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#1
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Windlass wiring
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? 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. Really dumb design. |
#2
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Amen!!!
"Gogarty" wrote in message ... 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? 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. Really dumb design. |
#3
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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 |
#4
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#5
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Gogarty wrote:
You misunderstand. The wiring I am talking about is not the 1/0 cabling that does the work but the little biddy wires that activate the solenoids and contain the fuse from the overheat bypass. This stuff is 20 guage and not tinned. The deck switches, which cost about $35, consist of a tiny potted push switch inside this huge housing. One cannot totally replace the original wire but I bet I can come up with something better for much less next time it quits. Take a look at Cole-Hersee. They do a lot of low voltage, high current stuff. May have something for this application. Lew |
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