Cable Tidy

[waverunner]

I am looking for some good neat ideas to keep all the cables and hoses tidy across the top of the deck of my new Humber Destroyer 5.5m from the console to the engine and 'A' frame. I do have my own plans of how I am going to achieve this as well as keeping an open mind to any good suggestions.

Any Pics would be welcome.

[mdt]

have a look at this link http://rib.net/forum/showthread.php?...ghlight=humber

there are a few sugestions and photos... good luck

[Pablo]

If it's going to be used as a dive boat it might be worth putting down a rubber mat to protect the decking. All the cables then go underneath and then along the tubes. You can use a hard bit of rubber to go from the console to the tubes in order to protect them.

This photo shows the mat on the deck of my Humber but the cables are not in place yet.

[martini]

This stuff might come in handy - megaflex

[yoyo]

I have used 50mm electrical convoluted conduit piping, it also has bulkhead fittings available that make a nice tidy exit point from the console.

[waverunner]

Thanks guys, any more ideas keep em coming!!!

Yoyo do you have a pic from the console?

[Jizm]

The trouble with conduit is it can be a right pig to change a cable if you need to. You could use spiral wrap or what I did is maintain cable orientation down the boat and neatly cable tie them.

[9D280]

I have first hand experience of both systems - both the convoluted conduit (old boat) and the spriral wrap (new boat). As usual there's good & bad points to both:

Convoluted Conduit
In its favour see yoyo's post - lots of protection & nice neat terminations.
Against it - make sure you drill some drain holes in the low points - I discovered mine was doing quite a good hose impersonation at one point! Also retrofitting cables is a pain unless you totally oversize it.

Spiral Wrap
Again, in it's favour, see Jism's post - i.e nice & easy to install / retrofit new cables etc.
Against it - It's half the reason I'm having to rewire my boat! The non continuous nature of the "shell" means the cables can still get chomped. My current boat had this stuff when I got it, and I found three "emergency joins" in the spiral wrap where the cable had been severed.


So, I'm going for the "flexi conduit" for the rewire, but whilst feeding the cables through I'm putting extra cores & coax in for future expansion, having had to add a cable as an afterthought on the old boat!

Hope this helps a bit.....

[yoyo]

I agree with 9D280 about drilling a couple of relief holes in the belly of the conduit. I seem to remember that I drilled six in mine, they are unnoticeable!

By the way the white cable that can be seen in the conduit of my previous post is used as a “fish” for pulling addition cables through the tubing, its twice as long as the conduit so it can be used many times. The excess “fish” is coiled and cabled tied neatly in the console at one end, the other end is stowed back on its self neatly in the conduit. Up to now there hasn’t been a problem with pulling thro additional lines at all.

I am still trying to dig out a decent console end pic that shows the neat bulkhead fitting.

[Chris]

Applies to people with underdeck cable trunks...

1 - Always coat the cables in washing up liquid before trying to pull them through. You will be amazed at how much easier the job becomes

2 - Never wrap a stuck cable around your fire extinguisher then pull up with your arms to try and drag a cable through. When it breaks the Fire extinguisher will smack you in the nose and knock you on your arse and leave you looking like a twat for several days after.

3 - Dont ask me how I know this.