Combing Spaghetti

[Chris Pink]

A fun little job on my list of round tuits. It's been done in colour-coded cable so that should help, the positives are all green and yellow and the negatives are all green and yellow. Fairly good quality cable so it's got to stay - to save a couple of hundred quid and a lot of cable threading. It's all labelled too to make my life easier, in 14 year old sellotape and a biro.

 

Amazingly, some, even most of it works.

 

 

[Barry]

A fun little job on my list of round tuits. It's been done in colour-coded cable so that should help, the positives are all green and yellow and the negatives are all green and yellow. Fairly good quality cable so it's got to stay - to save a couple of hundred quid and a lot of cable threading. It's all labelled too to make my life easier, in 14 year old sellotape and a biro.

 

Amazingly, some, even most of it works.

 

 

 

Looks similar to my lectrics except mine is buried away in tight spaces

 

 

And I don't have the knowledge to sort it, though it needs to be done badly.

 

I had a cable glow red over a metre and a half length and burn all its insulation off three months after I bought the boat. Strangely nothing stopped working when I cut the cable out

[Grace and Favour]

I had a cable glow red over a metre and a half length and burn all its insulation off three months after I bought the boat. Strangely nothing stopped working when I cut the cable out

 

Just double-check the bilge pump, Bazza

[Barry]

Just double-check the bilge pump, Bazza

 

Now that's very spooky indeed. The bilge pump has never worked since I bought the boat though the indicator light comes on when I pull the switch. Now the proud possessor of a multimeter having a look at the bilge pump and its wiring is close to the top of my list of jobs now

[DeanS]

I would love to see the expression on the BSC examiners face when you show him that lot

[alan_fincher]

Looks similar to my lectrics except mine is buried away in tight spaces

 

And I don't have the knowledge to sort it, though it needs to be done badly.

No!

 

I think you'll find it needs to be done well!

 

EDITED TO ADD:

 

When I first spotted the thread title I assumed it was one of Bizzard's wheezes!

Edited March 20, 2013 by alan_fincher

[Keeping Up]

It reminds me of a boat that some friends of mine had built, where the electrician had only ever worked on houses before; he made a wiring harness from the engine to the dashboard, using 2.5mm twin-and-earth house wiring cable throughout. He didn't realise that it might make a difference which cable went where, so when the engine overheated (because the cooling system didn't work) a relay clicked shut and put the ammeter straight across the battery.

 

On a maiden voyage in a sailaway it wakes you up to find yourself above Thrumpston weir with no engine and all the wiring starting to glow red-hot !

[Barry]

No!

 

I think you'll find it needs to be done well!

 

 

Hah!

 

Eats, shoots, and leaves

[RLWP]

After careful examination, it appears that the positives are green and yellow, whereas the negatives are yellow and green

 

Richard

[MtB]

When I used to wire up radar displays for warships at Decca Radar, one single colour of cable was used for EVERYTHING - black. Each cable was identified by numbered idents threaded onto each end as each cable was installed.

 

Thing is, with complex systems, one rapidly runs out of easily distinguishable colours to use.

 

MtB

[Chris Pink]

To be honest I don't have a problem with the cable it's good quality tinned and flexible.

 

It's the lack of neatness and those horrible 'continental' fuses and bits of this and that added in everywhere.

 

I will enjoy sorting it out, strange where people get their kicks.

 

Geezer, when I said that a rewire will one of my first jobs (after money had changed hands) - "There's nothing wrong with it"

Edited March 20, 2013 by Chris Pink

[springy]

Green & yellow must just be easier to "get hold of" - I'll admit that my main battery cables are 50mm2 tri rated

 

Green/Yellow (with red & black heat shrunk bands on each end and in the middle) but the cable was "available".

 

 

 

 

Once heard of similar thing a friend found on a boat he was asked to look at - all the wires were red, the

 

negatives had had a knot in each end making them "not red" !

 

 

 

 

springy

 

 

[Kae]

Glad I'm not the only one who finds weird and wonderful electrics on their boat!

[Keeping Up]

Once heard of similar thing a friend found on a boat he was asked to look at - all the wires were red, the

negatives had had a knot in each end making them "not red" !

 

Good thing he didn't get together with the friend of mine who always put a knot in the positive (saying "Never Knot the Negative" as he did so)

[bowten]

Sometimes I just love this forum

Edited March 21, 2013 by bowten

[RobinJ]

After careful examination, it appears that the positives are green and yellow, whereas the negatives are yellow and green

Are you sure?

I thought I saw some black!

Maybe he slipped with the paint brush

[Chris Pink]

Are you sure?

I thought I saw some black!

Maybe he slipped with the paint brush

 

...there's black and brown and ... (how does the song go?)

 

 

(i do hope he doesn't read this forum)

[bowten]

I use red and black,red for neg and black for pos,I think

[Chalky]

 

Thing is, with complex systems, one rapidly runs out of easily distinguishable colours to use.

 

 

We usually work to Cable colour and then trace colour however as you say you soon run out of colours however knowing which connector cavity the pin is in, which part of the harness you're dealing with and what the wire colour is usually mean that it's not a problem.

 

Where coloured cables are a problem is when they've all degraded with age so that they're all a black/brown colour with the trace being a dirty red/orange and the whole lot is connected with bullet connectors. MGB engine bay harness after 25 years!

 

Some vehicle manufacturers us a single colour and have the cable numbers laser marked on the ends.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Chalky

[kbarber]

When I used to wire up radar displays for warships at Decca Radar, one single colour of cable was used for EVERYTHING - black. Each cable was identified by numbered idents threaded onto each end as each cable was installed.

 

Thing is, with complex systems, one rapidly runs out of easily distinguishable colours to use.

 

MtB

Sounds remarkably like signalbox wiring. Apart from red (which means temporary work) the colour code tells you how old it is rather than what the wires do. But they seem to be able to make it work so it can't be that bad an idea.

[Chris Pink]

We usually work to Cable colour and then trace colour however as you say you soon run out of colours however knowing which connector cavity the pin is in, which part of the harness you're dealing with and what the wire colour is usually mean that it's not a problem.

 

Where coloured cables are a problem is when they've all degraded with age so that they're all a black/brown colour with the trace being a dirty red/orange and the whole lot is connected with bullet connectors. MGB engine bay harness after 25 years!

 

Some vehicle manufacturers us a single colour and have the cable numbers laser marked on the ends.

 

A lot of modern cars I've looked at (not many because I try to stay well clear when owners of 90s cars say "you know a bit about electrics") have grey wires in the looms and only use colour when you get to something. And that colour can be different at different ends.

 

Which to my mind is even more daft than having everything the same colour.

[smileypete]

A fun little job on my list of round tuits. It's been done in colour-coded cable so that should help, the positives are all green and yellow and the negatives are all green and yellow. Fairly good quality cable so it's got to stay - to save a couple of hundred quid and a lot of cable threading. It's all labelled too to make my life easier, in 14 year old sellotape and a biro.

 

Amazingly, some, even most of it works.

 

Think I'd be tempted to throw away much of the small gauge stuff and the continental fuse holders and redo it. Is the green and yellow tinned stranded conductor too? You could always hide much of the stripey cable in duct and spiral wrap.

 

CPC have free shipping on at the moment, and do some useful bits like slotted trunking, breakers which could be useful for some things:

 

http://cpc.farnell.com/closed-slot-trunking

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/search/productGroupDetails.jsp?N=206529+110174700+411&pgCatId=206529&pgAttrId=110174700

 

Something that comes to mind is to put a panel light across the primary bilge pump fuse or breaker, to give some warning if it's blown. Also another way to ident cables is with small coloured cable ties.

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

[Chris Pink]

Yes, I agree continental fuse holder have to go though i quite like how they get smaller as they get hot, so they get hotter and get smaller.

 

Outside of this point most of it is in slotted ducting so that's OK, I will check all the other ends. There'a couple of panels in similar states - nav instruments, engine control. All the lights seem to work so I'll probably leave as is. It has to be said once the stuff in the picture is combed and bundled it will be a lot easier to deal with the cable runs are quite logical and most of the power stuff I'm renewing anyway. Just found 2 ammeters and a voltmeter in the bins so that helps (some of them will work!

 

Yes, the green and yellow is stranded, tinned,good quality, 4mm so worth keeping, I'll probably just put a bit of red or black heat shrink on the ends. I've never really got a handle on labelling because I can't afford one of the posh jobbies but if I think it's necessary clear heat shrink and white labels are pretty good.

 

Small gauge stuff is mostly "I need something now" and will be chucked - a good deal of looks like stripped household extension cable anyway.

 

Good idea about the bilge pump breaker warning light. I've already replaced a lot of the bilge pump control wiring as one of them kept going off randomly in the night and as I was replacing the float switch I did the relay and stuff as well.

 

I was going to go for blade fuses simple reliable cheap but those breakers look interesting, good price and would look a lot neater just to have a row of breakers - can you manually switch them (off)? I guess not which is a plus for blade fuses.

[fudd]

I made a wiring loom for one of my Ducatis once. I took a photo of the connections and all of the cables so I could easily make a photographic note of all of it before i took it all apart, and guess what! They all came out in black and white. !!!!!!

[Radiomariner]

When I used to wire up radar displays for warships at Decca Radar, one single colour of cable was used for EVERYTHING - black. Each cable was identified by numbered idents threaded onto each end as each cable was installed.

 

Thing is, with complex systems, one rapidly runs out of easily distinguishable colours to use.

 

MtB

 

When I used to repair radar displays where all the cables were black it was always a bit dismaying to find handfulls of broken off brittle cable ident tags lying in the bottom of the cabinets!