NASA Electrical Connection Standards

[ausnoelm]

That cable looks completely shot, you will find it black for a long way either side of the join, why not just make new cables without the join??

[Jason2tpa]

Well it looks like you got some more work to do. From looking at the pictures you probably have corrosion wicked up the cables from the splices. So hopefully you got enough slack to cut it back until you find good wire.

If it were mine I would use crimped butt conectors and solder after crimping. Then weather proof heat shrink over the joint.

Problem is the crimper required to do a decent job on big crimps like that. If you where home with the cable you could do a DIY with a vise, hammer and punch. Then solder to fill in any voids. But you need to do aboard your boat.

The heat shrink needs to be good quality with sealing adhesive inside it to make it truly waterproof. 3m makes very good heat shrink ( same stuff used on aircraft) and is not cheap. If you go to a electronic/electric supply store you can get it plenty cheaper than a marine store.

As for that self sealing silicone tape I would stay away from that. We call that triangle tape or USAF F4 tape. It has its purposes ( we tape up cannon plugs with it mostly) but in that area where your are working heat shrink with built-in adhesive would work best.

Its possible one of the chain auto stores that lend tools has a heavy duty crimper. Because as you pointed out, im confined to crimping near the boat. 2nd option is trying to borrow one from a auto mechanic shop.

Luckily there is about 3-4ft of slack for both pos and neg. Should be good wire 1-2ft above current connection.

I didn't know they made a heat shrink with bulit in adhesive. Ive only used the bare tube. Good to know, ill look for this to use.

[pstephens46]

Quite a few online companies offer custom length cables with various connectors installed. No idea of the quality.

[Jason2tpa]

My local marine supply/service store allowed me to borrow their heavy duty crimmpers. Cut out the old connections along with 1' of wire on each side, then butt spliced back together. Hooked the terminals up to battery, meter tested volts engine side. 12.75v.

Used the adhesive heat shrink, 2 over each connection, top overlapping bottom. Finished it up with light coverage of liquid electric tape.

[FabricGATOR]

If you have the black death (strand corrosion) think of it like this:
Imagine that all those black coated strands are tubes to carry fluid.
The internal of the coated wire will conduct, but the black is an insulator. So there is a great probability that only the copper strands on the outside that contact the new crimp are carrying current.

You need to find a way to get all strands bright and shiny so that all the strands are conducting as one complete copper cross section. 15 to 20 28gauge wires does not equate to the cross section of a 4/0 wire (that is my estimation based on your pictures) You probably have your batteries in the console.

I just replaced the Yamaha battery wire because of the black death. The factory wire cost $140 for about 6 feet of two wire 6 gauge that is not tinned copper. I replaced all the battery wiring with Ancor tinned copper, Ancor tinned and end sealed terminals, and the Ancor glue seal heat shrink. I even encapsulated the exposed neck with a little dielectric grease prior to heat shrink.

I sure would love to see that NASA tutorial.

[FabricGATOR]

PM sent to Jason2tpa

[Jason2tpa]

PM sent to Jason2tpa

I emailed you the weblink.

[gtreanto]

I picked up one of these last year. Had to pull my windlass and cut the connections. After the rebuild had to crimp the new connection. Small price to pay, plus I always look at the do-it yourself projects as a way to buy a new tool. It also came in handy when re-routing my Ducati ST3 battery cable. Before the re-route you had to spend 45 minutes taking all the fairings off to jump start or disconnect the battery..