Wiring marine grade fishfinder

[TWS]

greetings and thanks for an instructive forum,

i am trying to figure out the best way to wire a marine grade cigarette plug to the power leads from a fishfinder.

mind you, this cable is in the busy fishy environment of an open aluminum skiff. further i need the unit to be portable.



i can not tell the gauge wire but it is tinned and presumably marine grade. see picture. i must add an inline 3 amp fuse holder to the red power lead. i'd like to extend the over all cable by a foot - from the fuse holder. this will give me ample room to adjust my clamp on gps/fishfinder to the gunnel with length of cable to a marine 12v deep cycle battery place just forward of my middle seat.

i have a soldering iron and solder... i haven't soldered in a long time. i was hoping to somehow solder the leads together or solder AND some kind of connector and MOST important cover the lot with shrink tubing to seal it from wind, waves and rain.

can anyone explain the best way to do this and suggest the right wire and components to make a sturdy but water proof extension to this cable?

thank you,

mforrest

 

[Jadnashua]

Salt water, or fresh?

Not all heat shrink tubing is created equal. You want one that has a heat activated adhesive on the inside to make things waterproof and provide a bit more strength to keep things in place.

At 12vdc, the smallest wire you'd probably want to use would be 22g which is rated for 5A on dc supplies at 12vdc. That would give you a little leeway on the connections. Depends on how often the wire might end up being flexed whether you'd want to go solid or stranded and how fine. The finer the strands, the more flexible the wire is, but you may not need that. Making a good electrical solder connection requires first cleaning the ends of the wire well and using either rosin core flux solder or solid solider wire with liquid flux then cleaning the connection well afterwards of any excess flux. Because it may see lots of sunlight and the resulting UV, you'd want a wire with insulation that won't break down under those conditions. Heat rating is probably not an issue, though.

 

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[TWS]

thanks jadnashua,
i got some anchor butt splice connectors from my local outboard dealer... also some black glue inside heat shrink... with a few bits and pieces of larger red and transparent HS. i really like the plug connector it fit well and went together tight.

thanks everyone for your input.