Teeny Tiny Wire - Big Headache

[Jammer]

5 conductor mast cable is pretty standard and is usually 14 gauge. That's enough for anchor light, spreader lights, steaming light, a shared negative return, and one more circuit you can use for a tricolor or red-over-green or whatever.

[hpeer]

I go through this far too often. The boat was significantly rewired in 2006 by "professionals" who must have found a garage sale on #12. EVERYTHING is #12eben up the mast. I recently had the mast down and briefly considered rewiring it but, looking at how it was installed it would have been a difficult job I did not have the time to do.

FWIW there is a rule of thumb that a 3AWG change halls or doubles the wire area. IOW found a 16AWG wire over and it has the cross sectional area of a 23AWG wire. Fold it again and it has the area of a 10AWG wire. Fold an 18 and it is now a "15" which is tolerably close to 14. Etc.

In place of heat shrink I frequently use liquid electrical tape. Make sure it gets in all cracks and openings, and I use 3 coats covered with a GOOD electrical tape like 3M 33 or 88. I have found this to work well.

[Plumbean]

Originally Posted by SomeGuyInaShirt

I had this problem with my Lunasea tri-colour/anchor light. I have 14 gauge wire in my mast to make it even more difficult. I ended up using regular butt connectors for the 14ga wire and folding and twisting a long stretch of stripped wire on the tiny little wires. It passed the tug test and I made sure to heat shrink the butt connectors well and put heat Shrink tubing overtop of that as added security and left a loop in the wire at the masthead so there's no wire tugging at the connections. 9 months of continuous cruising later it still works like a charm. Lunasea definitely needs to start putting bigger wiring on these lights.

I don't recall exactly how I solved this when I installed my LunaSea tricolor (I think I used a step down connector), but the good news is that it has operated flawlessly for about 10 years now...

[PNWSalmon]

The practical sailor two part article is a goldmine of ideas. I found the dead end butt splice to be the easiest solution.

[thinwater]

Lots of good discussion, and there are certainly many solutions.



The MAIN thing is to keep the wires from moving. If the big wire tugs on the small wire anything will fail. Those LED leads are tiny. If everything can be kept still, they will last just fine.



Note that WAGO connectors have a minimum size, and I believe the OP's wires are below it.


Step down connectors are good. Soldering can be good. If you are in the field and have neither available, weave the small wire strands into the large wire, slip a crimp over it (from the small wire side), and mash. The small wire will be inside the larger wire crimp and will hardly affect the size. Then heat shrink for weather protection and support.

[rls8r]

Rather than jury-rig a step-down butt splice and/or soldering I think that I'd just use your existing 12 AWG wire to pull down a 16 AWG replacement. That would make using a step-down butt splice more feasible.

Another thing to consider is using a snap plug. I've found that the "male" and "female" ends of snap plugs are the same diameter - only the wire-crimp ends differ. Use a 22-18 AWG male and a 16 AWG female (or the other way 'round) and cover the connection with heat shrink (but not heating where the snap plug "snaps." This approach will allow easier replacement of the tricolor light if needed in the future.

[Pete7]

Faced with a similar problem extending our house telephone wires outside, I used some jellies. Raymarine supply them for some of their products.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/200Pcs-Wate...ps%2C80&sr=8-7

[intervivos]

1/4 spade/slide connectors should do the job, no? Here is a 22awg connecting to a 10awg, then put proper heat shrink around the whole thing. Sometime I build up the small wire side by putting on a small section of heat shrink, then one size up from that to build some girth, then a final over the whole thing.

[Pat_D]

I dud thus last week, but ran a 16 game. wire up the mast. Tripled the small wire and heat shrink butt connected. With heat shrink, then liquid tape. Seems atout.

[KeelsonGraham]

Google Wago connectors. They might do the job.

[Cari Laut]

Any time I’ve run into mix matched wire gauges, I just fold the smaller wire over and crimped it in the butt splice. Hasn’t failed me yet.

[Joe Okros]

As someone who did telecomms engineering in the 80's, I have soldered thousands of wires. My takeaway is that solder works just fine if done properly with tinned ends and appropriate insulation. The problems arose when they started lead-free soldering, I still have a roll of solder from the 80;s and it is night and day compared to modern products. Modern stuff requires all kinds of specific exotic fluxes for different applications most people would never even think about.

[BMD21]

Right or wrong, here’s what I do when I have a small wire to fit into a large crimp connector: fold the wire back on the stripped part so that one has a double thickness of stripped wire. I also will continue this doubling until I have a wire end that is large enough to crimp. Worked for years, since they started using those 22-26 ga wires.


Boris

[JohnHolland]

Possibly a small terminal block with threaded screws?
You could coat the wires with solder on deck them tighten them into the block and tape or shrink wrap

[abroadreachtrvl]

We had a similar issue with our LED anchor light, we have a 14-awg 5 conductor cable mast cable and 20-awg anchor light leads. I installed a waterproof junction box on the top of the masthead with a terminal strip inside. The anchor light attaches to the lid of the box. This also solved the problem of adapting the new light to the bolt pattern of the new light without extra holes in the mast.