Tinned wire

[justchange]

So, when you buy a roll is the entire roll tinned or just the ends?

 

[Rocky_Road]

Re: Tinned wire

All the way, baby!

I use marine grade wire on my boats...even if it is just to run a stereo.

Happy boating!

 

[justchange]

Re: Tinned wire

Ok, thanks for that. Wouldn't be worth spending the extra money if'n it was just the ends.

 

[soggy_feet]

Re: Tinned wire

If it were just the ends, it'd be just as easy to buy auto wire and tin it yourself!


Quick hijack... you guys have a fav place to buy marine wire? At some point I need to pull the Romex out of the boat and wire it correctly... again... why the original wires (all of them) were cut... I have no idea.

 

[justchange]

Re: Tinned wire

The boat I currently have has all the original wire. You could check on this site.

 

[soggy_feet]

Re: Tinned wire

I somehow continually manage to forget this forum is an offshoot of a boat supply store, despite all the links, banners, etc.

Sometimes less advertising is more perhaps. I think I've got to the point where I completely tune out all the stuff going on around the edges of my screen, since most of the time it doesn't really relate to me.

Thanks for the wake up call.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Tinned wire

Watertown,SD

I wouldn't bother with the tinned wire if you are going to be fresh water only. I've been doing a lot of wiring work on my 01 Crestliner and all of the wire was not tinned, the wire was marked "MARINE". They even used properly color coded "zipwire" for some of the circuits.

Try this place for marine wire;

http://genuinedealz.com/

(FWIW, If Iboats sold wire in short lengths and had what I needed I would have purchased it here.)

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Tinned wire

I wouldn't bother with the tinned wire if you are going to be fresh water only.

I would always use timmed wire in a boat no matter if it was used in salt or fresh.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Tinned wire

I would always use timmed wire in a boat no matter if it was used in salt or fresh.

That's fine, but is tinned wire required for a freshwater boat? I say no as you are not dealing with corrosive saltwater. From what I've seen after digging in the wiring of 5-6 freshwater boats, the manufacturer's think the same since they have all used non-tinned wire. Sure, copper can oxidize after years in freshwater, but if it's sealed up well (liquid neoprene, adhesive lined shrink tubing) you don't have to worry about the oxidation.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Tinned wire

but if it's sealed up well (liquid neoprene, adhesive lined shrink tubing) you don't have to worry about the oxidation.

I have seen so many fresh water boats with "black wire" that i would totally disagree. Most boat manufacturers don't use adhesive lined joints. I have never seen liquid neoprene on a production boat and not sure why one would use it.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Tinned wire

I have seen so many fresh water boats with "black wire" that i would totally disagree. Most boat manufacturers don't use adhesive lined joints. I have never seen liquid neoprene on a production boat and not sure why one would use it.

I'm not saying mfg's do anything to keep the wire from oxidizing , but If someone is adding in a couple of circuits and seal the terminations with liquid neoprene or adhesive heat shrink, then the plain copper wire won't oxidize. Heck, even putting some heatshrink tubing on the terminations goes a long way to keeping the the wire from oxidizing. Are the mfg's going to do that, no it takes too long or costs too much.

I guess my point is, if you have a boat wired with plain copper (freshwater boat), then adding in more copper wire won't hurt a thing since your new wire will live longer than the mfg's wiring if you do a decent job of installing it.

 

[lowkee]

Re: Tinned wire

If the corrosion of copper only affects the terminals, why wouldn't tinning the ends prior to connecting them be effective? As far as I know, tin and lead (in solder) will not corrode. Taking this theory a step further, wouldn't soldering the wires to the connectors bypass the issue altogether? Why spend for tinned wire when all you need are tinned ends? We're talking a $20 solder gun and ~8 seconds per terminal for a perfect electrical connection which won't degrade.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Tinned wire

The problem comes about when it is time to replace a connector on the wire or do some sort of repair. Basically impossible to replace a terminal again at that point because every strand of the wire is corroded. True, if you are going to put the terminal on once and never touch it again, you would probably never have to worry about it.

As far as soldering is concerned, it is usually preferred to do crimps only. The reason for this is that the solder will wick up the wire and essentially create a solid wire which can break with vibration. I have worked in military, automotive and commercial environments and wires are never soldered in connectors and terminals in a vibration prone environment.

Now, I am very guilty of soldering sometimes when I shouldn't. These days with the adhesive lined butt joints and terminals, I try to just crimp. Hard to solder anyway on a adhesive lined connector.

 

[lowkee]

Re: Tinned wire

Do they make better crimp connectors than the ones you see at the auto shops? I'm always suspicious using those, as they never seem to get a solid crimp. Are there quality ones vs dollar store ones or are they all the same? I come from an electronics background, so soldering was a way of life and I never worried about it letting go. Crimping just makes me nervous, though possibly irrationally stemming from a few bad crimps failing at crutial (or annoying) times.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Tinned wire

Ancor are the good marine ones. The other secret is buying a quality crimper tool.

http://www.amazon.com/Ancor-Electrical-Insulated-Adhesive-Terminals/dp/B000PV9HBM

This guy is who I buy my wire and terminals from
http://shop.genuinedealz.com/Items/... AWG heat shrink ring terminal #6 hole - 25pk

He is also on ebay so use either his website or ebay whichever is cheaper.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Tinned wire

It's hotly debated which is better, to crimp,,, or to crimp and to solder. I crimp and solder wires on my boat and vehicles (oh boy here we go....)

I totally agree with Bruce that in most industries, crimping a lug onto a wire is far better than crimping and soldering (though I have seen crimp and solder in some, few, applications). Use of high quality crimps that have an integral strain relief, that holds the insulation and aligns the wire to the crimp, and machine crimping that tightly binds the crimp to the wire at 360* is a very good way to crimp connectors to wires. I have no problem with this type of crimping.

BUT, I feel hand crimping can be less than desirable. I have replaced 100's of crimp connectors over the years; crimp too big, poor quality crimp connectors, corrosion within the crimp, loose crimp, etc, etc and have learned that they are not 100% effective. While working with crimps at the workplace it's SOP to just crimp, so that is how it' done there, quick and easy. But I don't feel hand crimping alone is going to last for the long term, 10, 20, 30 years later. If I could buy a hand crimp tool for $20-30 that produced a 360* crimp with strain relief (as found in high quality machine crimps) I would have no problem hand crimping.

Soldering a crimp is not perfect either (as Bruce mentioned) since the soldered wire can fatigue and break right at the crimp,,, if the wire is not supported with a strain relief. When I crimp and solder I apply a 1" long piece of heatshrink tube on the crimp, then a 2" long piece over that. This produces a strain relief so motion in the wire is not concentrated at the soldered crimp connector. Is this perfect, no. But I feel this is better than crimping alone.

When I solder and crimp on my boat I;

- remove plastic insulator off crimp connector (melt)
- crimp connector to wire
- solder crimped connection
- apply liquid neoprene to wire and crimp (100% seal moisture from the wire)
- apply 1" piece of heat shrink tube
- apply a 2" piece of heat shrink tube

If I'm working with a wire that has some oxidation on it I'll dip the wire in flux before crimping the connector, this allows the oxidation to clean off the wire as it's heated for soldering. This won't work with heavily corroded wire, have to manually clean those wires, PITA.

Is this the best way to terminate wires in the garage? Many believe so, many don't............ Kind of like which is the best oil, chevy/ford, blonde/brunette, etc/etc

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Tinned wire

If I'm working with a wire that has some oxidation on it I'll dip the wire in flux before crimping the connector

Of course this is why you want to use fully tinned wire in the first place.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Tinned wire

Buuuuut,,, most freshwater boats don't have tinned wire. What do you do if you are working with plain copper wire that is oh' so common in freshwater boats?

(Completely rewiring the boat with tinned wire is not an option... Well it is an option, but I'm not doing it until the wiring is completely rotted out. )

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Tinned wire

Here is a good post that shows how a crimp done properly will not pull apart.

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-maintenance/40849-proper-crimping-strong-crimp-vs-solder.html

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Tinned wire

Buuuuut,,, most freshwater boats don't have tinned wire.

How many boats have you looked at? I surely doubt a boat like a Bayliner would have it but I bet a Cobalt would! My brother's Formula has tinned wire. My Wellcraft does!

If you are adding wiring, use the tinned wire. In the scheme of things, its not adding that much expense to your boating.