Splicing wires on G3X/650

[NTex]

What are people doing for splicing the power and ground wires for the Garmin GTN 650?

3 18 gauge wires are spliced into 1 pin - I'm going to do the slice outside the backshell obviously, but what method is preferred here? I'd like to go with a crimped connection like a butt splice, but am concerned about strain relief.

I did solder the CAN connections for the G3X system. These were really the only signal splices that were necessary (well, and a few unswitched audio signals in the audio panel). I'm considering re-doing these because they look like **** and just don't trust my soldering skills next to a quality crimp job.

What is the saying, the bigger the glob the better the job? At least that's how my soldering turned out after many attempts.

If anyone has experience or can post a photo of what they did, I would appreciate it.

Coming close to finishing up the wiring, but sure will be glad when it's over.

Thanks
Chris

[rleffler]

Solder sleeves are your friend!



Then add a longer piece of heat shrink for strain relief.

You can get these from Stein, ACS, and sometimes Home Depot and Lowes.

[BillL]

Originally Posted by rleffler

Solder sleeves are your friend!

Then add a longer piece of heat shrink for strain relief.

You can get these from Stein, ACS, and sometimes Home Depot and Lowes.

+1 - this is what I did where needed, Stein's guys did most of them. The sleeve has some sealant inside like hot glue that will seal the end with the two wires exiting. I usually take a wire stripper and use it to remove a short section of insulation so the main wire is contunious, and pre solder the extra ground there just to hold it together, and finish with the solder sleeve. Stein has an excellent video of using the solder sleeves. You might have extras on hand too.

[NTex]

Originally Posted by BillL

+1 - this is what I did where needed, Stein's guys did most of them. The sleeve has some sealant inside like hot glue that will seal the end with the two wires exiting. I usually take a wire stripper and use it to remove a short section of insulation so the main wire is contunious, and pre solder the extra ground there just to hold it together, and finish with the solder sleeve. Stein has an excellent video of using the solder sleeves. You might have extras on hand too.

Thanks for the quick responses guys.

I was under the impression solder sleeves were used exclusively for shield terminations. Not splicing signal or power wires.

This will certainly make it easier.

I'm assuming you make the solder sleeve splices outside of the backshell, correct? Otherwise I doubt they would fit.

[Walt]

The G3X install manual has many examples of how to connect, splice and use solder sleeves, its a very well written manual worth studying.

[NTex]

Originally Posted by Walt

The G3X install manual has many examples of how to connect, splice and use solder sleeves, its a very well written manual worth studying.

Walt, indeed that's the first place I looked.

From what I read, the only mention of splices is found in section 18.3.8, but it's labeled for signal splices. Hopefully it doesn't matter if it is a power, ground, signal, whatever..



The remainder of that chapter in the manual is dedicated to terminating the shields with solder sleeves.

What I was trying to figure out is if it is OK to use solder sleeves to splice the power wires together for the GTN, and how anyone else has done it.

[Walt]

For power ground pins I use about 4" of 22ga (for the d-sub pins) and splice them to a single 18ga feed wire using a standard red amp crimp.

Solder sleeves are used only to terminate shields, they have no purpose for power/grd wires.

[NTex]

Originally Posted by Walt

For power ground pins I use about 4" of 22ga (for the d-sub pins) and splice them to a single 18ga feed wire using a standard red amp crimp.

Solder sleeves are used only to terminate shields, they have no purpose for power/grd wires.

Awesome, thanks Walt.

The install manuals are pretty good and get you 99% of the way there, but for a novice doing it the first time there are a few gaps I need help with. Thanks for the insights!