WARNING Heretical Comments Follow
I agree. Right after the "No wing nuts" BS came up, I hesitantly followed the bloody lemmings and switched to nuts.
NUTS!!!
First time I had to remove a lug on the bank, I need WHAT a bloody TOOL instead of just my fingers, which I'd been using for decades.
You guessed it, tool fell out of my hand, and across both the + and - poles.
F*CKing stupid Idea if you ask me.
I'm back to wing nuts with lock washers.
F to bloomin' "rules." 'Specially when they make no sense.
Rant over.
What is a, and I quote Stu, "
F*CKing stupid Idea" is thinking you can meet battery manufacturers torque ratings with your bare fingers... Regardless of
how strong you think you are you're not strong enough to properly torque a wing nut to a battery manufacturers specifications. Adding a lock washer does not absolve you of a duty to use the correct torque.
So let me try to attempt and understand this "Heretical" rant.??
Because you were a klutz, and/or used an incorrect length wrench for working on batteries (buy some stubbies), or one that is not insulated if long enough to short the battery terminals (electrical tape works wonders as do proper terminal boots), the "
BS" battery manufacturers, SAE, ABYC, ISO/RCD, USCG, Calder, Wing, Casey, SAMS, NAMS, NMMA et al. are giving bad advice and anyone who follows this realistic & considerably safer guidance, which is based on actual DATA, are all
lemmings... Wow...
Wing-nuts also
require tools to be properly installed and attain the correct torque the battery manufacturer requires. Using your fingers is simply an unsafe
hack job just waiting for a high resistance melt down.
The problem with wing nuts is they lend themselves, by design, to
ineptitude and
laziness (Stu's post above referencing no tools). Thumb & finger tight for battery cables is NOT okay. This sort of laziness & ridiculously inept behavior is what has driven the marine industry to pretty much ban them. They are not banned because they can't work they are banned because far too many folks do just as Stu does and that is to improperly and incorrectly install & torque them.
The proper method for installing a wing nut is at the same torque required by the battery manufacturer. This CAN NOT be done with your thumb and forefinger. It requires a wing nut wrench (they actually do exist) or other means to apply the correct torque.. As I have said multiple times, here and elsewhere, a wing nut
PROPERLY TORQUED & locked with a locking washer is no different than any other nut. The key words are PROPERLY TORQUED..
The sad reality is boat owners (eg: Stu) don't
properly install wing-nuts so the ABYC, your insurer, the USCG and every other organization steps in to try and stop folks from being a danger to themselves or others...
Just once I wish some of the folks out there would climb out of their
n=1 data set ("Well, on my boat..." n=1) and see these things from the professional level across many hundreds to thousands of boats. If this were the case I strongly suspect someone like Stu, would never in a million years, post what he just posted, if he walked a mile in a marine electricians shoes.