Beginners Guide To Electrical Wiring: Strippers, Connections, and Shielding

Watch a full wiring episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHgvgSwSaC0

Awesome cool 🆒️ 😎 👍

strippers,hummmy.

Ok…look, there are just a few truths and rules in automotive wiring. I'll sum them up. Here's the basic 12V Bible:
1. No soldering is truly needed. Crimps that are made correctly, with a quality connector, and a quality tool, are 100% just as good electrically and structurally as soldered joints. If you don't do it right, you'll definitely fail. If you buy garbage parts and tools, you'll fail. Buy once, cry once. Buy a good ratcheting crimper and a set of quality connectors. You do not need to fill a crimped connection with solder like shown in the video. The crimp itself physically crushes the strands and connector into one solid chunk of metal packed tightly together that electrically acts as one piece. A solid crimp will not come apart. You SHOULD pull on a crimp connection hard, harder than it'll possibly see when installed. If it doesn't fail now, it won't later. If it fails when you yank on it, it would not have been good after install. Now is your chance to fix it right. I can hang my body weigh off of the crimps I make on 14AWG wire. That's how it should be.
2. Never make a connection without sealing it up somehow. The objectively best way to do that, is with marine grade heat shrink tubing that is lined inside with heat activated glue/sealant. When you shrink the tube, it melts the glue and totally waterproofs the connection. Atmospheric humidity is still = water. Standard heat shrink works fine too, and if you fill the tubing with dielectric grease prior to shrinking it, you can just wipe off the squeeze-out and then it'll be sealed up just as well. Electrical tape by itself is the minimum acceptable method. Just get marine heat shrink and don't look back.
2B. Only strip back as far as you need. "Shiners" are wire that stick out beyond the end of the insulation of the connector. That is a shorting hazard. Don't do that. All of your bare metal should be inside of the crimp connector or heat shrink. Be careful when stripping too. If you cut too deep, you will just knick the strands which will cause them to break internally later which you won't know about. That can cause conductivity problems. Losing strands as shown in the video is not ok either. Just cut gently into the insulation so that you only remove it and don't cut or mark the copper at all inside.
3. Never EVER use connectors like T-Taps, Scotchlock, Vampires, etc for adding a leg off of a wire. They ALWAYS fail eventually. Strip back the wire and make a physical copper-copper connection either soldering it or by making a butt connection with the new offshoot leg coming from one end. Also, don't use those new fad 2-in-1 heat shrink solder connectors. They just don't work well. Soldering is an art and a chemical bonding of crystalline metallic structure. You need fluxing and proper heating to do it right. A cold solder joint is WORSE electrically than just physical contact between wire strands. Either crimp it or solder it right with an iron. No half measures.
4. Never pierce wires if you can avoid it. If it is unavoidable (sometimes you just have to pierce to test circuit wires), seal the hole afterward with a dab of liquid electrical tape or at minimum a dab of RTV or a tight wrapping of electrical tape. It is much preferable to back-probe a connector wire with a T pin than to pierce the insulation to test the circuit. Front-probing must be done delicately to avoid blowing open the pin and causing contact problems. You can always back-probe instead in any case where front-probing is what you ordinarily might do. Be gentle when sliding the T pin between the wire and the rubber connector pin collar.
5. Never run power and signal wires together or right next to each other if possible. If that's unavoidable, twist the signal wire pairs together in a helix to minimize the amount of interference they pick up from the power and ground wires. You can do this with a drill.
6. Conductivity is critically important. If you make an electrical connection, the surfaces must be CLEAN and SHINY. A ground connection for example should not have any paint between ring terminal and chassis. Sand or brush the paint off so that the ring touches chassis metal fully and then make sure it's tight. Paint or Fluid Film over the tightened connection for corrosion protection afterward. A dirty or partially obstructed connection has high resistance and voltage drop which creates heat and fails to deliver the current flow or signal quality needed for proper operation of the part. That's why fuzzy battery terminals cause a no start all the time. High resistance, high voltage drop, no current carrying capability.
7. Grounds are critically important! Ground faults make all kinds of wonky problems. A circuit that loses its ground will often find a path through another circuit, causing problems. Make sure your power and ground wires are appropriately sized, clean and tight at all connections, and protected from future chaffing or corrosion. Intact insulation, grommets in holes, Tessa tape to contain the harness and prevent chaffing, etc.
8. Fuses should be on every positive power wire, as close to the battery (not the load, the battery) as possible and as practical as it can be. Use quality fuses too. Cheap ones are out of spec. Your 5A cheap fuse might pass 10A without blowing and then your car burns down. No good.
9. Use an add-a-circuit device rather than just sticking a stripped wire end into a fuse socket with the fuse's leg jamming it in place. Just…please don't do that.
10. No wire nuts. Ever. Never ever. Wire nuts are for home mains electrical wiring, NOT automotive wiring. No wire nuts. None.
11. If you damage connector weather seals or puncture a wire loom's harness tape, repair it so that water and moisture and debris is kept out.
12. Terminate any used wires by cutting the ends flat and putting heat shrink tubing on the end overhanging by a 1/4" or so to prevent it from contacting any other circuitry by accident. This is usually relevant in stereo and audio wiring.
13. Stagger your butt connections so that you can make a thin harness rather than one with a big swollen ball in one place where all the thick connectors add up together. It looks nicer.
14. I don't care how good you think you are, disconnect the negative battery terminal when doing electrical work. And take off your wedding ring if you're replacing a mechanical part around a live battery, alternator, or starter.

Anyone have any other tips or commandments? Reply with them below. 👍

Side cuts/Lineman crimping pliers!

Beginners guide? Shows the two average wire strippers and not a good one. Then doesn't use a heat gun for shrink wrap. I guess this "guide" is to show you how to look like a beginner.

0:21 Hell Yeah brother 💪

👍👍🇺🇲 Lgb

These are some of the worst instructions on YouTube