Jump to content

Marine Grade Wire


oldguide

Recommended Posts

Roy C, you don't know how much time I have spent trying to locate marine grade wire. I live in the land of ten thousand lakes, but none of the retailers or hardware stores carry it and every marine dealer/repair place I talked to looked at me like I was crazy. I noticed that most marine electrical stuff they had on sale now just uses regular copper wire.

I did find plenty of online sources, but they want to sell you 100 feet for about $18-30 with postage. Since I only need a few feet in seems like overkill. I can see the the original wires are marine grade tinned. I was able to salvage all of them that I could, even cutting off the ones on the old caps, but they are just barely long enough to do the job. So I am about to give up on this one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roy C, you don't know how much time I have spent trying to locate marine grade wire. I live in the land of ten thousand lakes, but none of the retailers or hardware stores carry it and every marine dealer/repair place I talked to looked at me like I was crazy. I noticed that most marine electrical stuff they had on sale now just uses regular copper wire.

I did find plenty of online sources, but they want to sell you 100 feet for about $18-30 with postage. Since I only need a few feet in seems like overkill. I can see the the original wires are marine grade tinned. I was able to salvage all of them that I could, even cutting off the ones on the old caps, but they are just barely long enough to do the job. So I am about to give up on this one.

Hi oldguide,

Some local marine supply stores sell black and red jacketed marine wire by the foot, otherwise you have to buy larger quantities. "Primary wire", sold in auto and hardware stores (ie Home Depot), is not tinned, but is sold with the colored insulation, and works fine.

If you need a small amount of the original type, contact me through the forum and I'll send you some. I've been purchasing 100ft spools of 18ga. marine wire in the original colors from Del City (www.delcity.net).

Roy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any marine store - like West Marine - will stock Ancor brand "marine" wire which is tin-plated. They will have it in small spools or by the foot. It is extremely common and shouldn't be at all hard to find. Any boating store at a local marina will also stock it. I have a 53' Hatteras in the Chesapeake Bay and there are an uncountable amount of boat-oriented stores with this wire. It may be less "popular" in fresh water areas though...I just thought of that. Check "West Marine" web site (though no REAL boater would ever buy anything from "Worst Marine.") But it doesn't matter in this case. :)

If you can't find it locally, go here: http://www.defender.com/category.jsp?path=...8&id=316475

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any marine store - like West Marine - will stock Ancor brand "marine" wire which is tin-plated. They will have it in small spools or by the foot. It is extremely common and shouldn't be at all hard to find. Any boating store at a local marina will also stock it. I have a 53' Hatteras in the Chesapeake Bay and there are an uncountable amount of boat-oriented stores with this wire. It may be less "popular" in fresh water areas though...I just thought of that. Check "West Marine" web site (though no REAL boater would ever buy anything from "Worst Marine.") But it doesn't matter in this case. :)

If you can't find it locally, go here: http://www.defender.com/category.jsp?path=...8&id=316475

I found why marine grade wire is so hard to find in the Midwest-- a boat dealer and his chief mechanic told me it is specified only for salt water applications and they never use it here.

Curiously, before your note I did find what I think are the only two places in the Minneapolis area that sell it--and, yes, one of them is a West Marine branch. The other is a yacht dealer. I called them and they do sell by the foot. It is a ways away from me, so I will have to wait till the weekend to pick it up.

I totally agree with you on the whys of using it and it is obviously what is in the original wiring and yet another testimony to the standards of the folks who built the original AR line.

Maybe that is part of why we are all here, because that kind of craftsmanship is rare these days. It certainly is why I have hung on to my ARs, which I have had since they were given to me as a graduation present by my father.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think you have to go crazy looking for marine grade wire. I have spools of red, white, blue, green and yellow 18 ga tinned wire that I bought in my local electronics parts store. It is packaged by NTE but I'm sure other companies do the same. My local guy has all different colors and gauges, in spools of 25 ft, 50 ft and larger, and some of the common colors is sold by the foot. Although it is not "marine grade" it IS TINNED. So if there is a real electronics supply store near you, stop in and see what they have.

Hope this is helpful.

Kent

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think you have to go crazy looking for marine grade wire. I have spools of red, white, blue, green and yellow 18 ga tinned wire that I bought in my local electronics parts store. It is packaged by NTE but I'm sure other companies do the same. My local guy has all different colors and gauges, in spools of 25 ft, 50 ft and larger, and some of the common colors is sold by the foot. Although it is not "marine grade" it IS TINNED. So if there is a real electronics supply store near you, stop in and see what they have.

I agree with Kent.

I ended up with "marine" grade wire because I was not able to find tinned wire anywhere else. I guess "real" electronics stores are not all that common. Internet searches for tinned wire led me to the marine wire.

Roy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually I asked about tinned wire at the nonmarine places I checked and still struck out. My long-time electrical supplier closed up a few years ago and the guys at big box stores have enough trouble knowing #14 from #18 they weren't much help. In the end the infamous Worst marine was my best source. Their price per foot wasn't bad.

The marine wire came in handy for soldering back the old drivers with aluminum wire. I ended up wrapping each terminal with a small bit of the marine wire on top which made for a good solder joint. I think if I had to do it again, I would just weave a strand or two with the aluminum and then solder it to the terminal. That marine stuff is nice to work with. I am going to have to remember that for other projects.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually I asked about tinned wire at the nonmarine places I checked and still struck out. My long-time electrical supplier closed up a few years ago and the guys at big box stores have enough trouble knowing #14 from #18 they weren't much help. In the end the infamous Worst marine was my best source. Their price per foot wasn't bad.

The marine wire came in handy for soldering back the old drivers with aluminum wire. I ended up wrapping each terminal with a small bit of the marine wire on top which made for a good solder joint. I think if I had to do it again, I would just weave a strand or two with the aluminum and then solder it to the terminal. That marine stuff is nice to work with. I am going to have to remember that for other projects.

Just a fast note.

I'm not exactly sold on the need, let alone quality of marine wire. I've had tinned wire turn as black as coal over time and I can tell you it conducts just as well as green copper.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"I'm not exactly sold on the need, let alone quality of marine wire. I've had tinned wire turn as black as coal over time and I can tell you it conducts just as well as green copper."

Are you sure it was tinned wire? The original tinned wire in our 1980 boat, which has been is salt water it's entire life, is still bright tin colored anywhere you cut into it or at any terminal end. It's specified by the ABYC for marine use BECAUSE it doesn't corrode. That being said, I didn't think there were different grades of tinned wire but perhaps there are. Marine grade tinned wire - like Ancor brand - won't corrode under any normal operating conditions in a marine environment which is far harsher chemical/temperature-wise than "land" use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a fast note.

I'm not exactly sold on the need, let alone quality of marine wire. I've had tinned wire turn as black as coal over time and I can tell you it conducts just as well as green copper.

The intent of tinning marine grade wire is not to enhance conductivity, but to hold off the destructive effects of passing electricity through copper in a corrosive (salt water) environment. Untinned wire in these applications will conduct just as well as tinned...until it rots through and breaks off its terminal lugs.

Not sure exactly what the point of using it in a loudspeaker is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure exactly what the point of using it in a loudspeaker is.

The purpose of coating copper is to protect it against corrosion. The oxides of tin and nickel form dense barrier layers that protect against salt ions in water. In addition tin and silver oxide films are both good conductors, so they don't need to be removed from the wire when soldering or joined at a screw termial. In loudspeaker applications that is usually sufficent, although we have seen much corrosion of silver plating on moving contact surfaces in pots. In modern electronic circuit boards, copper traces are coated with a polyimide, except at contact surfaces, which are gold plated.

Cheers,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm no electronic circuit expert but I can't see what value tinned wire would have in any normal environment. It's the ONLY wire I use on our boat for ANYTHING but, as stated, it doesn't carry current any better (or worse) in the same gauge than untinned copper wire. The original wires in my 1970 AR3As still were/are still uncorrroded shiny copper so I don't see any value in changing them to tinned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The original wires in my 1970 AR3As still were/are still uncorrroded shiny copper so I don't see any value in changing them to tinned.

Mike,

My main interest in tinned wire was simply to find the original type and color wire used by AR in virtually all of the old models. AR used only tinned wire well into the 1970's. If your crossover wire is not tinned, it is NOT original...although I'm sure it will work fine.

Roy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not to beat this to death, but..... I just had a rude awakening. Stopped by the electronics store to buy a 25' coil of 18 ga tinned wire (incidentally--the spool does not say "tinned" but it is). I have some other colors on hand and they are marked $4.99. I was looking through the spools at the store and, depending on how old the stock was they were $5.99, 7.99 and 8.99. Of course the color I wanted was $8.99! So I wound up buying a 100 foot spool for $15.99.

Copper prices have gone crazy. Have you bought Romex lately? That stuff used to be dirt cheap. Not now!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe the crossovers weren't original - I just assumed they were because they looked like all the pics I have seen. Here's one of them just after I removed the stuffing, the other looked the same:

crossover.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe the crossovers weren't original - I just assumed they were because they looked like all the pics I have seen. Here's one of them just after I removed the stuffing, the other looked the same:

crossover.jpg

Hi Mike,

It looks original from here, but I am willing to bet much of that wire is tinned. Some may been replaced with ordinary primary wire. For example, it is not uncommon for woofer leads to have been replaced, as they many times become too short after removing the woofer. (I suppose it is remotely possible you own a very rare non-tinned wired 3a :) .) I have been into literally dozens of 60's and 70's AR cabinets, and have only found non-tinned wire in one later 1975 era 3a.

Roy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Mike,

It looks original from here, but I am willing to bet much of that wire is tinned. Some may been replaced with ordinary primary wire. For example, it is not uncommon for woofer leads to have been replaced, as they many times become too short after removing the woofer. (I suppose it is remotely possible you own a very rare non-tinned wired 3a :) .) I have been into literally dozens of 60's and 70's AR cabinets, and have only found non-tinned wire in one later 1975 era 3a.

Roy

A few years ago, I replaced the tinned coax input wires in my power amp due to corrosion. The change in performance was massive enough a 90 year old could have hard the change. Hence, my comment that corroded tinned wire conducts as well as green copper, and I used to have green copper speaker wire...

Richard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...