Cali raised switch and teeny wires

Mind = blown

 

What is that sorcery called?

 

I know VLED's had some like it. Others on Amazon. Just gotta look. When I searched for T-Taps, it shows as T-Tap Electrical Connectors.

 

They are awesome. I’ve been using these types of connectors for the past year. Super easy, effective, and cheap

 

You guys do what you want, but cutting insulation with scotch-locks is a bad idea. Wires should be properly soldered with electrical solder, then heat shrink with the glue inside. Or, especially for these small little guys you're dealing with, soldered and then coated with liquid tape, possibly even heat shrink over that. The heat shrink adds some rigidity to the connection to keep it from flexing too much. The liquid tape obviously keeps moisture and corrosion from taking over.

I may be an over-do-er, but, I have never had a properly repaired connection bite me in the ass. I have seen a lot of crap repairs though.

I also restore old Jaguars, so Lucas has taught me to be really picky.

 

Would this stuff work?

 

Exactly what you want^.

 

Solder can fail too. Especially in high vibration situations. I'm not saying it's bad, just everything has it's purpose. In my general opinion, from bad to better it goes: scotch locks, posi-taps, soldering w heat shrink.

 

I agree. I've never seen solder fail, so I can't comment on that. I have found that you really cannot over-do electrical repairs.

BTW, IIRC, Lowes sells that GB liquid tape, as do most auto parts stores. The self sealing electrical tape is good too, but harder to find, and more expensive.

 

I’m gonna try some. $6 for some piece of mind ain’t bad and I plan on doing a little more electrical down the road.

 

Fwiw I personally went with the solder and heat shrink method on my 4 switch cubby, for the illumination circuit.

 

Must be because I do remodel work for a living but oem doesn't get my worship. For splices I use crimps, soldered, and heat shrinked. I get that some don't want to alter the factory harness but a tiny hole in the insulation is a hole nonetheless. I'd rather just do the job right and be done with it and let someone 15 years from now worry about it. Since the small push switches don't have switchbacks available I used 4-Molex 6-way connectors, one for the 6 separate switch out wires and 3 for the the shared wires and jumpered the pins together on each of the 3 connectors then each new switch added just gets the 4 wires pushed into the appropriate slot in each of the 4 connectors.

 

The way I see it, there's levels, to everything. For me, solder and heat shrink hits that balance of reliability and ease of assembly.

 

A good solder sleeve that is environmentally sealed is a proper route.

 

Not necessarily. I've heard of a lot of issues with those solder sleeves.

 

I wanted to set it up so that I only had to do one tap that was permanent and reliable in each tapped wire and from there be able to add or change switches without having to redo the taps. I've used t-taps but I'm not really confident with how they cut through the insulation so when I did I used my klein stripper to cut and spread the insulation then pushed the bared wire by hand into the tap before closing it. It "should" be okay but I'm a lot more confident about the longevity of a properly soldered and insulated connection.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions!

 

I find that this method works best when you spread the wire you are tapping into two equal widths, and pass the wire you are adding in-between the two. IE male into female (new wire = male, existing wire = female). I've done this for light wiring on my hunting ATV and it's held up great after 100's of hours of use.

Something else that hasn't been mentioned here are those simple little twist on wire connectors. I'll use those on interior wiring and then wrap electrical tape over the wires and cap. That is a pretty simple solution for non-critical wiring that does not require and skills other than being able to strip a wire.

 

positaps

 

I wouldn't use anything that "cuts" on wiring that is not static. Since your vehicle moves and is bouncing around, those will eventually cut through the whole wire.