Running the electrical wires through the pedestal has several down sides: 1. Fouling the steering chain and cable. The chain and steering wires cross inside the pedestal, the geometry of which is determined by the height of the pedestal, and the positioning of the sheaves on the below deck idler plate. Unless you would insert a protective conduit inside the pedestal, your instrument wiring could easily get hung up on the chain to wire connector and either prevent the boat from turning (bad) or wear through the insulation on the instrument wires (very bad if it is a power cable).
2. To run the wires inside the pedestal, at some place you need to extract the wires and run them externally up to your instruments. That creates issues. Drilling a large hole through the side of the pedestal to pass through a wire connection leaves a big hole in the pedestal. Water can get in, the wire can (and will) chafe on the opening, and once the wires have chafed through their own insulation, there will be current running through the pedestal. Because pedestals are powder coated, not spray painted, there’s no faster way to strip paint off a pedestal than to have it energized by a GPS or sailing instruments. 3. Running wires externally on a pedestal leaves the wires venerable to being pulled, grabbed, or otherwise subjected to disconnection or breakage when someone accidentally grabs at the pedestal, wheel, or guard. This can occur just walking around the wheel or losing one’s balance in a seaway. Running wires internally means there’s nothing to damage or get corroded. Hopefully at some point, wireless connectivity will replace the hassle of running wires to our helm mounted instruments. Chuck Gilchrest S/V Half Magic 1983 LF 35 Padanaram, MA From: CnC-List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of paul.hood via CnC-List Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2016 1:40 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Cc: paul.hood <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Stus-List CnC-List Digest, Vol 125, Issue 161 I find it interesting that nobody mentioned going through the pedestal. To be honest I was very hesitant about going that direction for various reasons. I was using the small end for feeding on all given cables. Depending on which cable, they are still 3/4 and 7/8 at the smallest ends. Trandducer being the 7/8. I guess I'll need to upside the guard and wire through the guard. Thanks, Paul Hood 416.799.5549 c From: "Marek Dziedzic" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > To: <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Stus-List Pedestal wiring Message-ID: <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Paul, As Fred said, you can try running the wires the other way. I did that for a different chartplotter (Garmin), so the connectors were smaller (about 1/2? if I recall), but I found it easier to run the cable from the pedestal end into the inside of the boat (rather than the other way around). With a large connector, you will have to cut an elongated hole, even in a larger diameter guard, because the connector would not bend. Drilling through the SS pedestal guard is a pain. You better have good tools and know how to do that (in one word ? slow). A good hole saw (e.g. Milwaukee bi-metal (https://www.milwaukeetool.ca/accessories/drilling/49-56-9662)) and a tungsten cutter (e.g. https://www.dremel.com/en-ca/Accessories/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=9901) would be your friends (and a good investment). And if you have some wires running through the guard already, be prepared that the holes were drilled without being properly filled with epoxy. I would not cut the wires for the depth transducer. good luck Marek 1994 C270 ?Legato? Ottawa, ON From: paul.hood via CnC-List Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2016 01:03 To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ; [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Cc: paul.hood Subject: Stus-List Pedestal wiring Im trying to send wiring (Transducer and vhf/power) to the Chart plotter and alao to a ram mike at the pedestal Wire ends are factory and told by Standard Horizon not to cut. They are 3/4" and 7/8" diameter each Pedestal Guard rail is barely 1" O.D. I'm looking for recommendations. Do I 1) make huge elongated holes in the pedestal guard and run wiring through guard into cockpit floor (7/8" head won't even fit the I.D. of guard) 2) come up through pedestal instead and drill a hole in the backside of pedestal. 3) cut wire ends off and reconnect after bring them through a smaller hole on either the guard or pedestal Paul Hood 81 C&C34 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://cnc-list.com/pipermail/cnc-list_cnc-list.com/attachments/20160628/957949bf/attachment-0001.html> ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ CnC-List mailing list [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> http://cnc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/cnc-list_cnc-list.com ------------------------------ End of CnC-List Digest, Vol 125, Issue 161 ******************************************
_______________________________________________ This list is supported by the generous donations of our members. If you like what we do, please help us pay for our costs by donating. All Contributions are greatly appreciated!
