Two Questions about Electrical Wiring.

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I use welding cable because it is the finest stranding commonly available, making it the most flexible option. At several dollars a foot or more it is not the least expensive option. That would be stranded commercial wire, which is extremely stiff and woefully ill suited for this job.
 
Very true, but surely nobody would put that in an auto!
Car audio and marine power cable is pretty dang flexible too. Marine stuff can be seriously pricy though.
 
used to have set of welding cables from my old solenoid box to my winch motor for many years .. ( relocate solenoids in the engine bay ) never had a single issue with -'em ..
 
Separating the wheat from the chaff in car audio components is pretty difficult for non-enthusiasts. I like and use the tin plated stranded marine cable when/where appropriate.

Can do it right, or you can do it again and again and.....
 
ntsqd said:
Separating the wheat from the chaff in car audio components is pretty difficult for non-enthusiasts. I like and use the tin plated stranded marine cable when/where appropriate.

Can do it right, or you can do it again and again and.....
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There is a pretty big difference between powering a audio system and powering a Norcold fridge. Most equipment used in expedition travel can tolerate a lot more "noise" on the power supply than an audio system.

Tin plate really doesn't benefit you much in most applications, short term it will help with solderability, not much help in automotive applications since we want to crimp connections whenever possible. Long term tin will actually cause problems because of "tin whiskering" When tin oxidizes it forms a poor conductor which as a side benefit is incredibly difficult to solder to. (search white tin or Electroless Tin)

If you are talking about solder plated wire (ie 63/37-tin/lead) that is a whole other story. Still not much help in automotive applications though, the only real benefit over bare copper is a slight improvement in solderability.
 
The tin-plated copper stuff is usually excellent wire and made to handle a marine environment. The tin is supposed to keep the copper from corroding. It's almost always fine stranded, flexible, good jacket, etc.
Soldering in a vehicle is generally considered inferior to a good solid crimp; the solder stiffens the wire at the joint and creates a stress point that's more likely to fail from vibration. Can't get much better than a solid crimp with a good connector and adhesive lined heat shrink.
 
If the soldering is done correctly and the crimp is done correctly neither has an advantage over the other in power conductors. Signal conductors can be different depending on the signal. Very easy to screw up either method, and most do w/o realizing it.

In the industry that I just came out of, tin plated wire is low end. Their std wire spec is silver plated per 22759/11 (MIL or SAE, take your pick). And this isn't stuff going anywhere too exotic.
 
rusty_tlc said:
Tin plate really doesn't benefit you much in most applications, short term it will help with solderability, not much help in automotive applications since we want to crimp connections whenever possible. Long term tin will actually cause problems because of "tin whiskering" When tin oxidizes it forms a poor conductor which as a side benefit is incredibly difficult to solder to. (search white tin or Electroless Tin)
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High-rel cable is typically not electroless tin...it's usually electroplated.

tclark said:
The tin-plated copper stuff is usually excellent wire and made to handle a marine environment. The tin is supposed to keep the copper from corroding. It's almost always fine stranded, flexible, good jacket, etc.
Soldering in a vehicle is generally considered inferior to a good solid crimp; the solder stiffens the wire at the joint and creates a stress point that's more likely to fail from vibration. Can't get much better than a solid crimp with a good connector and adhesive lined heat shrink.
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I'd agree, especially in large gauge sizes. Soldering small conductors in automotive applications is not an issue, as long as you know what a good solder joint should look like, and as long as the joint is strain-relieved with heat-shrink, preferably adhesive coated.

Personally, I would not use soldered joints in high vibration (around the power train) applications.


ntsqd said:
If the soldering is done correctly and the crimp is done correctly neither has an advantage over the other in power conductors. Signal conductors can be different depending on the signal. Very easy to screw up either method, and most do w/o realizing it.

In the industry that I just came out of, tin plated wire is low end. Their std wire spec is silver plated per 22759/11 (MIL or SAE, take your pick). And this isn't stuff going anywhere too exotic.
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M22759/16 is tin-plated, rated continuous to 150 C, and reliable. If I had any doubts about it, I'd never set foot in a commercial or private flying machine.

There are lighter weight versions (e.g., M22759/32 in tin-plated), but more $$ if you didn't sell it in your past live and have a few miles of it in the shop.:p

If the cable's living in a very high temp area, you can look at a nickel plated conductor with similar insulation materials...need nickel plated crimps which are also $$$. Generally overkill in a Cruiser and more suited to F1 cars or similar...mainly where money is no object.

hth

Steve
 
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ntsqd said:
Nickel plated wire is a headache, leave it alone.
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Probably not a big deal unless you try to solder it. Soldering pure nickle is a major PITA. That said, nickle is used as a barrier layer to prevent gold migration into the copper layers on printed circuit boards. Typical PCB plating will normally be 100 micro inches of nickle over copper and around 5 micro inches of gold over the nickle.
 
Nickel is also used for the same reason on gold plated contacts. However the Reference Engineer at my former employer discouraged its use except where it was absolutely necessary or somebody like Boeing, Lockheed-Martin or the military required it. Soldering was one issue, but dissimilar metals = galvanic potential and we, in particular, were dealing with a sea water environ. All of our contacts were gold plated.
 
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