Manky Electrics..... Tips

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Turbonic

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Hello,
Quick question about aged electrics.

I've discovered that my boat had 40 years worth of grot, and green wiring. I am working my way through it also to remove that redundant circuits and bring some sense back to the circuits.

Questions:
1: is there a magical spray that will remove the verdigris on connectors in situ - think dirty contacts on quick blow fuses etc.
2: does anyone know of solder/heatshrink spade connectors (you see a lot on ebay for butt connectors but no bullets/spades)
3: is there a conformal coating that can be used after clean up.
4: do people run wires in conduit or just in wire bundles?

Thanks,
Niic
 
Hello Niic

My deepest sympathy, I had a 35 year old boat and it has taken me three years of work to sort out the electrics.
  1. I know of no magical spray, I ripped everything out and started again. Amazing the number of wire runs that have nothing on the end of them;
  2. There are a few specialist online shops, I like 12 Volt Planet others are available. If you near the west country, I'm Devon based, BBL Batteries | Battery Specialist | South West | Next Day Delivery | Local Delivery are brilliant;
  3. Not sure what you mean by comfort coating , I just had a large single malt at the end of each day; and
  4. Your boat do what you want.
Good luck with the job.
 
1: None I know of, we replaced cables that had heavy verdigris on them as it travels back up under the insulating plastic/pvc coatings and makes them liable to breakage. (I worked for Decca Radar a long time ago!)
2: Parnells or RS components have them I tend only to use crimp connectors on cars, I havn't worked on boats in a good while, and am no longer sure of what standards apply.
3: ? If you embed/encapsulate your cables in some coating could that not make them more difficult to replace if one fails?
4: Trays rather than conduits, but again it depends on what you are protecting them from. If you do use conduits remember to leave a pull trace in it so you can pull extra wires through if needed
 
Turbonic said:
Questions:
1: is there a magical spray that will remove the verdigris on connectors in situ - think dirty contacts on quick blow fuses etc.
2: does anyone know of solder/heatshrink spade connectors (you see a lot on ebay for butt connectors but no bullets/spades)
3: is there a conformal coating that can be used after clean up.
4: do people run wires in conduit or just in wire bundles?
Click to expand...

  • 1: No
  • 2: Don't use the solder type. Use insulated crimps and ratchet crimpers. The ones in post #9 are OK, but for most application normal insulated crimps are fine.
  • 3: Normally no need to put anything on terminals, but silicon grease or contralube can be used if there is a risk off moisture.
  • 4: Run them in whatever you want/is appropriate. Properly supported bundles work well in most cases, conduit or trunking can also be used. Conduit is especially useful where wiring runs though inaccessible areas. If using conduit don't tape or cable tie bundles of wires together before passing through the conduit.
 
Chappie down the road from me swears be overnight immersion in Coca Cola to restore all his old electrical bits, seems to bring em up nice and shiny.
 
KompetentKrew said:
My boat has conduit similar to this. Are you defining that as "trunking"?
Click to expand...

You have trunking, this is conduit:

Electrical-Conduits.jpg
 
When I did this, the wiring to the cabin lighting, saloon, heads and forecabin, disappeared behind the moulded GRP head liner and refused to be pulled through. I ended up accepting defeat and re-used these old wires, despite them being the smallest possible twin pair bell wire - now thoroughly brown . The change to low current LED lighting seems to have done the trick - it's all still working after some five years!
 
If you use tinned cable the problem is unlikely to be anywhere near as bad in the future. Untinned cable + salt water + electrickery = guaranteed problems.

Spiral binding is usually better and more practical for short local runs. imo trunking for longer /more fret-prone or un-interrupted runs needs to be of generous size and permanent mousing lines carefully retained.
 
A few applications of contact cleaner and a tooth brush will get a lot of crud off...

Then you will have a better than even chance of following wires with a multimeter connected to a long lead with a mini crocodile clip, cut out all redundant cabling and replace as you go for stuff that is needed.

If the cables are crap pull them out but I found that much of my original cables were perfect but newer bits and pieces were in rag order..

After I took off most of the old rubbish from my panel I found that the connectors and contacts switched fuses etc were all in very good condition,

with Led bulbs the loads are much lighter so I was happy with some small buzz-bars added to the original fusing so it is all much neater and was very stable this year despite much too-ing and froing with additional chargers etc
 
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