mast electrical wiring

[csilva]

I am planning an overhaul of my electrical system and wonder if I should use a junction box at the cabin entrance of the mast wiring in order to avoid chafe and also ease any further mast maintenance. Any comments and/or recommendations?

Thanks,

[gtod25]

Just remember that you probably won't want to cut your VHF antenna coax or any wind speed instruments cabling if you can avoid it. That just leaves one or two wires (spreader lights, nav lights etc) for the junction box. Still anything that reduces that nest of snakes when pulling the mast helps. Leave enough slack for further cutting and splicing at the mast end.

Double up on the rivets (and use monel rivets) of the wire conduit inside the mast (if fitted). I had a conduit break loose heading down the Caribbean and the resulting clanging made suicide a desirable option.

[rocinante33]

I'm not sure what you have in mind when you say "junction box," but two small buss bars would help for the application that you describe. I would wire a buss bar for all my positive wires on one side of the mast & another for the negatives opposite. Then you can easily unscrew the mast side conductors to facilitate un-stepping your mast in the future.

[sailingdog]

You can also cut the coax cable and put a coax connector on each end, to allow you to "split" the coax cable when you have to lower the mast. While this introduces a slight loss, it is relatively negligible compared to the headaches caused by not having a junction at the mast base.

You can also do something similar with the wind instrument transducer wiring.

[negrini]

Yes, wind system can easily use a junction box (some ones like Raymarine comes already with the junction box in the package). VHF cable is the only one requiring special connector. All others will be easily connected using a connection bar. Surely you'll be glad of that when time comes to bring your mast down, or in a event of repair.

[csilva]

Thank you all for the good advice. The coax antena and wind instruments cables are already cut but poorly connected, therefore I will definitely spend on good connectors, including bus bars.

[sailingdog]

csilva-

Technically, what you want are terminal blocks, not bus bars. Bus bars combine multiple wires to a single bus, terminal blocks, usually two rows of screws with each pair of screws sharing a connection, allow you to make many individual connections.

This is a bus bar:




This is a terminal block, and what you probably want:

[csilva]

Thanks.
Just in time to change my purchase. I guess now I will buy WestMarine's 214991 (sorry, got a message that I cannot send images.

[sailingdog]

Probably better off with this instead.

[csilva]

Thanks again.