Expert RV Wiring Tutorial: Wires, Connectors and Tools

The 12 volt or DC system in your RV is critical in powering lights and several of the appliances. Also it's very important then that we have the proper terminations or connections in those. So we brought in Steve who is an RVIA certified technician and I wanted to have him go through the different types of connectors. Not everything is crimped together. The different types of protections and the tools to be used. Steve show me some of the stuff you have here. Well first thing to keep in mind is you see all good quality wire will have the gauge of the wire on it. The temperature rating that it's rated at whether it's 105 degrees centigrade or 125. The 125 degree would be used in the engine compartment around the chassis. The 105 degree would be used in the walls, roofs floors, inside cabinets of stuff about such. So you need to understand what type of wire you're working with and what type of surface you're going to be either adding or working on. You've got various different types of tools. These are strippers and you can see on the side of the stripper they've got the gauges of what diameter of wire you're gonna be using. Many different types you can get cheap ones and you can get expensive ones and when you're working with electricity it's always better to err on the side of safety and get a good quality tool. A lot of people buy a stripper crimper combination and they'll work but the olden days you may have stripped some wire and use your pocket knife. Stripped it, twisted the wires together maybe threw some electrical tape on. Well that might hold a light okay but very little friction. Something else I noticed Steve when you were doing that I think it's important that you make sure that you settle the right size in here. One of the reasons is because if you have a size that's a little too small it's gonna not only take the sheeting out but it's gonna take some of the strands, pull those out. Okay. You want just the sheeting to come out, Okay? Exactly. That's a very good point you made. Dave talked about the strands in the wire. You can see those strands, the finer those strands are the larger current that it can carry. So the wire carries current. Consider current as water or flow. The larger diameter your wire is the more current it can carry. The larger your hoses the more water it can carry. So just keep that, that's a good rule of thumb. You're not gonna start a car engine with something like this. You're gonna use a heavy gauge wire. It can carry more current, so keep that in mind. So I got a question Steve here. You've got stranded wire, you showed in here and I noticed some of these are a solid wire. So what are the applications, stranded now I know in certain places where they have to pull wire through the stranded wire will bend easier, won't kink. But why do we see in our 12 volt application, we're not pulling wire, why do we see the two different stranded versus solid? Well primarily the solid core wire is used in 120 volt AC but there are times when somebody will think that they can just go ahead and use wire as wire. Well you can notice this is not real flexible. And going down the road those units have a tendency to move and parts move, looms move. Well after a while that's gonna move, bend enough. It probably will break a rupture where a strand of wire's flexible. It's gonna stay together. And typically these are gonna be in like Romex or something where you've got a good protective sleeve and they're not gonna move around. Exactly. Okay. A few other things here is with the low voltage control circuit. So we have in our homes and our RVs we're getting down into multiplexing now where you've just got a fraction of a volt going through that wire to control a relay circuit. So it's very very critical that when you do make a crimp that it's a positive crimp, it's strong and it's gonna carry the full capacity of that connection to run that device. Some of the tools that are used this just happens to be an amp main lock connector. You could try and pull on it. You could try and get a screwdriver in there or something but they make tools for each connector. And there's many different connectors. There's den connectors that come from Europe. This happens to be a domestic product, highly used if the right tool is used you can see how easy that came out. You can replace it, you can replace a wire, but if you have the wrong tool you're gonna destroy that circuit. You're gonna lose the ability to connect and disconnect that connector because you're gonna have to butt the two wires across. So always good-- So the advantage of this type of a connecting system you know, we've got a lot of people that have used the wire nets, twist locks even the scotch locks but you know I see more manufacturers are going to this type of a connector because it gives you a positive latch and a locking mechanism. These can't come out. They're machined typically when they're in. So when that connects together it gives you good solid connection. And again, like you said, going down the road right we have less chance of them coming apart versus some of the old antiquated style that we use. Correct Okay, great. The other advantage that you have for this is it's more or less plug and play. You have your device that's got the mate wire to this. And so if you have to move your device you can unhook this, unplug it, move the device, replace it, repair it and then reinstall it without having to make a bunch of different terminals or connections. Now, when you're looking at connectors and terminals and stuff they all, they look pretty cute. There's a lot of different colors. This happens to be a yellow one we've got a red one here, here you've got a little red butt splice, here we've got one that's blue and red on each, you know blue on one end red on the other end. These colors represent wire gauges. Anytime you see a yellow connector or terminal of splice that is made for 10 and 12 gauge wire only. It's not made for 16 gauge or 14 gauge or 18 gauge. There's meant for a certain diameter of wire. The butt splice here has a red band and blue on the side. That means it's a reducing but it will hold 18 and 20 gauge over here and 16 and 14 on this side. This one happens to be all red. That is just for 18 and 20 gauge wire. So pay attention to the gauge of the wire you're working with and make sure you get the appropriate terminal for a component that matches that gauge wire. This happens to be a different type. Say you've got something that you're constantly moving from time to time and it's just one wire. This is just a little bullet connector. You crimp this onto one end of the wire this onto the other end of the wire. And then you can readily or easily remove your device. Now this happens to be a fuse holder. Lot of people will maybe add a device that needs a fuse. So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna splice this together. This happens to be 14 gauge wire. So let me just jump in here. You're using a lot of gauge and sizes here. The smaller the number, the larger the wire, correct? That is-- Or the more capacity of the wire. So a 20 gauge Right. is gonna be a smaller wire than an 18 or 16 or 14 and so forth, okay. Right. That you get down to a two or a two off then you're looking at some pretty heavy that'd be the entrance wire in your home. So now the lower the gauge, just like measuring steel, exactly. So we're gonna make a connection here. Again I've got 14 gauge here, I've got 16 gauge here and you can tell there's a little difference in the diameter. We're gonna strip that. So I'm gonna find the 16 gauge on my stripper and I'm gonna strip that off. And how do you know the length? The length is critical. The nice thing I like clear terminals or connectors if you can find it because when I match that up I want my installation to be into that plastic insulation as far as possible but I don't that wire passing beat on the center of the metal connector. I wanna be right there. So if you can see that, that's just a little long so I can trim just a pinch of that off. And on this one we're going to use the 14, 16 gauge splice. So that's gonna go like that. So I'll get both wires prepared. Then I've got that in. Now I've got a pair of crimpers that have both insulated and non insulated. This happens to be an insulated connector. So I go to the insulated side, I make my crimp, spin it around. I'm gonna get the other side and to keep the stranded wire. It's real careful, you gotta be real careful that you get all those wire strands inside that connector. Takes a little patience sometimes. It got that in there, now we're gonna crimp that again with the insulated end. And so now I've just added inline fuse. I can do the same thing to this end which then would go to the device. Now there's different types of insulation to cover wires or connectors or to add strength to it. You can use electrical tape bandages but I'm going to use shrink sleeving. Now there's two different types of shrink sleeving. This happens to be a non waterproof type right here. This happens to be an ES2000, which has a glue inside of it. So that as it heats up glue will actually come out of each end and make a watertight connection. So we're just gonna slide that over the end. And that would even though we do have a butt splice or a splice here that just gonna ensure that it's a higher quality connection. So I'm just gonna slide that over, center it between both ends of that connector. I've got a heat gun. I see people use lighters and matches and stuff. And I guess in a pinch that will work but if you've got a heat gun it works much better. So we're just gonna heat this up on the left side and you'll see that shrink down. And the back side of it. At the top. So that makes a really nice connection. It's clean, it's strong, it added some strength and some installation to the connection. And you can get those at any electrical supply facility but I've also seen them at a home repair facilities too like Lowe's and Home Depot Right. that type of stuff and it makes a nice, good connection. Okay. You bet, excellent. A few other things, another terminal I didn't talk about. This is just called an Acorn hat connector. It would be used to just join two wires or three wires together. You've got to pay attention to the volume of why you're putting in. They have a capacity rating. So you would just put that into the end of the barrel. The barrel has a little piece of copper alloy inside. You uninstall that, get your wires in and then this would be a crimper that would be used for that device. This is a ratchet and crimper so that it ensures that you go the maximum amount. We've got that in there. Now we're just gonna bring that in. It bottoms out before it releases. And that's a really good, strong, strong connection. The only trouble with this, it's a little bulky but inside a wall a pretty good connection. One thing, a lot of devices at 12 volt appliance or a 12 volt items that you buy they'll come with what's called as a Scott schlock. Years ago everybody was using these but they're getting to the point now where after about three to five years depending on usage, these things start working loose. And when electrical contacts get loose they get hot and they can cause fires or cause damage or cause a failure to a component. That's probably, let's talk about the coax cable. Just to show you the different types of tools that are out there. Again, this is a crimper for a specialized type of connector. This is more or less a connector that would be used for insulated and non insulated connectors. Here we see a little splice that would be used for something small like phone wire where you just put your hands in there and crimp it. It's got little teeth in there that bite. Coax is something everybody always fights with. They've got a coax cable that comes off of their back of their VCR or their television. And they wanna run another line. Well they make tools and they're not that expensive if you shop around but you can see that this is a nice hex crimp, nice hex connector real similar to what you would get from an installer that installs cable and satellite equipment but it's critical that you use the right tool for your connector. Do a little research. There's a lot of information online and it doesn't take much to make sure you match your connector, your tool with your wire. Okay, so if you're gonna do any type of upgrades, add appliances or you need to put new connectors in most of this stuff is readily available at any of your RV dealerships. You can also get it at home repair facilities, hardware stores, it's fairly basic 12 volt connectors and crimp tools like that. Right. So if you're looking to upgrade or add appliances make sure you use the right tool and the right connectors.