88 EZGO battery cables

[RickCC]

Recently had an issue with my pops cart, turns out solenoid had died. Replaced solenoid and a few of crusty battery cables. Cart ran fine for a few weeks then for that strange reason 1 battery terminal melted, did research, replaced battery. Ran great until last week when another terminal melted. So this time I plan to replace the other 5 batteries, and all cables.
Im going to make my own cables, but heres the question. In theory if cables are same length and size the load would be evenly dispersed, heat, etc. is this ok to do? Research is saying, shorter the cable is better, but if some are longer than others as in many "bought" cable kits. It kinda defeats the purpose of theory mentioned above. It is an older 36 volt cart with 6 6volt batteries.
I have replaced batteries in a newer 48volt Club Car, utilized 4 Trojan 12Volts, made custom same length same size cables, and cart runs strong and holds charge a lot longer than other equivalent carts here. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
On a side note, just ordered a BB Kit from Vegas carts. Gonna install that in a recently acquired CarryAll that has a bad motor. Then pull the FE290 from my cart and do a rebuild. Ive used this forum and it has helped me tremendously in the past.
Thanks Again Rick

[yurtle]

Current is the same for all cables in a series circuit. The loss for longer cables is fairly insignicant, as long as the cables are large anough for your load. Making them all the same length is adding losses which is counterproductive. The reason your batteries terminals melted is they were either not tight enough, too tight, which can damage the soft lead holding the post, or corrosion. It's also possible the bad connection could have been the cable to terminal crimp was bad.

In any event, a bad connection causes excess resistance, which results in heat. I^2R.

[Goliath]

Length, up to some point, makes no difference, as long as the other variables (as Yurtle stated) are good.

When you make your own cables, make sure you use the appropriate crimps for the crimper. If you're using an Ebay "hydraulic special", it may take several tries to find the right die, as their numbering system is inaccurate.

What crimper do you have?

[RickCC]

Thanks guys. I'm using a Penson hydraulic crimper. I'll just make sure I properly torque the cables. Hope it won't happen again.

[Goliath]

That's one of those Chinese crimpers that are all over Ebay. Experiment several times before you go to make the final cables, as the dies on those crimpers are labeled ambiguously.