Crimp Tool Recommendations

VicMallows said:
I still can't help feeling we get a little bit too obsessed with electrical connections on our boats. If your house is over-say- ten years old I bet if you check every power socket-outlet you will find at least one wire which just 'falls' out with no persuasion. Do you loose sleep about that? ..... but potentially far more dangerous if it happens to be the socket you plug that 3kW device into.
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As Nigel says, my house doesn't move, vibrate, flex, and have wiring running through spaces that I throw heavy objects into. Also, that 3kw device at 240v only draws 12.5 amps. On the boat, even my electric dinghy pump draws twice that. The windlass is over six times as much. Because of the lower voltage, everything draws far more current (20 times more for the same power, obviously) and it's the current that heats up terminals, starts fires, etc.

Not to mention, in the final reckoning if your house catches fire you can always stand outside and call the fire brigade.

Pete
 
As mentioned above boats vibrate and houses don't (usually). Houses also have ring mains making them more tolerant of certain fault types. It is also recommended that certain property types are tested regularly to find and fix wiring faults including loose terminals in sockets.

Back in the 70s when I was a student; I did a work placement with a marine switchgear company. Every panel manufactured was inspected in detail by Lloyd's. Each terminal had to be double nutted or fitted with spring washers. Bare copper bus bars had to be painted or chrome plated. The inspector was (reputedly) within their rights to require a complete strip down and rebuild if they found a single washer missing. However, RBY terminals were perfectly acceptable so long as a suitable crimping tool was used.

Of course vibration in a Blue Circle concrete mixing ship is rather greater than on a small pleasure boat but the principle has always seemed a good one to follow.
 
JohnGC said:
Houses also have ring mains making them more tolerant of certain fault types..
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Sorry, but must take issue with that statement. I would consider the ring main as intrinsically fault INTOLERANT because it is based on diversity of load. If the ring becomes broken at any point the cabling may become underrated for the current it is required to supply on that side of the break. In a domestic installation there is no way of knowing if such a break in the ring has occurred without testing which is quite a palaver.

The ring-main was conceived in the 1950's as a way of saving money on (expensive) copper wire when wiring houses. Back then high wattage items such as electric heaters were far more prevalent (and suggestions were made that nuclear power would be so cheap that it would not need to be metered!!). The ring-main is rare outside the UK and I for one would not would not choose to wire a house with one today.
 
VicMallows said:
Sorry, but must take issue with that statement. I would consider the ring main as intrinsically fault INTOLERANT because it is based on diversity of load. If the ring becomes broken at any point the cabling may become underrated for the current it is required to supply on that side of the break. In a domestic installation there is no way of knowing if such a break in the ring has occurred without testing which is quite a palaver.

The ring-main was conceived in the 1950's as a way of saving money on (expensive) copper wire when wiring houses. Back then high wattage items such as electric heaters were far more prevalent (and suggestions were made that nuclear power would be so cheap that it would not need to be metered!!). The ring-main is rare outside the UK and I for one would not would not choose to wire a house with one today.
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You should note that I said "certain fault types". For low load currents, a socket adjacent to one with a loose connection will not be subject to brown-outs. I was not advocating using ring wiring for a boat (or anywhere else). I simply wished to reinforce Nigel's point that boats are different to houses when it comes to wiring. That is why I went on to give the Loyd's inspector example for marine switchgear.

Mind you, I think your point is interesting.

But we all have our pet issues - I have always disliked the colloquial term "wattage";)

Note to self; must stop drifting and get back to work!
 
nigelmercier said:
For the eBay pneumatic tool terminals, I'm looking at these:

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/level5/module.jsp?moduleId=cpc/640410.xml

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/578099.pdf

Any thoughts?
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Davico is decent stuff and I use quite a bit, however some of their lug teminals have no bell mouth, this is by no means a quality problem, but, a bell mouth makes insertion of the strands much easier without risk of strays, makes a much smoother transition to the insulation leaving no "VPL" under the heatshrink and reduces the risk of strands fraying against the tube under flex. For that reason I favour these. http://www.cablecraft.co.uk/copper-tube-terminals-heavy-duty-range.html
 
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