[Public-List] Wire gauge for mast lights

Kris Coward kris at melon.org
Fri Apr 5 09:06:20 PDT 2019


I'm pretty sure that the sheath conductor on the coax cable to the radio
antenna also provides a path to ground from the top of the mast -- and a
path that goes through the radio at that. Also, I don't know how common
this is across the fleet, but Candy Cane has a strip of stainless steel
running along the stem, from the stem casting down to a few inches below
the waterline, providing another ground path down the forestay.

-K

On Fri, Apr 05, 2019 at 07:59:23AM -0400, Mike Lehman via Public-List wrote:
> 16/3 sounds good to me. The mast was originally wired with a single ground
> and all of the fixtures were grounded to the mast. Problem was, if you lost
> the ground to the mast, nothing worked, plus I don't want think about
> providing lightning a ground.
> 
> On Thu, Apr 4, 2019, 10:50 PM Christian Douglas via Public-List <
> public-list at lists.alberg30.org> wrote:
> 
> > I need to rewire my mast lighting. I have an anchor and windex light at the
> > top and a steaming/deck combo at the spreaders. All are LED and each draws
> > less than 0.5 amps. Seems that 16 gauge wire should be sufficient to keep
> > me under 3% drop, even when overestimating the length of the longest run.
> > Does that sound right?
> >
> > Christian
> > Kittiwake #76
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-- 
Kris Coward					http://unripe.melon.org/
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