Re: Boat Wiring
I don't know if my response is going to cause a bunch of controversy, but don't spend the money on marine grade wiring. Goto an electronics shop that sells braded copper wire in the gauge you need (for battery wiring and such, goto somewhere that sells car amplifier wiring and get the good 4 guage stuff). 16 guage is good for most stuff under 10amps. For something like a power tilt/trim unit use 12 guage. For the rest low current stuff (like voltage guages, speakers, stereo head unit, lights, etc) you can use 18 gauge wire without any problems. The only thing I would recommend is either measure and figure out the lengths of wire you need or buy the rolls, and get different colours.<br /><br />From there layout the wires you need to run, and use a single length of heat shrink tube to bundle them together. Leave about 6" or more wire sticking out either end and heat up the first 2" of the heat shrink tube, leaving the rest the way you bought it. You may need to create more than one harness. From there if you need to splice two wires together DO NOT solder them. Use crimp connectors, making sure you crimp the wires REALLY good, and make sure you have more heat shrink (enough to cover the connector) put over the wire you're connecting and finish it off by covering the connector with the heat shrink and shrinking. For the ends, to attatch to different things, if they have spade connectors on them, use the female spade connector to make the connection. If you have to connect two peices of wire on something like lights and such, use a female and male connector so they can easily be disconnected. The male end ALWAYS goes on the hot side of the connection (usually the harness side). Try and use the coloured insulated connectors and crimps if at all possible.<br /><br />You can probably also get away with soldering some things but solder tends to work harden quite easily over time and you'll end up with bad connections. Also if you can, use terminal blocks where appropriate, makes troubleshooting and adding in goodies after the fact really easy. Most importantly though, take your time and do this job right, you don't want any shorted wires, or bad connections anywhere. You may want to invest in a fuse block also.<br /><br />And just to qualify me saying that you don't need to bother using marine grade wiring, well I've been building bikes for years, they are all out in the elements as much as any boat, and seeing that I build rigids (no rear suspension) the wiring is beat up just as bad and I've NEVER had a wiring problem once. Just please don't use solid wire or the silver stuff, that silver stuff will corrode faster then you can say "whoops".
Invest in a good soldering iron as well, the less time you can keep the heat on the wire and your connection, the less chance there will be that it will become brittle.
