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Preventing Busbar Oxidation

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by robertsm, Sep 9, 2024 at 4:14 PM.

  1. robertsm

    robertsm Junior Member

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    2009 Prius
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    II
    Getting ready to do some maintenance on my Gen2, including hybrid battery cells. Reading through different threads, I see a lot of people opting for nickel plated busbars instead of cleaning up and reusing the original copper busbars. I'd rather keep with copper to minimize resistance, but I understand the concerns about copper oxidizing.

    I also understand that there is an argument that the nickel coated copper busbars' resistance would likely be minimal, since the busbar is still copper. Nonetheless, with so many "cheap" nickel coated busbars out there I feel like it would probably be better to just stick with cleaning up the original copper busbars with oxidation mitigation at connection points.

    Anyway, I'm curious if anyone has experience using Penetrox or Noalox. Tesla uses Penetrox A-13. Any opinions?
     
    #1 robertsm, Sep 9, 2024 at 4:14 PM
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    If you can get the pentatrx should be good I use some red CRC spray that seems to work very well and everything's looking great I check it about every 8 10 months just for the heck of it I sprayed the front and back for the bus bars and their holders assembled everything sprayed the nuts let everything sit a few minutes but the black covers on and that was it
     
    #2 Tombukt2, Sep 9, 2024 at 4:27 PM
  3. robertsm

    robertsm Junior Member

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    Location:
    Central IL
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
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    II
    Thanks Tombukt2. I wasn't initially concerned about the bare metal on the busbars as much as the contact points, but it does seem like a good idea to take extra steps to prevent oxidation from getting a foothold.
     
    #3 robertsm, Sep 9, 2024 at 6:52 PM
    Tombukt2 likes this.
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