electrical sealing silicone

ive still got a roll of that cloth insulating tape

:-)

And to think my family complain about my hoarding...

Isn't it all stuck together as one big blob by now?

Chris

It is

Not so - screwed connections can come lose, and soldered ones can fracture if no proper strain relief which doesn't exist in car connectors. The only correct termination is a properly made crimped one. Which involves an expensive crimp tool designed for that particular job.

They're not even very expensive anymore.

There's a shitload of difference in a crimp done with a proper tool and those mickey mouse things. I could barely put enough pressure onto the proper one to do it when I used one recently.

It's buggered then, unless you mean one of those overpriced, not allowed in any industry with QC, champ pliers things. In which case it's designed buggered.

I was thinking more the proper ones sold in CPC. Took a shitload of squeezing before it clicked off.

That's the CPC experience though, some of their stuffs great, but their quality control isn't much better than their stock control.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Mark" saying something like:

Hah. What a load of c*ck. Bodging bastard, you are.

And damp - which is, you've guessed, dead common. I've lost count of the number of chocblock connections that never got wet, but were wrapped well in insulating tape that developed bad connections and corrosion.

Good quality crimps, covered with adhesive heatshrink or milspec connectors are what's needed. Alternatively, decently soldered joints with strain relief.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Duncan Wood" saying something like:

Indeed, I bought a cracking coax crimp tool with various jaws for doing nearly everything I could wish, for a mere 38quid a couple of years ago from CPC. For general mains crimping I bought a more dedicated one that was going to get a lot more use and abuse, and that wasn't much more than a tenner.

Crimpers for those pre-insulated terminals are cheap enough due to economy of scale - but decent ones for non insulated 1/4 spade etc are pretty expensive. Or mine was. ;-)