Trailer Wiring - when is an Earth necessary ? also effects of wire deterioration.

[Lovey80]

I only recently finished wiring the trailer I just built. After years of stuffing around with dodgy wiring and supposedly waterproof joins I had had enough and was not going to be having those same problems with a trailer I had built. All my wire joins we're connected with the heat shrink joiners and then covered with normal heat shrink. Then I ran the whole lot through conduit from the front of the trailer to the lights at the rear and silicone sealed where the wire exits the conduit. Just opened the junction boxes (lowest part of the conduit on trailer) after 10 full submersions and it is bone dry.

[Fed]

I think only 'special' people can make watertight connections.

[TheRealAndy]

I am with Andy on this one, there is a dozen different 'waterproof" connections, both soldered and crimped, HOWEVER I am yet to see anything joined that is in and out of saltwater be 100% good for any length of time, some last OK, some fail in no time flat, how you do it is your choice, I have tried all sorts of crimps and so on, and none of them are good for more than a season or two, depending on how often you use the trailer.

There is plenty of IP67 rated heatshrink, but IP67 is 1m of water for 30mins and it passes. This is all good when the stuff is new, but after that glue ages and goes hard its a total waste of space.