Connect two different sized wire together?

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Maine, since when does a plain oval shape die count as a proper crimp for anything?

It is very commonly used on heat shrink yellow, blue & red crimps. That one will to 8GA too..

An oval heat shrink crimp die did this..




And this is a cut away of a crimp made by my $1200.00 AMP aerospace certified crimp tool. Looks oval to me...

[hellosailor]

You know, I've always wondered about those cutaways. Sure, it LOOKS like the copper strands have been smoothly and uniformly compressed. But is that from the crimp, or from the action of the saw or cutoff wheel, neatly smoothing and polishing them?

The closer we look, the more error we create?

[SanDiegoChip]

Ok once again I was mistaken. The wires we need to use are #6 not #8

We did some testing with our Harbor Freight hydraulic crimping tool. We first bought it for one job. That was to crimp 2/0 cables from our windlass to batteries after we did a refit of the cables. We had to use the 00 dies in the tool to make that crimp. So we figured the dies would be different for the #6 cables but now we think not.


The wires #6 red\black

OK the stripping was not so great as I busted some strands but we did not have much to work with on that tool.


We tried the #6 dies in the tool and the crimp looks real good and it can not be torn apart, at least by me. We tried the #8 dies but it crimp looks too flat (right).


We used #6 cable and #6 butt connectors.


We also tried two #10 wires together into one # 6 but connector and they fit real nice. We did not do a crimp, seemed a waste of a connector.



We also tried a #10 wire bent over in two and it fit real nice in the #6 butt connector.
We will need to wire the green (ground) and white (neutral) wires together at the Air Breeze so that was one test.
We will need to wire a #10 black wire from the Air Breeze wind generator to the #6 black to battery negative so that was another test.


We also need to wire in a switch and a 5/16 battery eye to fuse terminal.
Need to purchase more # 6 terminal ends and some heat shrink with glue.
So it looks like this all works out. Now to do the job!

[SanDiegoChip]

OK, yes I had read some reviews about the Harbor Freight tool and die sizes. It does do a nice crimp and on a 2/0 size was the only one we could really afford. As we use it rarely and it does a nice crimp it seems OK.
I do release that our anchor windlass is a critical system and checked the crimp out and it was great.
This die says 8 AWG and that would mean electrical wire would it not, or is cable sized the same?


The Air Breeze is not critical and this crimp is solid. It beats hitting it with a hammer and the tools shown do not seem to go up in size to #6.
We usually order our cables from GenuineDealz.com - Marine Electrical, Boat Wire & Cable, Custom Battery Cables and have them do the crimp. In this case we cannot have them do the crimping.

I will hate it if the anchor windlass crimp fails for some reason. We will keep an eye on it. We have a few crimps to make on our solar controller as the cables #4 need to be cut for a fuse and a fuse block.
That should be the end of the crimping we need to do. We were not planning on taking this tool cruising, 9 moths from now. May re-think that or get another one?
Whay would these crimps fail?
Thanks
Chip

[SanDiegoChip]

OK did the Air Breeze wind generator wiring from the #6 cables to the Air Breeze #10 wires.
The need for the #6 wires is because the wire run is over 30'.
The #6 connectors worked great for this.
Now to find my darn heat gun!



Heat shrink needs to be moved into place and shrunk.


#10 to #6


Shrink the heat shrink and it is ready to mount!
Thanks for all the imput.
Chip

[MarkSF]

Note that soldering is not forbidden by ABYC, just having no other form of strain relief on a soldered connection IS.

You can solder two wires together and then form a loop in the wire, and apply cable ties.

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

Note that soldering is not forbidden by ABYC, just having no other form of strain relief on a soldered connection IS.

You can solder two wires together and then form a loop in the wire, and apply cable ties.

Just to clarify..You can not do that and meet the ABYC standard.

Wire twisting, Western Union splices etc. do not count under ABYC E-11 as a "mechanical connection" to which you can then apply solder and call it a day....

[tap]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoChip

#10 to #6

Maybe Mainesail will have a picture of a good #6 splice, but that one looks pretty bad to me. The fitting isn't supposed to be flattened like that and it looks like the metal was torn in the middle between the two crimps. It looks like the die is way too small. Here's a picture of a nicer looking crimp I found with a GIS,

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by tap

Maybe Mainesail will have a picture of a good #6 splice, but that one looks pretty bad to me. The fitting isn't supposed to be flattened like that and it looks like the metal was torn in the middle between the two crimps. It looks like the die is way too small. Here's a picture of a nicer looking crimp I found with a GIS,

You can "over crimp"...