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Tinned copper wire


Norwegian Blue

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Hi All,

 

Some of the wiring in Infiltrator needs to be replaced. Where is a good (cheap) place to buy tinned copper wire? It will probably pay to buy a 50 or 100m roll of the stuff and slowly redo everything. All electrics are low power: lights (mostly LED bulbs), instruments and radio. What gauge is best for that application?

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Some of my experiences from having gone through this process last year:

- you will use more than you expect, relative to the length of your boat, but a roll might be overkill

- probably better to blitz it than do it bit by bit. Once you have relocated sails, squabs, equipment etc round the cabin several times and jammed your head and shoulders into inaccessible corners

- unless you have real issues with the existing wiring, the time-and-effort-vs-reward ratio is not that great. Personally I would now tend to just fix what is broken.

 

Never found any amazing cheap suppliers - most of the chandleries seem to stock the BEP product at similar prices.

 

However W.T. did once post on having used Boeing aviation wire to save weight but I don't remember any sources being given up!

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Tinned wire is not cheap. If it is a small project and you really need cheap, non-tinned wire can be used (I heard the gasps) as long as you do a little extra work in sealing all the terminations properly. With tinned wire, it is not neccessary. Simply crimp and you are done. Sealing requires heatshrink and hotmelt glue and a bit of fiddling.

If you have any mates that are sparkies, they would be able to get some too. Tinned wire is not just for marine use and the ordinary sparkies can get it from the Electrical wholesalers. It may even be worth going and seeing a wholesaler. If you get really stuck, PM me.

As for current capacity, you only need .75mm for LED lighting and instruments. But you will need a bit of 2.5mm for the Radio, if you mean VHF. Same for water pump and bilge pumps.

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Thanks for the replies guys :thumbup:

 

To be honest, there is knot a lot of wiring, so I could redo it all in a day. Some of it wants re-routing as the current route makes no sense.

 

No water pumps. I have a VHF and FM radio. I would heat shrink joins even with tinned.

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As a FYI, I've recently wired the micro dwelling for 12V and LED lights. I used std household 1.5mm for the lighting circuits and got a 0.2V drop at the end of a 10-11mt run. That's after the power bug things get thru a big fuse by the batteries, a std boat fused switchboard and a std household light switch. The power I did in 2.5mm and the same drop over a slightly longer distance. That was measured when the 2 x 6V batts were joined into 12V and were a little below 1/2 charge.

 

At 1st I saw over a 6V drop but then realised, after a little head scratching, the difference between Series and Parallel when joining 2 6 volters together :? No wonder why I thought the lights seemed a bit soft for a wee while.

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At 1st I saw over a 6V drop but then realised, after a little head scratching, the difference between Series and Parallel when joining 2 6 volters together :? No wonder why I thought the lights seemed a bit soft for a wee while.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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If you are going to rewire - then do it right!

I have rewired a couple of my boats and used Aircraft Mil-spec wire (M22759/9/22) - yes its expensive but its fire proof and very low weight, doesnt chafe & half the diameter. Its easily available in N.Z.

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