Running Wires Through Otter Lodge Square Tubing

[Capt.Blaine]

I have 2 rope LEDs on 2 different poles. Last year I just ran the wires for them down the side of the pole to the battery. This worked fine, but I would like to conceal the wires better.

My question is has anyone tried running the wires down through the tubes to the sled? My concerns are binding and damage to the wires.

[iffwalleyes]

Not a good idea eventually the wires will loose their insulation and short out. You better off leaving them exposed

[Trouthunter]

Bah! Unless they would wear out in the course of a season or two, who cares! running wires in the poles are what it's all about. In my opinion, wires are much more protected inside the poles than outside. Dogs, hooks, augers, and perch have all been known to cut wires!

BD

[Gissert]

The tubes are probably a pretty safe conduit in all reality. They should be pretty well isolated from circuit ground as they are mounted to the tub and not to chassis as in a vehicle.

The biggest danger will be them wearing in the same spot and shorting to each other.

I suggest putting the wires in some kind of sleeving to protect from shorts if you want run them in the poles. I would also make sure all gear has a fuse protecting the gear/wire. A short to ground on an unprotected wire can get hot and smelly in a big hurry.

[kslipsinker]

In the last couple of years, the Otters have added a square cap on the tubes that bolt to the sled. This makes the tubes slide better than the first year tubes. You would have to cut out the center of the caps to get the wire through there.

[Dave]

On my Otter Cottage, I used the square frame as the negative conductor and mounted my lights to the square tubes (much like using the sqaure frame as chassis ground. That means I only had to run one wire inside the tube, the postive wire. I didn't fuse it but that was on my list this year. No problems encountered from doing that last year. The poles seem to slide just as easily as with no wire in them, too.

[Capt.Blaine]

Dave, did you run the wire out the end of the tube through the black cap? How about the slack when you slide the poles down? Do you pull it out of the tubes?

[Dave]

Capt.,

Yes, I drilled a decent size hole in the black cap and ran the wire out. And, no, I don't pull any of the wire out when collapsing the frame. When collapsing the frame, I figured the stiffness of the wire would be stiff enough to lay straight as the frame collapes and would coil the wire up mostly inside the upper portion of the frame tube. We're only talking one 16 gauge wire and not two so, it 's been working okay so far.

Also, to ground the frame, I added one wire from the negative of the battery and connected that to the frame by loosening the bolt that holds the square pole to the pole bracket, wrapping the bare wire (stripped about one inch) around the bolt and reinstalling the nylon locknut. That's plenty of ground for a couple of lights. I suppose you could use a ring terminal there.

I used a center off toggle switch, when switched up lighting one light and when switched in the down position turns on both lights. They're not LED lights so, it only runs about 5 hours on a Vex battery (using both lights) but, I had the lights already so I used them.