Battery wires

So in this video, we're going to take the 9 volt connector that we have that we're using to take power from our battery and feed to the bot. And we're going to upgrade the wires from around 32-gauge stranded to 18-gauge solid copper wire. And so they can handle more current. And we know our motors can pull it at least an amp each so we want to make sure we have enough handling capacity with our wires. And we'll talk about that in another video. So the first thing we need to do is trim off the outer plastic shell around the connector. That's, I think, it's a vinyl shell, maybe PVC. And we're just going to remove that and expose the connector and the wires. You can see in the back we have two rivets. And those rivets are crimped onto the wire. And we're just going to pull the wires right out of those crimps. And so we'll just have the rivets and the connectors exposed. So it's important when you connect these that you make sure to wire them to the correct side. So the positive one is going to be the one that's sort of mushroomed out on the top and the negative one is going to be the smaller of the two connectors there when you flip it over. So we're just soldering a little bit more solder to the back of that connector to hold the positive lead in place. And it's important that you get a good flow of solder all the way around it. And then we're doing the negative as well. And now that we have the two wires connected, we're going to protect the back of them by using a piece of shrink wrap. So we'll slide the shrink wrap over the wires and then we're going to punch two holes in the shrink wrap for our connections. So we'll mush the shrink wrap around those connection points, the socket points. And once we've got that pushed all out around there like that, we'll do the other side. And then we're just going to trim off the excess with a break off blade knife. And then we'll get the rest of that excess there. And then we'll take our heat gun and we'll shrink the shrink wrap so that we have a nice tight connection there that's not going to come apart. And we'll just mush the end together while the shrink wrap is still soft. OK. So now we're going to connect our new connector to our batteries. We're just going to put it in and use our large screwdriver to snap it in place. Once the wires are snapped in place, it's really important that you keep them separated. Otherwise, the two leads on there, the ends of the wires could touch each other, and when they touch, they'll short out and it'll cause the wires to heat up and could cause a problem for you. It'll definitely drain your battery. So you don't want that to happen. So we're going to feed our black negative wire up through the hole that we created for our battery wires. And the positive wire will also go up through that hole. And then it's going to come back down through the hole by the motor. And once it comes back down through the hole by the motor, we're going to connect it to our switch, which will allow us to turn the bot on and off. And we'll show you how to wire the switch in the next video.