Do you really need tinned wire and lugs?

[Ironman162]

I've had no issues with using copper wire at all but I use a good crimper, heat shrink and silione sealer to keep exposure to a minimum.

The proof is there, 10 years later and all the wiring is still in good condition.

Tinned wire will go black as well if not installed properly. There is no substitute for quality workmanship.

Buying better quality materials on its own is not a guarantee that it will last.

There's a lot of different materials involved that can also corrode other than the wiring. Nuts and bolts, battery connectors are all brass, steel etc
I have found brass bolts don't last long, Stainless is better and so forth. It's well worth inspecting the system regularly.

That's my penny's worth... Hope it helps!

[Maka]

I cover all exposed ends, especially battery terminals covered in vasalene ... any grease will do. Cheap, and easy.
Keeps air and water off / out of them.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Maka

I cover all exposed ends, especially battery terminals covered in vasalene ... any grease will do. Cheap, and easy.
Keeps air and water off / out of them.

Think about this. Vaseline is probably the least effective corrosion inhibiting grease you have on the boat.

[waterman46]

Any wires which you will ever want to solder now or in the future, you must use tinned wire. It's nearly impossible to adequately and safely remove a thick coat of copper oxide in the onboard environment. Regardless of the advantages or negatives of good quality soldered connections, there are certain limited applications where soldering is appropriate, even necessary. To avoid future problems in circuits where you might ever want to solder such as data wiring, coaxial cable, etc you will normally only find tinned conductors.

[double u]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

RF is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Plus these antenna feedlines are often carrying quite a bit of current and DO get quite hot. I've seen more than one boat where there was no feedline or lower insulator. The tuner went right to the chainplate which was insulated by the fiberglass hull so the feedline was all inside. Just don't touch the backstay when the HF radio was in operation or you'd get quite the unpleasant surprise.

ssb-RECEIVER antennawire!

[double u]

"Any wires which you will ever want to solder now or in the future, you must use tinned wire."
exactly! I've cut untinned wire several meters from its end-& found it discoloured & impossible to solder.
btw: in Marmaris, Turkey in 95 the standard wire at the automotive electrical supplier was all tinned, all!

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by double u

"Any wires which you will ever want to solder now or in the future, you must use tinned wire."
exactly! I've cut untinned wire several meters from its end-& found it discoloured & impossible to solder.
btw: in Marmaris, Turkey in 95 the standard wire at the automotive electrical supplier was all tinned, all!

Next time, fan the strands and use 20% phosphoric acid (rust convertor) to clean the discoloured copper. Normally takes a couple of minutes to get bright clean copper. Rinse well and if possible, neutralise with bicarb of soda.
IME, it will now solder beautifully.

[ZULU40]

Originally Posted by Wotname

A couple more points,

2/ Circuit breakers and fuses - I not sure where you find the distinction stated but it is not universal.

breakers are better able to protect the wire being near the power source, but are usually more accessible than fused devices. For the same reason fuses at the device will better protect them. Rating to exceed AH by 25%, more if you are sure device and wiring is good but you get constant trips with no obvious cause.

Originally Posted by Wotname

3/ This presumably is a USA color coding. Please remember that there are many many readers of CF who are not USA based. Other countries use different colour coding. For instance, in Australia, 12V DC circuits are almost always red (+) and black (-). Old 240V AC is red (A), black (N) and green (earth) while newer 240V AC is brown (A), blue (N) and green with yellow stripe (earth).

Au has a good system particularly in wiring sizing, but the industry is not of the magnitude of the US industry, and has far fewer older boats. Noting that, it is hard to believe that new production boats will have poorly worked out wiring systems.

Thus attention to older, more modified boats, often within the grasp of owners in places like this are a worthwhile focus.

[ZULU40]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

That isn't USA color codes. Not sure what it is.

US standard color standards are:

Black/Red or Black/White = low voltage (or at least what laymen call low voltage as electricians call anything under 600v low voltage, where 600v-70kv is medium voltage, and only over 70kv do we call it "high voltage."

120/240v or 120/208v is typically Black/Red/Blue for phase conductors and White for neutral. Green or bare for grounds

277/480v is typically Brown/Orange/Yellow for phase conductors and Grey for neutral.

Green or green with yellow stripe is a ground the country-around (or bare) I know that in Europe they use other weird colors because equipment that comes from there is always weird with the color codes they use.

But in the US the NEC only says that grounds (i.e. grounding conductor) must be green, green with stripe or bare, and neutrals (I.e. grounded conductor) must be White or Natural grey (stripe may be added.) All other color coding is simply traditional. Phone/data color coding is something different and they have a whole scheme that could take its own thread.

On my own boat I used black/red for 12v DC systems. Blue/White for 120v AC, and purple for control wire/metering burdens. Green is for grounding conductors in the AC system as well as bonded structure. Yellow-jacketed wire is audio. NMEA-2k and the VHF coax is all black but that is obviously not power to the trained eye. Really, the only thing to look for on our boat as far as safety is concerned is the blue/white of the 120v AC, but that is all in flexible liquidtight non-metallic conduit and junction boxes. No loose wire or "boat romex" Ancor plastic-sheathed cable in the AC at all.

Most (95%) of the 12v DC is in its own separate raceway as well and the joints are made in watertight sealed boxes except for stuff where that isn't possible like before pigtails of lights, pumps, or other equipment because this stuff was never made high-quality enough where the expectation was to keep all wiring inside conduit and boxes. I tried to use as little Ancor "boat romex" in my boat as possible. Most runs are less than 3' from the junction box to the device it is powering. box connectors are water-tight glands. Wire is strapped within 6" of boxes and every 18" thereafter. The conduit is strapped every 24" max. The bulk of the wiring is individual wires run in conduit between boxes like the gods intended wiring to be run.

Direct Current Color Codes: From ABYC E-11 Table XIV and Table XV.

example below or go direct to available codes, which is a bit of a read
Note primary wiring, DC neg, DC pos

Boat Building Regulations | Boat Electrical Systems Wiring | Color Codes | New Boatbuilders Home Page

[ZULU40]

Wiring that is/has been subject to corrosion will exhibit greater resistance. The system will still try to support a device despite higher resistance, the by product is heat. When insulation begins to melt you have a growing problem that will affect bundled wiring looms engaging multiple wire cores and greatly expanding the problem. Unattended in more extreme examples eventually this will result in a fire with toxic efflux in a closed air environment.

A wiring fire is just about the worst thing you can face at sea. It is difficult to fight, it is difficult to stop.

Ask yourself right now, how can I stop this.

If you dont know the answer you have something to think about that is more in need of your attention than saving a few bucks.

[SVLydia]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

Or not.

I'm a commercial electrician and have worked on a lot of outdoor industrial jobs in harsh conditions that make saltwater seem like a breeze. Ever worked building and repairing the electrical systems in a concrete-mixing plant, a refinery, chemical plant, lime mine, or other open-pit quarry and crushing operation?

I have, and we don't use tinned wire. It's more cost-effective to just upsize the conductors for more life and extra surface area at connections were issues always start. Everything is crimped and greased with anti-ox inside and heat-shrinked with mastic (marine grade) shrink tube and totally sealed.

Tinned wire is only marginally better at corrosion-resistance. If a termination suffers from excessive heat it will still go black and corrode up the wire. The enemy is really heat, and over-sizing conductors deals with this MUCH better than just tinning the wire. We don't care about weight, or size. It's easier to upsize the conduits and upsize the wires. Tinned wire isn't all what it is cracked up to be. Sure it is better, but maybe only 20% more corrosion resistant. Not a magic bullet by any means. Spend the extra cash in upsizing the wires and you'll get much more bang for the buck.

But what do I know? I just do this for a living. Someone who listens to the Ancor marketing blitz probably knows a lot more than me about this, I'm sure. I only went to school for 5 years to learn my trade and spent decades on the job seeing what works and what doesn't.

Thanks for the info! It is nice to get an opinion from someone who actually has training and experience!!

I have always heard that more strands leads to better wire because it is harder to heat up and can handle a higher current, is this true? I am in the process of putting a 300 AH battery bank in my boat and plan on using welding cable for this reason as well as the added flexibility of the wire will make it easy to get it back into the tight spot I am putting them. What are your thoughts on this? Welding cable doesn't say "marine" on it, so its cheaper too. Am I on the right track?

On another note, I have always believed that wiring is only as good as its weakest connection. In other words it doesn't matter how heavy it is or if its tinned, if you have a poor connection in just one spot it will create heat and that area will eventually fail.....do you agree with this?

In fact I have a trucking company and when a driver can't get his truck started because of a bad connection I always have them hold the key in the start position for about 30 seconds before feeling all the wires and finding where the "hot spot" (poor connection) is located. Sometimes holding the key on like this will heat the metal in the bad area enough to expand and improve the connection and the truck will start. The bad area still needs attention, but at least he can get to his destination without being late. I would think this would also work with a boat.

[AHoy]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

That crimp looks awful to me. What did you use to crimp it? A hammer and a cold chisel? A decent hydraulic crimper is <$40 on Amazon. Why destroy good $5+ each marine-grade lugs with cave-man crimping techniques when the proper tool is not much more than the crimps cost?

http://a.co/iTZ3gOz

Also, you need to use more heat-shrink than that. It should go up almost all the way up to the flat area on the lug to get a good seal and go back at least 2" back on the wire insulation for proper strain-relief. At least you used marine-grade shrink tube with the mastic glue inside. It's hard to tell, but it looks like you left a lot of room between the insulation and the lug. It should be no more than 2-3mm after the crimp. Be sure the wire is fully inserted into the lug all the way to the front and don't allow it to get pushed out in the crimping process. A proper crimper helps with this greatly.

A proper crimp with thousands of pounds of pressure (8-ton is about right) will cause the strands in the wire to flow and deform as the crimp flows and deforms over it so that it basically one solid piece of metal. Adding in a little anti-ox grease helps the deformation and the flow go a little better as it lubricates the process and actually makes the crimp tighter (the same reason you lubricate a seatpost on a bicycle with grease when you tighten it which is counter-intuitive to non-mechanics. It will not slip with less bolt pressure than one that is not greased with more pressure on the bolt. The anti-ox grease also protects from moisture if any should ever work its way in there or was trapped in the initial process. There is always a little moisture in the air, so it is impossible to not have a little moisture in there trapped during installation.

LOL are you judging the quality of my crimp from a photo with heat shrink over it? If you have a question ask it but don't make assumptions that everything was done incorrectly with zero knowledge. Also I would not suggest a cheap hydraulic crimper with metric dies to anyone.

[ValiantV]

Originally Posted by Martkimwat

Not sure what A64 Pilot has against vinyl covered wire ...

Dunno why he dislikes it either, except that it just cheap wire, and the quality of the insulation may make one suspicious of the quality of the rest of the wire.

I don't care for vinyl because of the simple fact that it gets stiff with low temperatures and tends to crack when flexed. This gets worse with age. Considering that the fine-stranded wire is designed to withstand breaking WTH vibration and flexing, it seems odd that it would be covered with an insulation that doesn't withstand that under some conditions.

Personally, I like neoprene. It's oil resistant, doesn't get stiff when cold, and is just a better product. That said, I don't even have a clue if that's suitable, appropriate, or affordable.

[GrowleyMonster]

I have never used tinned wire unless it was wire subject to immersion. Even my interconnects, phase cables, and main power cables (electric boat, 48v system) are just very heavy copper. I actually favor 2/0 welding cable, for its flexibility. ZERO problems with that, in my case. I have ran over 150a at 48v through my power cables, though usually I prefer to glide along at 10a or less. It is important to protect lug crimps from battery gasses, and important to be generous with the wire size. Tinned wire? A definite mark of quality, and definitely a good thing. But normally, NOT necessary. Got deep pockets? A boat where everything else is seriously top shelf? Use tinned wire, of course. Got an ugly old lump of fiberglass where a lot of compromises have already been made, and money is tight? Untinned is a reasonable option. YMMV.

Wire that is seldom accessed and never inspected, it is understandable that one might want to go with high ticket tinned wire, anyhow. Just thought I would throw that in there.

[CharlieJ]

BlackHeron's Post #3

ABYC does not require tinned wire, it merely suggests it. Since the ABYC is simply a group of marine industry producers including the companies that make this expensive wire, I'm surprised they have not gotten up the courage to require it. Perhaps someday they will...

You are correct that ABYC does not require tinned wire. In fact, the electrical standard, E-11, does not include the phrase "tinned wire". ABYC does require Type 2 or Type 3 stranding.

You are absolutely wrong about ABYC being "...a group of marine industry producers..." ABYC works very hard to ensure that all of the committees that write the Standards have a good mix of people from all areas of the marine industry. You too can participate. Call Brian Goodwin at ABYC and ask to be put on the mailing list for any of the Standards that you would like to comment on. You will be added to the list an have the opportunity to provide concise, nonjudgmental comments on those Standards. Your comments will be reviewed and added to the standard if appropriate.