Plated with what and how thick? For the copper to corrode H2O, CO2, and O2 all need to reach the metal. If the plating is thick enough to start with, and not scratched or worn through, that should never happen. For instance, many battery cable connectors are nickel plated copper. They stay nice and shiny until they are mechanically abraded or too much battery acid hits them, at which point the green starts as the copper core starts to corrode.
I clean all my bus bars by putting them in a rock tumbler for a day... It's fairly standard among hybrid battery rebuilders because it takes almost zero effort... And in all the batches I've tumbled the plating has never survived and was 100% gone after tumbling... And when you got jars of 500 bus bars, the plated ones that lost their plating look awful and end up in a jar where they're never gonna be used in a Prius again, but maybe for a DIY powerwall?
Nope... Wrong on that one... But don't worry, it a minor amount of difference, @TMR-JWAP did the calculations on loss of wattage with plated ones. I'll dig up the link where we discussed the video if need be, but let's just start with video Jack did:
That video shows that the all the bus bars are the same electrically (for all practical purposes), but that flat bottom nuts provide a lower resistance connection than grooved bottom nuts. The nut bottom effect was about 40 times the size of the bus bar variation. Seems like the nickel plate would be worth it for increased protection from corrosion, unless there is a problem with the nuts loosening up on that surface over time.
So only use the bus bars in the rock tumbler with no other material? I've read four methods used so far: 1. Aquarium fish rocks or sand in the tumbler after soaking in Vinegar to remove most corrosion. 2. "run the corroded ones through the rock tumbler with a little bit of fish tank gravel and vinegar and they come out looking like new" 3. " put them in the kids rock tumbler with medium grit and spin them 30 minutes and rinse them off and kerosene gasoline standard solution something" 4. "Put them in a rock tumbler and add water and go to sleep. When you wake up in the morning take 'em out, rinse 'em off and you're done. They'll look brand new with a high quality matte finish." The later seems easiest. Wondering what is quickest, albeit with media will require a screen for the grit?
