Yachting and Boating World forums: Tinned copper wiring

It makes little general differance. If based on panels we have had back for refirb, they were built with untinned tri-rated cable, over an age range of 10 -20 years.
We have some with bright copper cable after 20 years, and others with black cable after ten, we have them with some bright and some black, but non were it's required cable replacement. It would appear that the black cables are the ones that are on all the time, the one that are used intermitently are usually bright copper. Sea water running on panels will give rapid corrosion, and tinning does seem to have little effect.
What I have noted is that after 15 / 20 years female spade connectors are getting very brittle, and the tang that raps round the blade is breaking off. Were we have soldered cables to switches and PCB's, we have had no problem.
The above is based on a sample of around 200 switch panels out of around 7,000, covering 20 foot - 50 foot boats, so is a random snap shot.
Me? I always us tinned copper for signal cables, and a good qaulity tri-rated cable for power us, though if find a tinned option I would use it, as you will not be any worse off, and it looks good for the customer.

Brian

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Kddpowercentre designers and purveyors of fine charging systems for 30 years.
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