Arild, Norm's boat is ferrocement. In 1973 I was taking my Tartan 27 from Long Island, NY to Wilmington, NC. Sparkman & Stephens recommended me to an electronics outfit which did tugboats. They sold to me at wholesale everything that I needed to include the first portable VHF (Decca.) They sold me tinned wire and zinc connectors. They instructed me to first place shrink wrap on the wire, then attach the connector with a slight mechanical crimp allowing the wire to peek out of a small hole in front. Then I heated the lug till I had a bright soldered connection with the lug filled. Finally, I shrunk the wrap around the insulation/lug join.
Until your email, I had thought that crimp-only was the new and better way. Now I know better. The only improvement that I really like is the adhesive, heat shrink connectors which are both water resistant and provide strain relief. Ron ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arild Jensen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 1:09 PM Subject: [Liveaboard] Soldered connections on 12 VDC buss | Norm of Bandersnatch wrote: | > In addition, I have had the experience of clamped joints using stranded | > wire loosening up in time, I suppose from movement due to temperature | > changes, the strands seem to "settle in". After a few weeks I go back and | > retighten clamped stranded wire joints. | > | > I have more faith in soldered stranded wire joints than in clamped stranded | > wires. I have had zero problems with any of my soldered offstickers. | > | > Norm | | REPLY | Once again I tend to agree with Norm. | Sadly many people still have to contend with insurance surveyors | and conforming to "standards" and otherwise complying with some | arbitrary regulation on how things must be done. | | ABYC for example does not permit soldered only connections. The one | exception being battery cables on the battery clamp end. Curious, why | allow it on the most critical location but then prohibit it anywhere else. | | While working as the Quality Assurance Manager for an electronics | company selling equipment to the government and military | I had occasion to challenge this solder only versus crimp argument. | I had the production people prepare a number of crimped connections | and an equal number of soldered only connections. | I then applied the pull test as per the standard to determine the | exact breaking point of the connection. | To everyone's surprise the wire sometimes broke before the connection | did. | The test jig provided an exact reading of the tension pull just before | the wire broke. | It proved that soldered connections properly made was equal to crimped | connections and in some instances exceeded the breaking strength of the | wire involved. | Even so we still had to conform to the "standard" <smile> | The government inspector said he did not have any authority to over ride | a standard called up by contract. | | So yes I think Norms soldered connections are fine. I bet they will | probably still be fine when the boat itself is eventually scrapped | many decades from now. Steel doesn't last forever. Soldered copper | does. | | Cheers | Arild | | | | | _______________________________________________ | Liveaboard mailing list | [email protected] | To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard | To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ | | To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] | | The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
