welding wire for windlass

Conachair

Conachair

Guest
Joined
24 Jan 2004
Messages
5,155
Location
London
Visit site
Has anyone used welding wire as a cheaper alternitive to tinned battery cable? I´m looking at using awg2 (32mm2) for a 25`(50´total) run to a 1000w electric windlass and would be interested in other people experiences.
Windlass is loframs kobra which recommends 100a breaker, from the formula in marine electronic and electrical bible the voltage drop would be 0.39v.

TIA
 
Welding cable has the great merit of being more flexible than normal cable and are absolutely suitable if protected. I dip my cable ends in duck oil, similar to WD40 but more wax/oil in it, before crimping up. Use rubber sleeves over the crimp.
 
Yes, I too have used this for heavy duty work although I solder lugs on rather than crimp.

Get your solder pot hot and strip back insulation. Flux the cable end and dip in to solder pot.

Fill void of lug with solder then, while everything is hot, insert cable end into lug.

Once it has all cooled down clean off surplus flux residue, wipe petroleum jelly round and heat shrink some sleeve over to make it all look nice.

Welders cable is nice and flexible.

73s de

Johnth
 
Conachair said:
Has anyone used welding wire as a cheaper alternitive to tinned battery cable? I´m looking at using awg2 (32mm2) for a 25`(50´total) run to a 1000w electric windlass and would be interested in other people experiences.
Windlass is loframs kobra which recommends 100a breaker
Click to expand...

I fiitted the same model of windlass three years ago. The technical chap at the Lofrans importers specifically suggested welding cable. The ends were tinned and crimped -- I don't think fatigue cracking is such an issue on such large cables, if properly supported (this a layman's view. Someone like VicS might well be along with a more informed opinion).

The same technical chap recommended a 80amp breaker (and a proprietory one, at that: Lofrans breakers are horribly expensive). It trips only very, very occasionally. I'm very happy with the set-up.

One word of caution: the galvanising on the chain supplied supplied by Lofrans was poor. I'll probably only get another season out of it. I said as much in a recent post, to which Vyv Cox added his usual informed comments. Worth reading.
 
Thanks all.
Might go up to AWG1 (42mm2 ??). Now I just have to find some before trinidad carnival kicks off this weekend and everything stops. The tough life of living aboard :)
BTW, I just jury rigged a 30 quid garage door remote from maplins to the solinoid, it seems to work fine. Substantial saving over the $500us one in local chandlery.
 
Soldering any crimp connections is not recommended on a boat. Initially they are good but over time will work harden and result in cable fracture. Similarly dipping in any formof oil/waxbefore crimping can cause a high resisitance point. If you want to keep moisture out, then use glue lined heatshrink and ensure the spy hole in the crimp gets covered too.
 
Your wire size calculation is not correct. 1000 watts is 84 amps and at 50' requires 2/0 for 3% loss. See this link. http://boatstuff.awardspace.com/awgcalc.html
Just fill in the blanks. 2 awg will give you 5.63% loss which is only 11.325 volts at the windlass. I think you're confusing 2awg with 2/0 but there is a big difference.

Welding wire is fine but seal the ends well.
 
Last edited:
Bosun Higgs said:
Yes I used welding cabnle some years ago with absolutely no problem. Carrying heavy DC currents is exactly what its made for.
Click to expand...

I can't agree at all. You must just be lucky.

Welding cable has very fine wires that are surrounded with waxed paper. The waxed paper wicks moisture up the cable, as does the fine un-coated copper wires. It doesn't take much corrosion to break these wires down until you have a significantly reduce cross-section carrying 100 amps or so ....... possible result : an electrical fire.

Anchor tinned copper .... or any other marine quality cable is the way to go, otherwise you risk loosing your boat!

As for solder : many authorities do not allow it for marine use for good reasons. Also it wicks up the cable, not only creating a hard spot, but also a source of corrosion ..... and all this goes on out of sight under the insulation.

This is not theory ..... this is experience. Don't do it. You are not only endangering yourself, your are also endangering those about you.
 
TradewindSailor said:
I can't agree at all. You must just be lucky.

Welding cable has very fine wires that are surrounded with waxed paper.

Anchor tinned copper .... or any other marine quality cable is the way to go, otherwise you risk loosing your boat!
Click to expand...

I've just been out to the garage to look at the welding cable I had left over and there is no waxed paper there at all. It's simply soft fine drawn copper wire in a fairly robust plastic sheath.

Yes tinned copper might be the purist, best and most expensive solution but to say that using anything else risks your boat is tripe. Either that or the mass produced boat builders are making dangerous boats.

Best solution is to keep water away from your electrics.

You didnt work for H&S did you? :)
 
Bosun Higgs said:
I've just been out to the garage to look at the welding cable I had left over and there is no waxed paper there at all. It's simply soft fine drawn copper wire in a fairly robust plastic sheath.

Yes tinned copper might be the purist, best and most expensive solution but to say that using anything else risks your boat is tripe. Either that or the mass produced boat builders are making dangerous boats.

Best solution is to keep water away from your electrics.

You didnt work for H&S did you? :)
Click to expand...

Who are H&S? ..... No.

There's a lot of 'boat builders' that use plain copper wire ..... it simply in not a sound solution. It does degrade quickly, particularly in moist warm environments. Just because the boat builders save a few quid with plain copper wire, doesn't mean that it's a good solution. Walk round many a new boat and you will find lots of penny pinching installations including 304 stainless used underwater, steel nuts on the interior, too small deck gear, etc, etc. why should the electrical systems be any different? Joe Public don't know the difference.

I'll upload some photos of corroded welding wire .... if someone can tell me how.

As for the waxed paper: some welding cable has it and it helps the wicking process. I know it happens without it too.
 
TradewindSailor said:
As for the waxed paper: some welding cable has it and it helps the wicking process. I know it happens without it too.
Click to expand...

It will happen with any cable that has an end immersed in water. But that should never happen in a modern boat. Bilges should be full of dust - at the level we are talking of, grp is impermiable to water.

I'm sure you are technically correct, though we both know that gold wire would be an ever better solution than tinned wire. But in real life, untinned copper wire for a windlass, sensibly protected, is unlikely ever to give problems and even if it did corrode a bit longer term the cost of replacing it would still be less that the original cost of tinned wire.
 
Bosun Higgs said:
It will happen with any cable that has an end immersed in water. But that should never happen in a modern boat. Bilges should be full of dust - at the level we are talking of, grp is impermiable to water.

I'm sure you are technically correct, though we both know that gold wire would be an ever better solution than tinned wire. But in real life, untinned copper wire for a windlass, sensibly protected, is unlikely ever to give problems and even if it did corrode a bit longer term the cost of replacing it would still be less that the original cost of tinned wire.
Click to expand...

What's sensibly protected? If you have a 1200 watt motor you can have 150 amps running through the cable. You have to have a breaker of at least 130 amps to avoid the breaker cutting out often. If the cable is diminished in size due to corrosion it will get hot, it can get red hot and cause a fire ..... and most boats have the batteries iro 3/4 aft: a long length of potentially dodgy cable.

Dry bilges? Some boats actually leave the marina and go to sea.

It only takes a little salt water to get on the cable to cause corrosion to start. Do you wash the cables off with fresh water every time you come back into harbour? No of course not. If you ever go out in a blow you have salt water in the atmosphere, and some of it finds it way down below.

Windlasses spend there time either out on the foredeck getting soaked or in a damp chain locker depending on configuration. Either way the cables get salty and wet. Welding cables are not designed for this environment, so why use them?

As for dry dusty bilges : spray 'em down with fresh water once in a while or the bilge pumps will choke when you need them most.
 
mitiempo said:
Your wire size calculation is not correct. 1000 watts is 84 amps and at 50' requires 2/0 for 3% loss. See this link. http://boatstuff.awardspace.com/awgcalc.html
Just fill in the blanks. 2 awg will give you 5.63% loss which is only 11.325 volts at the windlass. I think you're confusing 2awg with 2/0 but there is a big difference.
Click to expand...

Lost me there, where did you get 12v from to go down to 11.325v? Batts will hopefully be fully charged, if they are down to 12v then I´m pumping the handle to pull the anchor up.

Are you estimating that the voltage will go down to 12v when under load?

I won´t know that til it´s installed though I might jury rig something just to check, though don´t know how I´d get the windlass to full load.

I´m not confusing awg2 with 2/0 but that imperial system you lot use isn´t as intuitive as metric;) The windlass manual recommends 35mm2 cable but also says increase by 30-50% if total run is greater than 10m, which would take it to 50mm2, about awg1/0. Mine will be about 14m. Nearly got 1/0 today but surprise surpise they were out of stock.
So it goes.
 
TQA said:
I would be interested in some more details on how you interfaced the Maplins door opener to the double solenoid.

I have just fitted a Tigres and jibbed at paying for the wireless remote as they would not give me a credit on the manual one.
Click to expand...

Tried drawing it but didn´t make sense :) The remote control box has a 12v plus & minus power input and 2 x outputs which are basically switches. If you pretend the 2 x terminals in each output are footsitches then the wiring is the same. I´ll be fitting it in parallel with the footswitches.
 
If you have a 50' run, round trip, and are pulling 84 amps then in order to hit a 2% voltage drop you'd need a 4/0 AWG wire or what ever is the closest metric gauge wire to 53.5 [mm²].

3% drop = 2/0 AWG wire
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top