Gogarty wrote:
There is hardly a worse place on a boat to place electrical wiring than
on and around a bow-mounted windlass. It's just not possible to make
things completely watertight and salt water will get at the windlass and
the wiring. Lewmar ought to know that. Then why is it that all the wiring
that comes with the windlass and its accessories, i.e., deck switches and
overheat cutout to fuse, is small guage and non-tinned?

Hmm, that sounds pretty bad. Undersized wire not only leads to low
performance but is hard on the motor and overheats all components
including the wiring... "don't mind the burning smell, that happens
every time we use the windlass"

One problem I had installing out windlass is that the glands into the
motor enclosure could not accept larger than #2AWG wire, which is far
too light for any battery more than about 2' away.

.... Even tinned
marine grade wiring has a problem in this environment. But the non-tinned
stuff rapidly turns to a red powder and nothing works. The corrosion is
so bad that cutting the wires all the way back to the switches revealed
no bright copper at all. I replaced the wires with larger gauge tinned
wire as best I could but I am still stuck with the stub of the original
wire as it comes out of the switches and motor.


What kind of terminals? Can you replace them? Maybe it would be more
satisfying to replace the whole f#&#in thing? I sure get that way some
times...

Really dumb design.


It's an assumption on the part of Lewmar (common thru many businesses)
that their customers are idiots. Better to avoid those. It's not like
they're the cheapest or anything!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King