Teeny Tiny Wire - Big Headache

[JPK]

Being so new here, I hate to disagree with a moderator but I have to at least put a big asterisk next to your comment. Someone who is very capable at soldering can surely produce a solid, reliable solder joint with very different wire gauges. However, I'll bet that most people (even those that think they know how to solder) will end up creating a solder joint that is far less reliable than a properly crimped and heat shrunk joint. I'd personally go with a good quality step-down butt connector. Do a pull test on it after crimping and then cover it with a double or triple-wall adhesive lined heat shrink and it'll be bomb-proof.

[FPNC]

Use an non-insulated parallel butt splice with a single crimp and then cover with heat shrink which has heat sealing glue on the inside wall.

[SomeGuyInaShirt]

Originally Posted by redsky49

I needed to replace my masthead anchor/tri-color assembly. Bought a fancy high tech LED unit. Time now to connect it and I am stumped. Cables running to masthead are 12g. Pigtail on new light is tiny. Really tiny. Smaller than the Hella fan wires. Smaller than my LED cabin lights. I'm talking really small.


There is no step-down crimp connector for this. Soldering (26 awg?) to 12g. looks extremely doubtful. Folding over the conductor 2 or 3 times and trying to crimp doesn't seem very professional or secure and there still is no appropriate butt connector for such a huge discrepancy in wire gauges.


What to do? TIA

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.

[redsky49]

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.

That is exactly the product I am struggling with. Thank you Lunasea (not!) And I am dealing with one wire gauge larger than you did (12 g.)



To be certain, I dug out my analog calipers to better ascertain wire sizes.


The 12 g. conductor sample shown measures 0.083" vs 0.081" nominal.
The 18 g. conductor sample shown measures 0.041" vs 0.045" nominal.
Both above wires are Ancor labeled.


The three leads from the Lunasea lamp are 0.018 - 0.019". They are difficult to measure accurately as the O.D. measuring jaws on my caliper are rather sharp and excessive pressure would certainly cut through such fine stranded wire. That puts the pigtail leads between 24 g. and 25 g, per AWG wiring standards. So, not terribly confidant on this measurement, but far more confidant that these are not 22 g. which is a nominal 0.025".


So, I am somewhat displeased with this entire arrangement, and with the manufacturer. For literally a few pennies they put their customers in a precarious position with no good solutions.


Now, please excuse me while I fume for a while

[JPK]

Another option to consider would be Weather Pack connectors. These give you the option to select the appropriate pin for each individual wire in the connector. You could put 12 ga. pins on one end of the connector and 24/22 ga pins on the other end of the connector and have a solid, weather-tight connection.

[Wotname]

If there is enough real estate on (or near) the mast head to fit a terminal strip in a small water tight enclosure and if the mast wires are long enough, then terminate the 12awg on the terminal strip.

Increase the gauge of the tiny wires to say 18awg (or even 20awg) (i.e. make pigtails) using a method of your choice and then terminate the pigtails to the terminal stip.

Me- I would solder the tiny wires to 20awg pigtails.

Use lots of dual wall heat shrink and secure well.

[Jammer]

Well, from 12 gauge to 24 gauge, there are few good solutions.

A problem is that while technically 22 gauge can be terminated with the red crimp terminals, which are supposed to fit 18-22 awg, it is difficult to achieve a reliable connection in practice. 24 gauge isn't supported by any readily available ring terminals, that I'm aware of, and if it were it would not use the same crimp tools we use for everything else.

As I wrote upthread, in reality, I believe this is a good application for solder, but as other posters point out you do have to know what you're doing.

A crimp cap would be one choice: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-...090N/301610048 - I am not sure whether those use the same crimping tools as terminals or not. While they are listed only to size 22 I would imagine they would work OK with 24 and 12 stranded..

WAGO Lever-nuts are not wire nuts and so I suppose are allowed by the ABYC. Some will support a 12 AWG to 24 AWG splice, see for example 221-412.

[wyb2]

Anyone ever use those low-temp solder connectors?

https://a.co/d/gHsb13X
(Random Amazon listing, no thoughts about the specific brand)

Seems like they could accommodate a larger range of sizes than crimping.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by wyb2

Anyone ever use those low-temp solder connectors?

https://a.co/d/gHsb13X
(Random Amazon listing, no thoughts about the specific brand)

Seems like they could accommodate a larger range of sizes than crimping.

I have used them and I am not a fan. I can solder, trained professionally high reliability soldering, soldered thousands wires and so on.

IMHO, these produce low quality solder joints in the hands of the experienced and very low quality solder joints in the hands of the inexperienced.

OK when needs must but not as a goto item.

[wyb2]

Originally Posted by Wotname

I have used them and I am not a fan. I can solder, trained professionally high reliability soldering, soldered thousands wires and so on.

IMHO, these produce low quality solder joints in the hands of the experienced and very low quality solder joints in the hands of the inexperienced.

OK when needs must but not as a goto item.

That makes sense.

I can sort of solder, no training, probably soldered a grand total of 40 or 50 wires in my life. So for me, taking the place of a quality solder job was never really a risk.

That said, I don’t really use them either as heat-shrink crimp connectors seem faster and easier, and already have a good reputation.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by wyb2

That makes sense.

I can sort of solder, no training, probably soldered a grand total of 40 or 50 wires in my life. So for me, taking the place of a quality solder job was never really a risk.

That said, I don’t really use them either as heat-shrink crimp connectors seem faster and easier, and already have a good reputation.

I have occasionally popped out the solder sleeve and used the remaining plastic sleeve as environmentally sealed heat shrink sleeve. Not as good as dual walled heat shrink but better than standard heat shrink and already cut to size!

[wholybee]

May I ask the manufacturer of this lamp so I can avoid it? Having run into this with other boat specific products, I'm not a fan to support it. Another similar peeve of mine is too short leads requiring a bilge pump to have a crimp under water. Freaking stupid.

Anyway, is there a way to disassemble the thing and replace the leads with something more practical? Have you contacted the manufacturer?

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Jammer

...A crimp cap would be one choice: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-...090N/301610048 - I am not sure whether those use the same crimping tools as terminals or not. While they are listed only to size 22 I would imagine they would work OK with 24 and 12 stranded....

Ideal/Buchanan splice cap crimp terminals use a Buchanan C24 Crimp Tool [hexagonal, 4 indents].

[JoeRobertJr]

Originally Posted by wyb2

Anyone ever use those low-temp solder connectors?

https://a.co/d/gHsb13X
(Random Amazon listing, no thoughts about the specific brand)

Seems like they could accommodate a larger range of sizes than crimping.

Like Wotname, I was not impressed. I find it difficult to get the solder hot enough to melt while not scorching the insulation. I have a box, and have used them a few times, but I don't really like the results. I get better results with crimp/shrink when the wires are large enough. For tiny wires, I've been soldering then covering with enough shrink for support.

[team karst]

12AWG for an anchor lamp? Has a stability analysis been done on this aloft weight? OK, just kidding, but AWG16 makes much more sense, and I would use a 24AWG crimp ferrule on the lamp, and same, but larger for the up/wires. This way, you can use a euro terminal strip and be able someday to replace the masthead light without torches, heatguns, or soldering irons. This is what I do for the similarly small NMEA2000 cable.