron and the batteries on that died many years ago.
I used the smallest bit I had for the voltmeter traces, and the second to smallest for the 16 AWG wire.
I redesigned the panel to not carry the grooves for the Power Pole connectors through to the front and designed a cover for the circuit board on the back.
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