Cor van de Water via EV wrote:
The leaves do not need to contact each other in any other point than at the battery terminal screw which compresses them into one flat ring.
Ah yes; good point. Sometimes they are actually insulated from each other, such as in high current switchmode power supplies. The "skin effect" causes high frequency currents to flow predominantly in the surface of thick conductors. So, they laminate buss bars or use insulated strands of wire to keep the thickness small.
I should also mention that it is important that the layers *do* make good contact at the ends. It is all too easy for only the bottom surface of the bottom leaf to make good contact with its terminal. The others have extra "contact" resistance, and so carry proportionately less current. The top leaf carries the least current.
You might think the bolt will conduct current up to the top leaf. But the bolt is often steel (or worse, stainless steel), which has very high electrical resistance.
Thermal imaging is a quick easy way to evaluate connectors. But for a more accurate indicatin, I prefer to draw a known current, and measure the voltage drop with a multimeter. This can readily show you the resistance of the bolt, current variations between leafs, etc.
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