Cabin Lights

[bayates]

We started to have issues with the cabin lights oh the Hakuna Matata. We would turn on the breaker and sometimes they came and sometimes not. So in troubleshooting I replaced the breaker and searched out all the scotch lock connectors I could find and fixed them. Still no worky.

So I called in a friend who owns Mark's Marine Electric in San Diego to help troubleshoot the issue. After about 15 minutes he found 2 more scotch lock connectors buried deep behind the electrical panel inside wire loom. You could see right away they were the issue.

Once replaced the lights were back up.

What was Catalina thinking using scotch locks in the first place,they are not to code,  then burying them deep so they were not easy to find.

Just need to put it all back together this weekend.

Another good learning

[britinusa]

I found a few on Eximius - getting changed out!

I did find a 3 way crimp that would replace them. Kinda rinky dinky.

Paul

[KWKloeber]

I found a few on Eximius - getting changed out!

I did find a 3 way crimp that would replace them. Kinda rinky dinky.

Paul

The 3-ways like this are kinda dinky for high power use -- the rivet is kinda "loose" and the terminals can twist around.


Where I have hi power, I sometimes make my own tap (below) with a #6 stainless machine screw, lockwasher, nut-- and adhesive heat shrink it all.

Or use a step-down butt (2 wires in the large end, one out the small)


For low amp (lighting etc) I think it's perfectly acceptable to use, for instance, a yellow butt for, say (2) 16 awg on one end, and a 16 awg folded back onto itself and crimped on the other end.  Not perfect, but if you match up the total Circular Mils to the terminal size, it works just fine. 

In other words, a yellow butt fits 12 awg (6,500 CM) to 10 awg (10,500 CM).   Two 14 awg on one end is = to 8,200 CM, and a 14 awg folded back onto itself and crimped is also = 8,200 CM.  You can mix and match sizes this way whether you are just making a tap of (3) or (4) of the same awg, or actually stepping up or down in awg size -- if you use a wire CM vs awg table to figure out what size butt to use.

AWG    CM area 
18        1,600
16        2,600
14        4,100
12        6,500
10      10,500
8       16,800

kk