Re-wiring: Tinned or not. Also cabin lights...

[Weyalan]

Since I am doing so much stripping out below decks on the good ship Insatiable I will take the opportunity to re-wire some.

I have had conflicting opinions as to whether one should used tinned wire. I don't know much about the habits of electrons, so I would appreciate any advice.

Also, am thinking of replacing most of the below decks lighting. Currently the lighting is all flourescent tubes - presumably because they typicall draw less current than conventinal lighting. But (a) flourescent lighting is not very "warm", and (b) flourescent lights have, I am told, a detrimental effect on the performance of your radios.

So, the question is, what to replace the flouros with? Are the "new" diffused LED array lights worth the expense? Obviously, they drw very little current, but they are quite expensive and I am not sure how "harsh" the light is. Are there any other options that are worth considering? All advice gratefully received...

[GordMay]

There are no informed "...conflicting opinions as to whether one should used tinned wire ..."
Disregard all electrical advice from anyone who suggests you don't want tinned wire.

[captjohn360]

i have been looking for led cabin lights for over three years now.ive tried lots of them,made my own and still was not satisfied. they were huge clusters and a aweful color,not to mention expensive. than at the boat show">miami boat show i found it. i tried two to replace my 10 w halogens and the were brighter and lit the whole salon. i could fit them in the fixtures also. they are called sensi bulb www.sensibulb.com i just ordered a dozen to replace all my hallogen lights.....jt

[Rick]

Gord is correct about using only tinned wire on your boat. The aircraft industry has used tinned wire for decades as well....for a good reason.

On one trip I left Florida for the windward islands and had various coils of spare wire aboard stored in a dry area. After 6 weeks I discovered that a roll of untinned wire had the copper strands blackened throughout its length. What surprised me was that apparently the jacketing was not impervious to the moisture in the air. The tinned wire was all fine regardless of the jacketing ratings. Naturally the problem would have been worse had the ends of the wires come in contact with salt water and, in that case, ONLY the tinned wire has any chance of protecting the copper strands from degradation.

I have had good success with some Doctor LED products which can be purchased with varying degrees of "warmness". One note, though, the "pure" very white clusters give you the best advantage at inspecting detail and observing color. The warm ones, according to a conversation that I had in person with "Dr LED" himself, seem to appeal to females for some reason.

Check out this link for more info:
http://www.doctorled.com/

Regards,
Rick

[southernman]

in the process at the moment of rewiring a friends yacht that has just finished a circumnavigation. Interestingly they did not use tinned wire in the original installation in various places thorughout the boat. You would be surprised at the condition of it after 25 years of use - generally very good condition. Their were parts that were not in good condition but overall the standard wiring stood up well to 25 years of life at sea. A lot depends on the installation and exposure to sea water and air in my experience. If you have a good watertight boat and you install wiring up in the forward cabin in a conduct and seal the connections well I don't see a problem. On this yacht they used tinned wiring for critical parts like nav lights etc.

My laptop has been on our boat now for 3 years and still going strong as have many standard house hold applicances that are still all going and this is on a yacht that gets used - it does not sit in a marina. I guess it depends on the boat. Genearlly the bigger the yacht and the more it is used and therefore aired the less chance of salt air/water gettting into everything.

[By Invitation]

Listen to Gord May about the tinned wire, don't use anything else.

For lighting, I would highly suggest you check out Alpenglow. http://alpenglowlights.com/

I purchased 5 of these lights for our main cabin, my wife and I love then, love the light output and the quality of light and the option of having them all put out red light is really nice.

[Weyalan]

Thanks for all the info guys. I'll be going with tinned wire, I reckon! Thanks also for the suggestions for the different types of lights as well. It is a bit of a quandary, because I don't have a big budget at the moment...but it can be a false economy to put in a "chaep" solution, when spending a bit more money will probably cost less in the longer term.

[southernman]

on a superyacht today well not quite a superyacht but 80 feet. Interestingly the switchboard is not being done in tinned wire. Speaking to the sparky he said they again only use tinned wire for 'critical' applications such as engine bays, outside, up the mast etc. His feeling was that non tinned was fine for dry areas that are enclosed. This is not the golden rule for all installations he had done but most of the big stuff the cost got out of hand and in most cases they utilised industrial DC switching equipment anyhow.

It doesn't sway me - my yacht is wired in tinned wiring.

[Lakbay dagat]

Tinned wire isthe only way for a marine enviorment. Electons tend to travel on the circumferance of the wire and if you use non-tinned wire it corrodes around the surface thus reducing the voltage by increasing the resistance of the wire which as you know will lower the voltage at the site of use.

I use a product called no-ox which helps prevent corrsion at the connections been happy with this for 8 years now. No-ox is much like never seize to your nuts and bolts

[GordMay]

Lakbay dagat is probably referring to “Noalox” (Ideal Industries), which is an excellent anti-oxidant compound.
Burndy’s “Penetrox” is a heavier compound, less subject to “running’, and GB’s “Ox-Gard” is probably the most ubiquitous in the retail market.
All are excellent.
Use only tinned type III wire!

[Lakbay dagat]

Gorf,
You're I found the bottle and it's noalox.

[Alan Wheeler]

Amsoil also have a spray can product that is excellent at protecting connectors etc. Umm, in regards to electrons flowing on the outer layer of the wire, that is only true for very high frequencies, way up in the RF ranges and Microwave etc. To DC and any frequencies in voltage ranges we would normally be involved in, the electrons flow through the entire cable area. Otherwise, we would have to have much bigger diameter cables to handle the current flow. Plus, we may as well have the cable hollow and save wire, thus money. The tarnish on the outside of the cable is another phenom.. phynom... phynomin....weird thing altogether. Often it is seen on one polarity. I can never remember which one. But it is a electrolosys type corrosion that is drawn along the wire via the flow of electrons and has something to do with the insulation. It was explained to me by one of the "rocket scientist" guy's once, but my eyes glazed over. Once you get it, it will be found from one end to the other and it will tarnish the copper in such a way, that you can not effectively clean it. It is the one major reason why Tinned copper cable should be used in a marine application.

[phorvati]

I would not go with non tinned wire. There's too many pics of boats on fire that I've seen. And i also had a smoked up ignition wire in the engine room the first year I bought the boat. Read up on some of the issues here, and if you don't have it get Nigel Calders book.
http://www.yachtsurvey.com/ElectricalSystems.htm

[Intentional Drifter]

After reading this, as well as what Calder had to say, it would seem to just be good sense to spend the extra money and go with tinned. Lord knows there are plenty of things that can go wrong as it is, why ask for another. But, how can we know what boat manufacturers use? This doesn't seem to be something that most production boat builders specifically indicate. Should I assume that if they don't say, that they are not using tinned? Do ABYC and CE standards dictate that they shall?

Thanks.

ID

[GordMay]

Use only Tinned Type III Fine Strand Marine Wire (UL 1426, BC-5W2).

Excerpted from: “SUMMARY OF TESTING CRIMP SPLICES “
http://www.goodoldboat.com/electrical.html

WHY TEST?
After reading Gord May's article ("Ohm's law and You" published in the March/April 2002 edition of Good Old Boat Magazine *), I was concerned about the high resistance splices he mentioned. These were "old" splices which he said could have a resistance of as much as .01 to .03 Ohms per splice. I've seen old wiring from boats in salt water service where the wire had disintegrated completely and the splice fell apart in my hands. Having seen splices turn to powder, I had reason to believe that such high resistance splices might actually exist ...

... The splices made with adhesive lined heat shrink tubing did not perform significantly better than splices sealed with the liquid vinyl, and in fact the sealed samples did not perform that much better than the unsealed sample in the corrosion test. The fact that all of those samples were made with tinned wire may have made the effects of sealing the terminals difficult to see ...

... The sample made from untinned wire, not dressed with Vaseline before the crimps, and having cheap GB terminals made with a cheap non-ratcheting crimper and with unsealed splices was significantly worse then all others. (A combination of the low end of all the alternatives.) This sample began to deteriorate as soon as it was made, having a noticeably higher resistance from the start, It went downhill from there, even during the time it spent in a (relatively) clean dry basement before the corrosion test. After the corrosion test this sample ran hot in the voltage drop test, which takes only a few seconds ...

CONCLUSION
In my opinion most of the practices recommended in Gord May's article were verified in these tests. Ratcheting crimpers are clearly superior. Ancor marine grade butt splices (both types) are clearly superior to GB butt splices. Tinned wire resisted corrosion better than untinned wire. Sealing the splices did not show much better in these tests, but it is probably a fault of the tests, not a fault of the practice ...

*“Ohm’s Law & Boats”
http://cruisersforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=372

For a quick cable chart, Goto:
Amp/Ft.1: http://cruisersforum.com/photopost//...php?photo=1321
Amp/Ft.2: http://cruisersforum.com/photopost//...php?photo=1322
or:
3% Drop Table: http://cruisersforum.com/photopost//...php?photo=1850

and for the published article tutorial, Goto “Ohm’s Law & You”:
http://cruisersforum.com/photopost//...php?photo=1315
http://cruisersforum.com/photopost//...php?photo=1316
or
http://cruisersforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=372

Electrical Formulae Wheel: http://cruisersforum.com/photopost//...php?photo=1693

“Excerpts from ABYC Standards”
http://cruisersforum.com/showthread....&threadid=1471