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How To's
EMCOMM Power Considerations
Will you always have a generator?

It goes without saying preppers and EMCOMM operators are always considering what options they will have for power. What is often overlooked however, is how to get that power to your devices. What if you need to change from a power converter directly to a battery? Can you adapt and overcome quickly. With this simple modification you can be ready for anything.

Power Connector
Mobile COMM Box

Highlighted above you will see the answer to your problems. The red connector is a SB50 power pole connector made by Anderson. These connectors can be terminated onto pretty much any wire with tools you should have. With these connectors, you can bypass a failed power supply and go directly to a battery in just seconds. While these are common with the 4×4 guys, I seldom see them used my amateur radio operators (HAM).

SB50 50 Amp Connector
One side of a SB50 terminated wire.

If requested I will do a review on how to terminate these connectors, however you should be able to figure it out. Before you start just make sure you have your heat shrink tubing in place and pushed far enough back not to activate. Each side of the connector has 2 lugs. Simply slide a lug onto each wire (clock them the same way) and crimp. Once crimped, flux the wire ends and solder. A high temp broad tip solder gun helps here. In a pinch you could also use a torch. If you use the torch method, make sure to only heat the lug, not the wire. Once everything cools off, position and activate your heat-shrink tubing and snap the lugs into place. Make sure you are putting the positive wire into the positive side. You can accidentally hook these up backwards.

Jumper cable to SB50 DC connection
SB50 Emergency Radio Jumper Cables

To make things easy you can take an old set of the emergency jumper cables and swap one end for a SB50. You can get a cheap set of 8ga cables off of Amazon for usually less than $12.00. This simple modification will allow you to go from AC source to DC source is less than 30 seconds assuming your COMM box has an AC/DC converter. Total cost including the cables should be well under $25.00.

Didn’t get something right or have questions or comments? See the discussion topic here: SB50 50amp Power Connectors.