Best Practice for electirical wiring ??

[Bulletproof]

This is my crimping tool and it has a range of .5 to 10mm and it will give no trouble.



Notice how solid it is, most crimping tools are toys.

After crimping heat shrink and thats it forever.

Cheers Richard

[vvega]

nice utilux
i have 3 rachet style ones ..
and a massive one for doing battery cables

one for insulated terminals

one of un insulated terminals

one for pin terminals .. all utilux

[tweake]

trying to seal wire from capillary action corrosion is silly ... you just simply cant do it without the proper connectors

i beg to differ

what sort of connectors do you reckon you need?
why doesn't solder stop it?

[vvega]

Juging by your answer .. you don't know what it is .. go hit google up
Its the reason water damaged cars have to have there saftey system wiring replaced. It sucks water up inbetween the insulation and the wire.....hence why solder is nothing to do with it solder just makes it a solid core and brittle

Any hermatically sealed conector ... normailly just mil spec stuff

[darinz]

When the joint has been crimped, then soldered and then covered with the glue type heat shrink, where does the water get in via capilary action??

And the crimping tools we use are top end comercial ones not Supercheap Auto specials.

And using what car makers do as a guide for what we should do is plain stupid! They are interested in a car reaching the end of warranty period and if it goes under water you must replace the loom. We want something that will handle water imersion without damage.

I agree 100% that a solder join is going to be more prone to breaking than a crimple join BUT a solder joint with real heat shrink is resistent to capilary action which is far more important when you put it under water all the time.

Horses for courses.

[tweake]

the solder is not there to stop water going up under the sleeve.

a lot of people heat shrink (or use the waterproofing heat shrink) but the end of the wire is still exposed to the elements.

in my humble experience most connections fail at either the connection point (whatever they connect to, ie nut, other terminal) or the at the crimp. that usually fails well before the actual cable fails.
typically the crimps fail from corrosion causing poor connection which causes it to heat up. i used to see it quite a bit in 240volt cables.

i'm a little bit fussy and always looking to do things better.

[vvega]

When the joint has been crimped, then soldered and then covered with the glue type heat shrink, where does the water get in via capilary action??

And the crimping tools we use are top end comercial ones not Supercheap Auto specials.

And using what car makers do as a guide for what we should do is plain stupid! They are interested in a car reaching the end of warranty period and if it goes under water you must replace the loom. We want something that will handle water imersion without damage.

I agree 100% that a solder join is going to be more prone to breaking than a crimple join BUT a solder joint with real heat shrink is resistent to capilary action which is far more important when you put it under water all the time.

Horses for courses.

the glue type dose'nt seal
i was just giving you what is the taught best practice at tech for auto sparky s
if you think you know better than established and developed methods... well then that's your call to make .
boat wiring its also covered under this .. hence why i mentioned mill spec connectors .. its how we used to do the underwater transponders on the oil rig rams .. and there still working just fine in salt water with no issues for 3 years now .. so im quite confident that my taught method works and is well tested

it wasent a attack and im sorry that you disagree put keep ya pantys on aye .. people have been doing this shit for years and there is a established practice

[rangimotors]

surely you guys have to see the funny side of this, obviously several of us have been joining wires for many years in what i'd call high risk applications, we all use a slightly different method, we will all argue that our method is the best and why its better than somone elses but i haven't seen anyone say that there method has failed yet so why would we bother changing how we do things?
Maybe one way is slightly better than the other but if none of them fail (for ourselves or customers) then how do you ever prove which is best?
The only conclusion i can draw is that all methods discussed are acceptable and that is is far more important to do a quality job (which ever method uses) than it is to argue about which one is best.

Its very hard to sit behind a computer and tell someone how to do a job because my version of an acceptable solder joint maybe completley differenct to someone elses.

As with everything we do, have a crack at it as best you can, if it fails find out why and make it stronger, bigger, better and faster

[UBZ]

surely you guys have to see the funny side of this, obviously several of us have been joining wires for many years in what i'd call high risk applications, we all use a slightly different method, we will all argue that our method is the best and why its better than somone elses but i haven't seen anyone say that there method has failed yet so why would we bother changing how we do things?
Maybe one way is slightly better than the other but if none of them fail (for ourselves or customers) then how do you ever prove which is best?
The only conclusion i can draw is that all methods discussed are acceptable and that is is far more important to do a quality job (which ever method uses) than it is to argue about which one is best.

Its very hard to sit behind a computer and tell someone how to do a job because my version of an acceptable solder joint maybe completley differenct to someone elses.

As with everything we do, have a crack at it as best you can, if it fails find out why and make it stronger, bigger, better and faster

Well said. i agree completely

[rokhound]

x 2 to the power of a hundred!

[tweake]

As with everything we do, have a crack at it as best you can, if it fails find out why and make it stronger, bigger, better and faster

absolutely

however even when you work in a trade, you simply never come across those failures. hence why you can get badly made gear and they can truthfully say they have never seen it fail.

had the same thing with mechanics. a known problem with a certain vehicle but even the dealers have never had one come in with that fault before.
even those in the trades simply only see a very small sample of whats out there.

this is why Internet and forums is so fantastic, you get to hear about the problems a lot more.
i just wish more people in the trades would report back on faults and fixes a lot more.

[Bulletproof]

Getting back to your landrover.

Landrovers have a lot of screwed joints like the lucus regulator , junction boxes and switchs etc.

In the trucking we would always solder the end of the wire before screwing it in but all crimped fittings we would never solder because they become too rigid and break.

A common problem with solder is a dry joint and it is a pain to isolate and find.

Cheers Richard

[Flyingpony]

As you can image for any 40 plus vehicle, the wiring spans multiple decades.

Has an alternator so no lucus regulator.

Trailer wiring is a brilliant idea. Don't know if their amps rating is sufficient for the wiring I'm replacing - 15-25amp. But the idea of trailer wiring is a good one and if their amp's rating is right, I'll run a couple lengths from front to rear during the rewire and have a few spare for gadgets.

I'll check out the stores and ideas mentioned.

Thanks.