What guage wire should I get to rewire . . .

[Ben87]

. . . the lights, nav and anchor, and the cockpit lights?  I know the boat uses all the same guage but to save me a trip to the store, can someone please tell/recommend me a guage, is it 18 or 16?

[Seadog]

Try this link:

http://bestboatwire.com/

Look around in there and they will recommend the right wire for your application.

[Ben87]

Thanks for that.  I don't really need to rewire so much as I have to just extend the wires that were in there as over the years, with all the splicing and cutting, the originals got short so now I have to run extensions on most of them/the ones under the console.  Thanks, I checked out the site and it was helpful, not to mention the prices were extremely reasonable.

[Tailgunner]

I was just talking to one of our marine electrical techs here at work about this today. He gave me some tinned duplex wire 14awg. It's called boat cable (BC-5W2). It's tinned all the way through from end to end. He says copper wire WILL corrode around salt water.

We also talked about connections. He swears that soldering is this worst thing to do. It causes the wire to harden which will cause it to break and corrode even more. I told him what I do and he thought it was a good way to go.

Dip the wire end into Dow Corning 4 Electrical grease. Crimp the connector and then heat shrink it. When I feel overly anal I then cover it with liquid electrical tape.

[GoneFission]

Use a wire that is appropriate for the load, but never go less than 18 gauge.  Here are the typical load values for wire size:  

Less than 5 amps - 18 gauge
Up to 10 amps - 16 gauge
Up to 15 amps - 14 gauge
Up to 20 amps - 12 gauge
Up to 30 amps - 10 gauge

You can look at some earlier threads for a discussion of soldering versus other methods, or you could look at one of the standards, such as IPC-610.  It's all about joint configuation, wire bend radius, wire relief and restraint, and other factors.

[Ben87]

I took the time yesterday and Saturday to sort out the wires in the boat to prepare for the new BEP Marine, 6-position LED switch panel.  I had to splice in extensions in many of the wires instead of running all new ones as they old ones are still in good shape as over the years I had to cut and retwist extensions as the old connections woudl fail/corrode and I got around to getting some 16 GA wire along with butt-connectors and some dielectric grease and spliced in new connections to prepare for the new panel.  I wil be cutting a rectangular hole where the two rows of holes are now to accept the new switch panel, it should look good and work good when it is in, I like the idea of the ATC fuses too, less metal in there to rust, and BEP Marine says that the panel is splashproof and waterproof so that will be really nice.