Thread: spliceing transducer cable

Originally Posted by 65pontiac

Pinched the trans. wire while lowering trolling motor. Now it is acting erratically. Can I cut a few inches off at the pinch and splice it.

Yes. Solder all the conductors, including the shield. Be sure to seal them well.

Thanks CatFan

I always thought that it could not be done - but as CatFan stated it can. I am not soldering savvy so I enlisted the help of my Bro In-Law. He had an electrician friend do the work. He put a piece oh heat shrink tubing on the cable, made the connections, soldered them, then covered the area with the heat shrink and sealed it up. I went one step further and applied several coats of liquid electrical tape over the entire area. Nice and water-tight! So far so good.

Good Luck to you!

Originally Posted by CatFan

Yes. Solder all the conductors, including the shield. Be sure to seal them well.

How do you solder the shield? Thats the stuff on the outside that looks like tinfoil? I would think that would be hard to work with. Got some details CatFan?

Originally Posted by wilbur

How do you solder the shield? Thats the stuff on the outside that looks like tinfoil? I would think that would be hard to work with. Got some details CatFan?

It isn't as easy as the wires. I twist the ends of each piece so it's like a piece of wire, then gently twist them together and solder it like a wire. It's sometimes plastic-coated, which makes it hard to work with. The copper braid is much easier, but I've only seen one unit from the mid-80s that used copper.

I'll be real interested to hear how that works. I worked with radar's and communication systems most of my life and power transmission was always associated with wave length which was associated with the physical length of a cable feeding an antenna. Too long or too short resulted in reflected power, reducing the power output. They may have some new way of automatically compensating for these variables now, I don't know. I know it can be soldered physically but whether you get a change in wavelength will be interesting. Reflected power can also cause arcs in the cable.

Originally Posted by FAADAN

I'll be real interested to hear how that works. I worked with radar's and communication systems most of my life and power transmission was always associated with wave length which was associated with the physical length of a cable feeding an antenna. Too long or too short resulted in reflected power, reducing the power output. They may have some new way of automatically compensating for these variables now, I don't know. I know it can be soldered physically but whether you get a change in wavelength will be interesting. Reflected power can also cause arcs in the cable.

This isn't RF. The signals going going through the cables are pulses and DC voltages.

Originally Posted by CatFan

This isn't RF. The signals going going through the cables are pulses and DC voltages.

This is what I keep telling folks. If the cable was calibrated with the transducer, you couldn't buy a transducer cable extension. Makes sense don't it.

I spliced a HB SI cable for DonG and it works fine.