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WARNING Chinese Wire


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I think I may have posted this before but with one of our lights having just started not working, the nightmare has begun replacing 15m of FAKE wire! I thought we had got it all but apparently not! Bought this garbage sh!t 3 years ago from David's Emporium, yes I know, you get what you pay for... It looked OK, 10amp but the insulation was very thick then when stripping the wire it came away far too easily and the wire inside very very thin. Now the cruncher! It's copper coated steel! The moment it sees a soldering iron, the copper dissapears !!

Anyone want 15m of two core wire?

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Did 'David's Emporium' offer a refund or anything?

Most marine retailers (infact most retailers full stop) have loyalty cards / systems you can use to prove purchases that are fairly old these days.

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Bought it a long time ago, about 3 years and crimped in quite a bit before I tried soldering some, thats when I discovered the wire is fake. Decided to leave the other crap in as it was working but as of late, the wire is stuffed. Now ALL yanked out and replaced with proper marine grade tinned cable. It's was a learning curve guys...I've learnt!

20181109_173610.jpg

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In NZ you are legally required to use cable that meets AS/NZS 5000.1 or equivalent. But no-one ever checks an un-surveyed boat.

Legally required? How does that work given 12v systems are not a legal requirement and as an owner you can do what you like? Maybe for 240v installations? Just wondering...

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Sorry DrW, thats not quite right. AS-NZS-3004-2-2014 does not differentiate between private and commercial vessels, and says

 

"5000 Electric cables—Polymeric insulated
5000.1 Part 1: For working voltages up to and including 0.6/1 (1.2) kV"
 
and
 
6.1 SELECTION OF CABLES FOR MARINE ENVIRONMENT
Cables shall conform to AS 60092.350 or AS/NZS 5000.1.
The conductors used in cables shall be annealed copper with cross-sectional area, stranding
and conductivity conforming to Class 2 or Class 5 of IEC 60228 or AS/NZS 1125.
The use of solid conductors (single wire) and the use of aluminium conductors is not
permitted.
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Legally required? How does that work given 12v systems are not a legal requirement and as an owner you can do what you like? Maybe for 240v installations? Just wondering...

My interpretation is its 'compliance with a standard illegal', not 'robbing a bank illegal'.

 

I would call one 'non-compliant' and the other 'illegal'.

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The problem with non compliant is that you would likely be uninsured if it came to the attention of your insurer.

Which is a little different to being imprisoned for committing an illegal act.

 

I've no problem with using the right spec of wire, and communicating that to the the wider boating community. Its just the term 'illegal' for using the wrong type of wire doesn't match my understanding of the modern lexicon for 'illegal'. I don't consider non-complaint to be illegal, its just non-complaint. Murder, fraud, robbing a bank is illegal. The wrong wire on your boat is just non-complaint.

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Knowingly endangering the lives of others. A wilfull act of criminal negligence. Fish is right. No difference to wiring up your car and running a 100w amp off speaker wire with no fuse...difficult to prove negligence should it result in injury or death unless the person who did so could be proven to have had the knowledge that it had the potential to harm. I think a fire traced back to badly installed or low grade wiring, any insurer is going to use that as an excuse.

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