Tinned 2.5mm 3 Core MAINS cable.

To be honest there are lots of people saying to use tinned wire on a boat but my 40 year old boat has untinned cables throughout and they all still work. Are you planning to keep your current boat for longer than 40 years? If not, do as everyone else, use standard copper cables.
 
Concerto said:
To be honest there are lots of people saying to use tinned wire on a boat but my 40 year old boat has untinned cables throughout and they all still work. Are you planning to keep your current boat for longer than 40 years? If not, do as everyone else, use standard copper cables.
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Corrosion in almost all the cabling I removed from my GH project except the domestic solid wire used for the lighting circuits I have retained, partly because they run all around the deck beams and through bulkheads - would take hours to remove and replace neatly.

We stripped the heavy battery cabling to recycle the copper and were amazed at how much corrosion there was. almost all the multistrand 1.5 and 2.5 in the 12v circuits were corroded at terminals and connections.
 
The boat in question in not my boat, I simply seek to give the owner best advice and a price. I have a reasonable amount of electrical experience gained over nearly 50years on the technical side of the event industry including installation work, some of it on ships and poolside. That reminds me that they sometimes used HOFR (Heat Oil and Fire Resistant) cable which was I think tinned.

Concerto said:
To be honest there are lots of people saying to use tinned wire on a boat but my 40 year old boat has untinned cables throughout and they all still work. Are you planning to keep your current boat for longer than 40 years? If not, do as everyone else, use standard copper cables.
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As stated, not my boat. I am not talking about internal cables, although enough were badly corroded on the small boat I had.If I was to rewire I would have used tinned if possible.


Tranona said:
Not sure why you think you need tinned cable as mains hook up cables do not normally suffer from corrosion in the same way as internal wiring.

This 12voltplanet.co.uk/3-core-flexible-pvc-mains-cable-25mm-20a-orange.html is almost universally used for heavy duty hook up cable, or the blue "arctic" version which is more flexible and as its name implies better in very cold weather.
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I disagree with your first statement, certainly the cable on the boat I was on had suffered badly from tracking corrosion of the flex, the cable was as you describe above and I think less than a year old. I stripped back a few inches and had not got to bright copper. In what was my day job it would have been condemned and replaced. It seems to me that using a type of cable that is bound to fail quite quickly in the environment it is used in is not best practice. Obvioously there is a price/benefit equation too be evaluated but if tinned cable and rustproof connecters are less than 30% more expensive then they are probably worth considering.

I wonder how many mains cables that have lain on the pontoons for a while would pass an electical safety test.
How many are given even the most cursory visual inspection, never mind connectors opened and inspected..

Tranona said:
Corrosion in almost all the cabling I removed from my GH project except the domestic solid wire used for the lighting circuits I have retained, partly because they run all around the deck beams and through bulkheads - would take hours to remove and replace neatly.

We stripped the heavy battery cabling to recycle the copper and were amazed at how much corrosion there was. almost all the multistrand 1.5 and 2.5 in the 12v circuits were corroded at terminals and connections.
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Which end - the boat end or the power post end? Something wrong with the installation if corrosion is that severe after 1 year. Never heard of iit myself and considering that everybody uses that cable, if it were a real problem I think it would be general knowledge - and an alternative cable used.
 
I asked at the local electrical factors for tinned 3-core cable and they told me that "you wouldn't get it".

I'm not a native here in EU, so may have been able to learn more were it not for the language barrier.

Artic Blue is often recommended for mains cable in boats - you can buy it from Farnell (who I recommend - use export.farnell.com if overseas). It's available in different diameters so you especially want the thicker one if you're using it for a shorepower lead.

I would now always make new shorepower leads this way, as many of the 16A plugs and sockets - widely available from chandlers and elsewhere - are rubbish. Ceenorm are the best I've found.
 
Tranona said:
Which end - the boat end or the power post end? Something wrong with the installation if corrosion is that severe after 1 year. Never heard of iit myself and considering that everybody uses that cable, if it were a real problem I think it would be general knowledge - and an alternative cable used.
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Both ends. I was not unduly surprised given the environment.
 
Why not seal and waterptoof them with silicone grease. Still really surprised you have thee issue and difficult to see how your environment is any different from that of others.. Never heard of it in over 30 years of using shorepower hook ups on boats. Only problem I have experienced is cables coming loose because not tightened properly.
 
davidpbo said:
Fully aware of silicone grease and that option. Tranona I am surprised that in 30 years you have never come across flex with corrosion tracking up the cores. I have to say the quality of the 16A plugs was not the best which may be a contributong factor.
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Well that is my experience with more than one hook up cable. As I said if it were a systemic problem the cables and plugs would mot still be in use as inevitable the "market" would have produced a solution. Well aware of corrosion in other cables as I described - just not in hook up cables.
 
Our hook up cable is home made from normal artic cable, never had any issue with corrosion, cable hooked up for shore power 24/7 when on berth, never sealed cable other than blob of silicone over terminal screw when tightened. This from what I see is about the norm and others don’t seem to report issues
 
Never had a problem in 40 yrs of using extension cables, just use a blob of vaseline if available... but the modern design 16A plugs are very waterproof, even the Screwfix-level offerings.
Tinned extension lads would be an insane waste of money; instead, why not give the cash to a tramp to get some Special Brew, at least it would make someone happy for a day.
 
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