>> For Mission Critical situations it's hard to beat a soldered >> Western Union >> splice with a sleeve of "glue inside" shrink-wrap. > > In general, I try to avoid splices whenever I can - but if I needed a > reliable one, that's as good as it gets. I don't solder end fittings, > though.
I can agree with this wholeheartedly. I worked as a sound guy/roadie when I was young and in television for years after that. We dealt with miles of cabling, and wouldn't trust mechanical splices. Having dead air during a big concert or live nationwide broadcast was a step towards career oblivion. For things like triax cables running to camera placements, they were 1 long cable, even those that were long enough to wind unobtrusively across a complete golf course. Those long ones took forever to wind up onto spools. Any splices we did have, were soldered and heat shrinked (adhesive lined) Any crimped end connectors were done with good quality fittings that had adhesive lined heat shrink ends, via a good crimping tool. A good crimp will not have any caps, the wire becomes a solid cold formed mass. so that no water can wick into the connection. I'm in the process of restoring a rare 90 Dodge Dakota factory convertible, and every aftermarket splice in the dash wiring had corrosion. It sure explained the "mysterious" intermittent electrical problems the truck previously had. None were done with heat shrink tubing or connectors that had heat shrink. I redid every one. And that's not even close to a hostile marine environment. For those who don't know what a western union splice is (or are googlely challenged) Here's an explanation right out of a Naval Electrical Engineering Training book. http://www.tpub.com/content/neets/14176/css/14176_46.htm Question.... Why do YOU not solder end fittings in general ? Cheers, Roy _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/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.liveaboardonline.com/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
